Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers could not have been more blunt on Monday when he was asked what his all-bench units could do better on defense.
“A lot,” Rivers said during a pregame media session in Indianapolis. “That’s an area of concern for us, for sure. We don’t rebound well with that group. We don’t guard the ball well with that group. We don’t handle pick-and-rolls well with that group. And we foul a lot with that group.
“Other than that, they’ve been fantastic.”
Rivers’ joke on the dismount helped soften the blow, but only slightly. His assessment was brutally honest and showed he has concerns about using an all-bench unit at the moment, but that has not stopped him through the first eight games of the season. Two weeks into the season, no coach has leaned into all-bench units more than Rivers.
Per data from PBP Stats, a service that scrapes NBA play-by-play data, Rivers has played units that feature no starters against lineups with at least one starter from the other team a league-leading 45 minutes through eight games this season. The next-closest team in all-bench minutes is the Washington Wizards (43). The squad with the third-most such minutes, the Miami Heat, has played only 26 minutes in such a configuration.
(Note: All-bench versus all-bench minutes were not included in this statistic. That may have removed a few minutes from the Bucks’ overall all-bench total, but it is the easiest way to control for “garbage time” minutes where both teams have their deep bench players on the floor.)
This is not something that the Bucks did at a similarly high rate in Rivers’ first two seasons in Milwaukee. Last season, the team finished the season 13th in all-bench minutes with 84 in such a configuration, while the Nets led the league with 306. For the 2023-24 season, the Bucks were 18th with 75 all-bench minutes, as the Orlando Magic led the league with 390.
Through eight games this season, the Bucks (5-3) are on pace for more than 460 minutes with all-bench units going up at least one starter from the other team.
Milwaukee Bucks guard Cole Anthony (50) drives to the basket against Sacramento Kings guard Dennis Schroder. (Benny Sieu / Imagn Images)
But Rivers has used this strategy elsewhere during his 27-year coaching career. The Philadelphia 76ers led the NBA in all-bench minutes with 399 during the 2020-21 season, with a unit driven by then-rookie Tyrese Maxey and veteran center Dwight Howard. Before taking over the 76ers, Rivers employed this strategy in his final two seasons (2018-19 and 2019-20) with the LA Clippers, with Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell leading all-bench units.
“I like it when it works,” Rivers said. “I do think it can work, but those groups (from 2018-21) got stops.”
And the numbers support that. The all-bench units in the three seasons highlighted above all recorded a defensive rating lower than the league average for their respective season and also scored enough to put together a positive net rating for the season.
All-Bench Lineups (Per 100 Poss)
Off rtgdef rtgnet rtg
2018-19 (LAC)
116
107
9
2019-20 (LAC)
108.1
106.8
1.3
2020-21 (PHI)
105.2
103.3
1.9
But that hasn’t been the case this season. The Bucks’ all-bench units have posted a defensive rating of 124.7. To start the season, those units were at least scoring at a high level. That allowed them to trade baskets with the opponent, but that has not been the case in the last two games, and the offensive rating of Rivers’ all-bench units has now dropped to 95.7, which means opponents are outscoring the Bucks by 29 points per 100 possessions in those minutes.
The sample size is still quite small, but Rivers was not sugarcoating his comments in Indiana about the defensive effort of his all-bench units to this point. If Rivers is going to continue using all-bench units, the Bucks will need to perform significantly better.
But it also begs another question: After years of not using such dramatic bench/starter substitution patterns, why would Rivers utilize this strategy in the first place?
That answer may lie with the 2021-22 Denver Nuggets, coached by Michael Malone. That Nuggets team played the entire season without Jamal Murray, their No. 2 offensive option, as he recovered from surgery to repair a torn ACL in his left knee. Nikola Jokić won his second NBA MVP that season, averaging 27.1 points, 13.8 rebounds and 7.9 assists, and led Denver to the sixth seed in the Western Conference with a 48-34 record.
The Nuggets also led all teams with 494 minutes in which an all-bench unit played against at least one starter from the other team, per PBP Stats. In those 494 minutes, the Nuggets put up an offensive rating of 111.8 and a defensive rating of 114, which means teams outscored them by 2.2 points per 100 possessions. While that might not sound like a recipe for success, using all-bench lineups more than anyone else gave the Nuggets the chance to lean into their starting lineup.
No five-man combination played more minutes together in the NBA that season than Jokić, Monté Morris, Will Barton, Jeff Green and Aaron Gordon, collectively finishing with 761 shared minutes. That unit outscored opponents by 9.5 points per 100 possessions. The four-man unit of Jokić, Morris, Barton and Gordon played 1,277 minutes together or roughly 32 percent of the team’s 3,961 regular-season minutes. Gordon played with Jokić for 1,999 minutes that season — 80.7 percent of Jokić’s 2,476 minutes — and that two-man combo posted a plus-9.2 net rating together.
In 2021-22, Malone decided he would play his starters together as much as possible and attempt to win those minutes so thoroughly that the Nuggets could win enough games to potentially make a run in the playoffs. Through eight games this season, it appears the Bucks are using a similar approach.
Thus far, Giannis Antetokounmpo has played 218 minutes. He has shared the floor with Ryan Rollins, AJ Green, Gary Trent Jr. and Myles Turner for 104 of those minutes. That is the second-most minutes for any five-man unit in the NBA, trailing only Denver’s starting lineup (107).
On an individual basis, Turner has played 177 minutes with Antetokounmpo, and it’s clear Rivers would like to keep those two paired together as much as possible.
“The combination is good,” Rivers said before the Bucks’ Oct. 30 win over the Golden State Warriors. “I think (Turner) does so many things that you don’t see in the naked eye. Giannis made a point talking about it to me, like, how many times when Giannis is coming off a pick, he’s never had a big dive to the space and create. … He just does a lot. High IQ. I just like them together.”
Turner playing 81.2 percent of Antetokounmpo’s minutes this season would be the most significant on-court time share of any teammate in the Greek Freak’s 13-year NBA career.
Top 5 On-Court Time Shares
PlayerTime Share
2025-26
Myles Turner
81.2%
2025-26
Gary Trent Jr.
78.9%
2015-16
Khris Middleton
77.4%
2025-26
AJ Green
74.8%
2025-26
Ryan Rollins
73.9%
Before this season, the largest on-court time share of Antetokounmpo’s career belonged to Khris Middleton, who played in 77.4 percent of Antetokounmpo’s 2,823 minutes in the 2015-16 season. In fact, Middleton is the only teammate who has ever shared the floor with Antetokounmpo in more than 70 percent of his minutes in a season (72.3 percent in 2017-18, 72.1 percent in 2020-21).
Ultimately, Rivers will have to decide how long he wants to stick with this strategy of leaning into all-starter and all-bench units and how many games he needs to see it to know whether he wants to make changes. Right now, it isn’t just all-bench units that are struggling; the starters are also a negative unit through eight games, being outscored by 7.6 points per 100 possessions (offensive rating of 116.7, defensive rating of 124.3). So, does that mean Rivers needs to change things up or give all the units more time to gel together?
The Bucks currently don’t need to make a drastic change like they did last season when they inserted Andre Jackson Jr. into the starting lineup after a 1-6 start. But there is still going to be a lot for Rivers to consider.
