In arguably the deepest pool of talent that the Eastern Conference has ever seen, 10 teams have -150 or better odds to end up making the playoffs. The Milwaukee Bucks and the Washington Wizards are not among them.
The two teams will open their 2026/27 season with a matchup against each other in the national capital at 7:10 p.m. ET tonight. Both underwent significant change in the offseason, with the Bucks trading away franchise legend Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Wizards drafting BYU forward AJ Dybantsa with the first overall pick.
However, Dybantsa won’t be available to make his NBA debut tonight after spraining his ankle in Washington’s preseason finale against the New Orleans Pelicans. Tristan Vukčević (hip) and Jamir Watkins (ACL) will join Dybantsa on the sidelines. Milwaukee, meanwhile, has only one player on the injury report: 13th overall pick Nate Ament (ankle), who’s probable.
The Wizards are 4.5-point favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook (-175 on the Moneyline), and the point total is set to 239.5. The Bucks are +145 on the Moneyline.
Below, I’ll break down both teams’ season opener and offer a prediction.
Milwaukee Bucks at Washington Wizards preview, prediction
In the return for Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee landed one former All-Star in Tyler Herro, who averaged 23.9 points per game in 2024/25 before suffering through an injury-riddled 2025/26 season, as well as promising big man Kel’el Ware and Sixth Man of the Year runner-up Jaime Jaquez Jr. The Bucks’ main incumbent pieces include Myles Turner, whom they signed last offseason to woo Antetokounmpo into staying, and Ryan Rollins, who finished fifth in Most Improved Player voting. It’s somewhat hard to project what Milwaukee will look like going forward, given that it has had among the most roster turnover in the league, but it has a mix of talented pieces and untested youth.
Washington has somewhat more continuity. 2024 second overall pick Alex Sarr, 2024 24th overall pick Kyshawn George, and 2025 sixth overall pick Tre Johnson have all demonstrated plenty of flashes, and they — along with 2023 seventh overall pick Bilal Coulibaly — should play a major role for a team hoping to climb out of the Eastern Conference’s cellar. Furthermore, the Wizards pushed several chips in at last season’s trade deadline, dealing for Trae Young from the Atlanta Hawks and Anthony Davis from the Dallas Mavericks. Young played five games for Washington last season, averaging an efficient 15.2 points and 6.2 assists per game, but Davis will make his team debut tonight.
Bucks at Wizards pick, best bet
Last season, neither team had much of a presence on the interior, averaging among the fewest restricted-area attempts per game. The Wizards should be able to penetrate much better this season, as in his 20 games last season, Davis averaged the fourth-most restricted-area tries per game, and Young has been a fairly prolific driver in seasons past. Washington should also see a dramatic improvement defensively after it was the worst rim-protecting team in the league last season, as Davis still ranked in the 71st percentile in rim points saved per 100 possessions in 2025/26. The Bucks’ interior play will likely get worse on both sides of the ball, as although Antetokounmpo only played 36 games, he’s one of the most dominant two-way interior forces in NBA history, and Ware simply isn’t that. Turner, a former block leader and DPOY vote-getter, graded out as merely an average interior defender last season.
I expect the Wizards to hold a slight edge in the rebounding battle as well. Last season, Milwaukee grabbed just 47.7% of all available boards with Antetokounmpo off the court, one of the worst marks in basketball, and Ware did not have a signifiant impact on the Miami Heat’s overall prowess on the glass despite being individually solid. On the other hand, this new-look Washington starting lineup has lots of size, starting a pair of near-seven-footers in Davis and Sarr, and George and Coulibaly offer plenty of size as well. However, discipline concerns me for the young Wizards, and Young tends to be more turnover-prone than the steady-handed Rollins, so the Bucks could make up some of their margin in transition and at the charity stripe.
Last season, both of these teams had poor perimeter defense, allowing among the most wide-open three-point attempts per game. On top of that, both got pretty unlucky, allowing the third- and seventh-highest percentages on such shots, respectively. Offensively, neither team was great at generating open looks last season, but Milwaukee connected on its uncontested triples at a slightly higher rate. In general, I trust Washington to generate slightly more open looks this season, given Davis’ and Sarr’s interior gravity and Young’s savant-like playmaking ability, but Rollins and Gary Trent Jr. are two of the three best shooters on either roster, and Davis and Young can both get more jumper-happy than they should.
This game is difficult to predict, given how much each roster has changed, and neither team had much interest in playing winning basketball over the latter stages of the 2025/26 season. However, as long as Davis is anywhere near healthy and back to his All-Star form, the Wizards’ advantage in interior play is more significant than the Bucks’ edge in any aspect of the game. The crowd at Capital One Arena should be excited to see the new squad, and Washington was only two games worse at home than Milwaukee on the road last season despite the Bucks’ sporting a superior record by 15 games overall. Milwaukee will start the post-Antetokounmpo era with an uncompetitive loss.
