George Hill was one of several Bucks players that had Giannis Antetokounmpo's back after the reigning MVP fouled out of the team's opener against the Rockets on Thursday.(Photo: Eric Christian Smith, Associated Press)

When the Milwaukee Bucks get ready to take the Fiserv Forum floor for Saturday's 4 p.m. game against the Miami Heat, time will be carved out for introductions.

That's what you do that's what every team does for thehome opener.

There will be pyrotechnics and light displays as each player gets introduced, but those are all just formalities. If you have been following the Bucks for at least the past year, you pretty much already know this team no introductions necessary.

We talked about it a lot this summer that our continuity, we thought, was one of the biggest things we had in our favor," coach Mike Budenholzer said. "Jon Horst and the front office and ownership just did an amazing job to bring back so much of a really good team, which is hard in todays age, todays game."

Yes, some faces have changed. There's a limit to how much continuity a team can have year over year. Wesley Matthews, Kyle Korver and Robin Lopez all got some run on opening night while new additions Thanasis Antetokounmpo and Dragan Bender were on the bench, inactive.

But if Milwaukee's117-111 win in Houston on Thursday night taught us anything, it's that the Bucks at their core are very much the same team as last year's 60-win squad. They can put points up in a hurry, lock down on defense and,on the negative side, they can fall into early holes. They're also cohesive,selfless, deep and unrelenting all traits that have carried over from a shift in organizational culture cemented a season ago following the arrival ofBudenholzer.

"Our chemistry is amazing," Giannis Antetokounmpo said after Thursday's win. "I think when the game started, guys werent able to get in rhythm. My first shot was an airball, Khris (Middleton) had zero points. We werent playing the best basketball we could play, but at the end of the day we stuck together, we played together.

"As I said, the chemistry is amazing. Weve got to keep working on that. Youre going to find adversities throughout all the season, but at the end of the day youve got to play together and face moments like this because moments like this make you better.

It didn't take long for that chemistry to undergo its first test, though. The Bucks went into halftime Thursday trailing the Rockets by 16 points and lookingalmost nothing like their former selves. Their offense was stagnated by Houston's switching, their defense was out of whack and very little was going right.

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But in the locker room, voices old and new piped up and none of them in a negative way. Korver, Antetokounmpo, Hill, Matthews, Middleton and Eric Bledsoe all had their say offering various reminders that the game was not yet over.

These arethe same kind of stories that would come out of last year's locker room, one that was unusually close, loose and positive. This year, though, there's a new twist in the form of the veteran free-agent additions who arrive with plenty of experience and already have earned the respect and listening ear of their teammates.

And all of that is obvious on the bench, too, where those off the court are locked into what's happening on it, constantly trying to assist their teammates.

"Everybody was talking," Giannis Antetokounmpo said."Most important, those guys Kyle, Wes and George Hill they know how to win. Theyve been in the league for 12, 13 years now and Kyle for 18, 19 Im not sure, a lot. They know how to win.

"They know what to say. In the fourth quarter I saw Kyles face, he had like how you guys say veins, like popping out of his face yelling, Get it done, get the job done. I love that.

Antetokounmpowas one of those guys at the end of the bench on Thursday. The reigning league MVPfouled out with 5 minutes, 18 seconds remaining. He paced and he cheered and he hung around the huddle during timeouts trying to stay involved during crunch time.

His teammates on the court picked him up, working selflessly together to finish off the victory. Lopez ran the offense from the block, finding teammates for good looks. Matthews made big shots and did yeoman's work defending James Harden. Middleton came up with clutch three-pointers late to shake off an otherwise rough night. Ersan Ilyasova, playing in Antetokounmpo's stead, made multiple big buckets, grabbed critical rebounds and put his body in harm's way time and again.

Just a lot of guys on our team just want to win," Hill said."I think none of us care about who scores or who gets this or that. All of us have the same goal and thats to just play the best we can on both ends of the floor and win the game.

Lopez added:The great thing about our team, and Giannis especially, is that we all trust whoever is out there, whichever five we have out there. We all believe in them fully and we all trust in each other.

On Saturday, the Bucks will be back at Fiserv Forum for the first meaningful game since Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals. Most of the faces are the same and a few are different, but the ethos of the team remains unchanged.

They're the same old Bucks and it's a good thing.

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Bucks show they're at the top of the class in chemistry once again in opener - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel