The Milwaukee Bucks have had a foul problem all season - and not the kind you can just brush off as bad luck. It’s been a mix of undersized defenders being put in tough spots and a lack of discipline that’s cost them on both ends of the floor.
But lately, there’s been a flicker of progress. And in a season where silver linings have been few and far between, even small wins matter.
Let’s start with the personnel. The Bucks don’t have a ton of size on the wing, and it shows.
When you’ve got 6-foot-5 Gary Trent Jr. and 6-foot-4 AJ Green tasked with checking 6-foot-7 forwards, the physical mismatch is real. That’s not a knock on their effort - if anything, they’re playing hard, sometimes too hard.
But when smaller guards are forced to body up bigger wings, fouls are going to happen. It’s physics and desperation colliding on the perimeter.
Then there’s the discipline factor. Green, in particular, has room to grow when it comes to defensive awareness and control.
And earlier this season, Cole Anthony was racking up fouls at a clip that simply wasn’t sustainable. His overly aggressive play - combined with struggles elsewhere in his game - eventually led to him falling out of the rotation.
But here’s where things get interesting: over the last couple of games, the Bucks have actually started to flip the script. For the first time all season, they’ve committed fewer fouls than their opponents in back-to-back games. That may not sound like much, but considering how the season’s gone, it’s a step in the right direction.
Against the Timberwolves on Sunday, the Bucks were whistled for 15 fouls compared to Minnesota’s 18 in a narrow 103-100 loss. A few days earlier, hosting the Raptors, they committed 19 fouls to Toronto’s 20 - and that includes a couple of intentional fouls late in the game as they tried to extend play in a 111-105 defeat.
So yes, both games still ended in losses. But for a team that’s been trying to stop the bleeding, even modest improvement on the margins matters.
As longtime Bucks analyst Frank Madden pointed out, Milwaukee had fewer fouls than their opponent just once in their first 21 games. Now they’ve done it four times in their last eight.
That’s not a dramatic turnaround, but it’s progress. And when you’re 11-18 and looking for a way out of a deep hole, sometimes progress looks like crawling from the bottom of a trench to slightly higher ground.
As Madden joked on the Locked on Bucks podcast, “Let’s try to upgrade to a shallow grave.” It’s dark humor, sure, but it captures the mood of a fan base watching a team that’s clearly underperforming but not completely lifeless.
The next step? Turning that defensive discipline into offensive advantage.
Right now, the Bucks aren’t just sending opponents to the line too often - they’re also not getting there themselves. That double whammy is killing them.
Cleaning up the foul rate is a good start, but to really shift momentum, they’ll need to start generating free throw opportunities of their own.
In a season that hasn’t gone to plan, these baby steps matter. The Bucks aren’t out of the woods yet - not even close. But if they keep trending in the right direction, even in small ways, they might just give themselves a chance to climb back into the conversation.