Wow... it was a terrible collapse, but this was a highlight reel of crooked fucking officiating. Doris Burke just giddy as a schoolgirl about Boston getting this win.
Giannis getting t’d up and he should be pissed. The grab fest and flopping and all the bullshit he’s put up with this year... Giannis needs to play angry. A-n-g-r-y...
Music City posted:Wow... it was a terrible collapse, but this was a highlight reel of crooked fucking officiating. Doris Burke just giddy as a schoolgirl about Boston getting this win.
Giannis getting t’d up and he should be pissed. The grab fest and flopping and all the bullshit he’s put up with this year... Giannis needs to play angry. A-n-g-r-y...
It's like the league wants to do as much as possible to get him out of Milwaukee. The flops that get called charges, the muggings inside with no calls... It will get him frustrated and then the narrative will be there's not enough talent around him, he can't win in Milwaukee, etc.
Damn...I wish they could have kept Brogdon over Bledsoe. He's just not a good shooter. I would love to see us move him. Bucks just don't look very athletic as a team. Might be time to get some others into the rotation.
The Crusher posted:Damn...I wish they could have kept Brogdon over Bledsoe. He's just not a good shooter. I would love to see us move him. Bucks just don't look very athletic as a team. Might be time to get some others into the rotation.
Brogdon is a good complementary player, but he's become overrated at this point. Brogdon is not going to be the difference in making the Finals or winning 55 games.
It's October. Quite obvious they haven't learned how to play together for 4 full quarters.
Relax. Lotta season left. Marathon not a Sprint.
MichiganPacker2 posted:The Crusher posted:Damn...I wish they could have kept Brogdon over Bledsoe. He's just not a good shooter. I would love to see us move him. Bucks just don't look very athletic as a team. Might be time to get some others into the rotation.
Brogdon is a good complementary player, but he's become overrated at this point. Brogdon is not going to be the difference in making the Finals or winning 55 games.
He's more than that. Look at his stats in Indiana so far. He was very good at stemming the tide when teams would make a run at us with drive to the hoop or a 3. Are you saying Bledsoe is the better player? I know this is water under the bridge but the early results are disappointing.
This team is built to drive kick and reverse. The only part of the shooting that pisses me off is the Bledsoe or Middleton pull up with 18 on the shot clock jack a 3, or the Middleton dribble the ball up the floor and take the first fucking shot he has. No passes.
I agree with Barkley from the opener- it would be nice to use Giannis more on the block. He needs to shoot the ball off the post up. You get him inside of 15 feet and he should have the advantage 95% of the time. But you can’t just have 4 guys staring. Get some off ball movement as a decoy to keep the backside help from having an easy time bringing help. Let them think you have a shooter opposite getting screen action, when the whole time you’re letting Giannis get deep in the post. Give them different looks. They’re giving Boston the same look over and over- it’s fucking boring and terrible.
Giannis needs to counter move. Smart was baiting him on the spin- they’re a well coached team. Head up they’re cutting him off and everyone is bringing the help guy to take a charge.
Clearly through 4 games the officials are watching Giannis and not giving him any benefit of the doubt. It’s like watching Shaq play all over again. He gets hacked and pushed and shoved non stop with no calls and the minute he gets aggressive on offense teams are now rolling out the flop carpet.
The Bucks are going to need to adjust their style and it starts with Giannis playing more down the block. Dish the call inside to him and let him get to the rack or kick it to the outside shooters. Unless he’s in transition teams have figured out if he gets the ball at the 3pt line he’s going to drive so collapse on him and draw the charge.
The other thing they need to do is sit Bledsoe and start Hill. I don’t care how effective he is defensively he’s a possession killer right now. In his last 10 games he’s shooting 20% from 3 and making bad decisions. He just doesn’t look engaged and hasn’t for some time now.
The stats he’s putting up aren’t much different than DD so maybe you look to deal him.
Considering Budenholzer’s comments after the game, I suspect some lineup changes soon. The Bucks are getting murdered with high p&r and they need more activity from the G position.
Middleton is looking more and more like Rudy Gay every game. Bum slayer and garbage time scorer.
Everybody in the world knows that Giannis most needs to become a better shooter. With that in mind, after an entire offseason, he has not improved enough to not airball two consecutive free throws.
He's a lousy shooter. A horrible shooter. I'm not holding my breath.
Bledsoe is coming back from a rib injury. He's never going to morph into Chris Paul or Steph Curry, but he's making less than half the max. He's not paid to be a superstar. He's the 19th highest paid guard in the league. That's about right. He's in the same range as Marcus Smart. That's a good comp. Good defensive players who are not consistently good half court players (and I'd take Bledsoe 100 times out of 100 over Smart).
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/rankings/point-guard/
He's also the only guy they have on the roster that can stay with quick guards. Don't forget that he basically shut down Kyrie Irving last year.
The Bucks problem is the same one that Toronto exposed last year (and the same one that came up against good defensive teams in the regular season last year). I've watched the last three games and they follow the same pattern. The Bucks get out to a double digit lead in the 1st half and then open the third quarter just kind of playing the other team even. The other teams seem to bide their time until Bud sits Giannis for his rest after 6-8 minutes of the second half. Then the other team goes on a run when he sits. By the time Bud brings him back the game has gone from a double digit lead to a dogfight and he's subbed in with members of the second unit. Then, the offense has no rhythm and the Bucks try to hold on until Middleton and Lopez get back from their rest. When they get everyone back on the court, it is the 4th quarter and it's become a half court game. That's when the Bucks offense grinds to a halt.
It's actually good in the long term that they are having to deal with this now. They have six months to figure this out. I think the problems (it's October as Boris says -it's a marathon) are the following.
1. Giannis looks tired. Playing for Greece probably took something out of him. He looks like he's not having fun playing either. Hopefully, it's not the contract stuff and it's just a little burnout that will take care of itself over the next few months.
2. He spent the summer playing for Greece and having guys flop on him for calls the entire time. Now the NBA is calling a lot of questionable stuff on him and it's made him tentative.
3. The whole offense is designed around Giannis. Let him drive and kick. It still works - they built double digit leads in the losses and when they subbed out Giannis out in the 3rd, they were up double digits.
4. When Giannis sits, they have to get their offense from somewhere. That's either Middleton in isolation or Bledsoe on drives. Middleton was actually very good last night. He kept them within 8 points in the 4th. The problem is that the offense they run when Giannis sits is a completely different offense than when he's on the court. They look very disjointed when it happens because they run those sets only about 20% of the game. Guys still get shots, but they are a little less open than when Giannis is in the game and they don't have anyone on the roster other than Middleton that can shoot when they are contested. Lopez, Connaughton, Ilyasova, Hill, Korver, and Matthews are all good spot up shooters from 3. They need their feet set and to catch the ball in the shooting pocket. That's why I don't think Brogdon is a major loss. He's the same type of player. They all seem like they shoot in slow motion (except Korver who has a quick release).
3. What they really need is another slasher/scorer type that can put up 8-10 points in a 5 minute stretch when Giannis sits. Even if your defense suffers and the other team puts up 15 points in 5 minutes, if you score 12 you are still fine. Jabari Parker would have been perfect for this role.
4. Finally, the easiest short term way to fix this is to play Giannis more minutes. He played 35 minutes last night. If he plays through the entire third quarter (an extra 5 minutes) and sits for a couple in the middle of the 4th, they win last night. That would be a terrible long-term strategy if he's signing with you long term. You want him to be healthy in 5 years also. However, if he doesn't sign the super-max in July and is leaving in 2021, I play him 40+ minutes a night in his final year.
Bledsoe is definitely rusty. He’s trying to find his game on the fly. Missed a month of practice, so he should be better. But you look around the league, there are a lot of players playing stuff/rusty. Look at Conley in Utah- he looks lost out there right now, and not a single person out there thought that Conley was going to look like this. So we need to give Bledsoe some time.
Giannis needs to start playing like he’s the reigning MVP. He needs to take over games, and stop deferring. Make the right play, but play to dominate. He seems to have this tendency to abandon the newer aspects of his game as soon as a couple things go wrong. If Giannis shoots them out of games early in the season, so be it. He must learn how to hit these shots this season, and shit ain’t happening shooting 15 shots a game.
So when he’s healthy and still clanging wide open shots and turning the ball over at key moments will we have this same dialogue?
It’s not about the contract (value) it’s the overall body of work the last two years including the playoffs. Bledsoe is very talented but much like Giannis teams have figured him out and are daring each of them to beat them with the jumpshot. Until they do, you can expect the same thing. Get physical with them, don’t allow the dribble drives and if they do either hammer them or take the charge.
Giannis is not above criticism either. It’s better to just foul and frustrate him because his free throw shooting hasn’t improved. Or play off him and make him beat you with the outside shots. The days of him just getting the ball at the top of the key and driving by guys are over.
Coach Bud has his work cut out for him. It’s super early in the season but I expected this team to come back and play hungry, inspired basketball. So far that hasn’t happened. They have more than enough time to figure it out but can’t simply rest on their laurels and expect to win by just showing up.
Guys like MJ and Garnett and LeBron had to evolve and adjust their games over time as they got older and teams adjusted to their style of play. The outside shot is the next step in the progression of 34. No different than some other younger talented players like Ben Simmons. Opposing teams and players and coaches are too good to not gameplan and execute to someone’s tendencies.
After Toronto ended their season with a big crash, it's frustrating to see the same issues present after an off-season to fix some of it. Giannis looks the same shooter(looks tired too) and teams have adjusted to stop his penetration ... even more important for Bud to scheme for him(post up/ P&R, etc..) and for his teammates to step up and hit their shots. They are a 'Giannis dunking and a 3-point shooting team', and against Boston Giannis was limited and they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn...and Bud doesn't seem to have a plan B(a big knock on him in ATL). I get the "let it fly" philosophy, but when you see Robin Lopez, Bledsoe, or Giannis jacking a 3 early in the shot clock it makes no sense to me...that's poor discipline/coaching.
As for Bledsoe, he does look lost. He is one of the better Pn'R guards in the league and that seems to be lost in this offense. His shooting is atrocious and has gotten worse after his recent failures. He can be effective though - each player does not need to be a 3 point shooter to provide value - use him the right way.
Most frustrating to me is their poor effort on defense. When the shots aren't falling, that's how you get back in the game. Lazy right now.
Only 78 games left to get this fixed !!
Packdog posted:After Toronto ended their season with a big crash, it's frustrating to see the same issues present after an off-season to fix some of it. Giannis looks the same shooter(looks tired too) and teams have adjusted to stop his penetration ... even more important for Bud to scheme for him(post up/ P&R, etc..) and for his teammates to step up and hit their shots. They are a 'Giannis dunking and a 3-point shooting team', and against Boston Giannis was limited and they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn...and Bud doesn't seem to have a plan B(a big knock on him in ATL). I get the "let it fly" philosophy, but when you see Robin Lopez, Bledsoe, or Giannis jacking a 3 early in the shot clock it makes no sense to me...that's poor discipline/coaching.
As for Bledsoe, he does look lost. He is one of the better Pn'R guards in the league and that seems to be lost in this offense. His shooting is atrocious and has gotten worse after his recent failures. He can be effective though - each player does not need to be a 3 point shooter to provide value - use him the right way.
Most frustrating to me is their poor effort on defense. When the shots aren't falling, that's how you get back in the game. Lazy right now.
Only 78 games left to get this fixed !!
Yeah Giannis expects Bucks to be dedicated to winning a championship.
Is he? Has he done anything to up his game to overcome the shortcomings revealed in last year's series with Toronto????
