This weekend, while the rest of Wisconsin was enduring our first snow of the year and dominating football games, the Bucks were in Florida. They lost a very winnable game Friday night to a young Orlando team and won Sunday against the Heat.

Jabari Parker had a frustrating game against Orlando, guarded by solid defenders in Tobias Harris and Aaron Gordon at different points in the game. He only scored six points on five attempts, but responded with a very solid game in Miami, going for 13 points.

Here are three takeaways from the road trip:

1. Jabari is a lot more comfortable playing the 4 than the 3

Jabari started the season playing primarily at the four, but when Kidd switched Ilyasova into the starting line-up we started seeing him more on the wing. He hasn’t looked bad at the three, but most of his offensive production was coming off of one-on-ones, and he was settling for a lot of midrange jumpers. This backfired against Orlando in the second quarter when he turned the ball over and missed three not-so-great field goals in the span of three minutes.

According to Miami broadcaster Tony Fiorentino, Jason Kidd thought he was getting ahead of himself by playing Jabari at two positions and wanted him to stay at the four for the time being.

Obviously Jabari’s mediocre offensive performance on Friday could be accredited to the aforementioned staunch defenders, but he played a lot of minutes at the four against a very capable Loul Deng on Sunday, and was much more effective. He was very aggressive, going strong to the hole on multiple occasions, setting on-ball screens and moving off the ball.

2. He’s starting to figure out Pick and Roll Defense

I was pretty harsh on Jabari’s defense in my season preview. I regret nothing, but with that said his pick D was good against Miami. Coach Jason Kidd has our off-ball defender showing hard in pick situations, which requires that player to trust the defensive rotation. I think this is what Jabari struggled with earlier in the season because he would show, but never really committed to stopping the ball handler. In the third quarter on Sunday he started to show that trust. On several occasions he showed aggressively on the ball handler and let the help defense do their thing on his man, which led to defensive stops. I was very impressed.

With 1.2 steals per game he’s already shown that he can make plays on defense, and he held his own against Tobias Harris on Friday night, who is a very solid offensive player. All in all, I’d say his defense is improving faster than I personally expected.

3. Giannis and Jabari are playing well together

Giannis got his first start of the season on Sunday, which set he and Jabari to play 29:40 together. freezing my ass of at Lambeau Field[1] I got a text from Paul saying “1:52 second quarter. The future?” I knew it could only mean one thing, and when I got around to watching the game, my prediction was confirmed.

Besides that one play, the two played really well together, which Paul will be writing about in more detail tomorrow.

-Charlie Burnett

[1] Pardon the Humble Brag