@Tschmack posted:As bad as Middleton has been, Jrue Holiday hasn’t been much better. He shot nearly 40% from 3 during the regular season, but is shooting a Bledsoe like so far in the playoffs. At least in the Miami series he was exceptional on defense and averaged almost 10 assists per game. Against the Nets? Not even 5 assists per game and honestly he’s been below average defending against Kyrie Irving.
Holiday's offensive disappearance in the playoffs has been Bledsoe-like. Like Giannis, Holiday played great defensively against the Heat, but he was below average on offense. The Bucks swept the Heat because their defense was outstanding and Bryn Forbes and Pat Connaughton got off a lot of open shots from 3 and hit them. Together, they were 24-52 in that series. 18 points a game off of 3s for those guys really opens things up.
The Heat's two best players are worse 3-point shooters than Giannis. Butler and Adebayo both shot under 25% from deep over the course of the year. The Bucks may have the best interior defense in the NBA and just throttled those two and the Heats elite shooters (Robinson and Herro) can't generate their own shots. Irving and Durant can create good open looks on their own from anywhere within 25 feet. The Bucks interior defense really doesn't matter against a team like the Nets.
The Nets have decided they aren't going to let guys like Forbes and Connaughton get open looks. They've only gotten off 11 threes in two games and hit 3 of them. They were getting off 13 open 3s between them every game in the Heat series. Instead, their strategy is to make sure every Middleton shot is contested, dare Giannis to beat them from outside of 5 feet, and assume that the third guy won't hurt them. Middleton has struggled, we are all fooling ourselves thinking that after 8 years in the league Giannis is going to somehow turn into a competent midrange guy, and Holiday has turned into a more expensive version of Bledsoe. Look at these statistics, they are eerie.
2019 Bledsoe playoff stats: 15 games, 17-72 from 3 (24%), 33 turnovers, 36-51 FT (71%)
2020 Bledsoe playoffs: 9 games, 8-32 from 3 (25%), 23 turnovers, 21-26 FT (81%)
2021 Holiday playoffs: 6 games, 6-24 from 3 (25%), 16 turnovers, 9-15 FT (60%)
So Holiday has shot as atrociously as Bledsoe did from 3, been averaging a similar number of turnovers, and has been very shaky at the FT line. Even worse, Bledsoe was largely responsible for shutting down Kyrie Irving in the 2019 Celtics series. Holiday has really struggled against Kyrie. Of all the developments in a tight series, what Middleton and Giannis are doing is what we've come to expect. The difference this year was that our 3rd guy wasn't supposed to collapse in a whimpering mess on offense. Unfortunately, he's been statistically worse than Bledsoe was. If Holiday contributes what we expect, I bet the Bucks win Game 1.