Bucks- Heat Game 4. Giannis is playing.

@MichiganPacker posted:

The reason Butler has done that is that Holiday and Middleton have been terrible guarding him. The Heat are hunting Middleton like he's Kyle Korver right now. I wouldn't be surprised when they announce he's going to get knee surgery when the season is done. He can't guard the same way he could before. Middleton is done as an all-star player. I hope he opts out and gets a nice final contract somewhere else. 40 million next year is going to hamstring them.

Jrue Holiday was pitiful tonight. One of the worst performances you will ever see. He was great in the 2021 Finals, but he's not been good on offense in the playoffs since.

In the 4 losses to the Celtics last year in the playoffs, he was 5 for 28 from three.

In the 3 Bucks losses this year, he's 6 for 26 from three.

However, the underlying problem is the Bucks have no depth and he's exhausted, just like against the Celtics last year. Portis, Jevon Carter, Crowder, Portis, and Ingles are completely unplayable in this series.

And how many future draft picks have we burned to get this so called depth?

I have serious questions as to what the Bucks can do to improve. I see this team wasting much of the prime  years of a generational talent.

Where have I heard this before? Hmm…

”Homefield advantage throughout the playoffs with the top seed, face plant in the playoffs.”

I expected a lot better tonight from this team. And the Bucks not named Lopez and Giannis shit the bed.

And we’re incredibly lucky to have signed Giannis. If I’m the Freak, and looking at this situation, I can’t be too happy.

The guy was playing hurt, and put up a triple double. Meanwhile, Khris Middleton has had all season to get well, and with our season inexplicably on the line against an 8 seed, he face plants into a steaming pile of cow flop, stands up, and face plants again.

Two guys came to play. The rest of the team got outplayed and put hustled by one guy.

Forgive me if I’m a bit negative tonight, MP, Blair et all. I’m just really ticked. Gutless showing by most of our team.

@lambeausouth posted:

And how many future draft picks have we burned to get this so called depth?

I have serious questions as to what the Bucks can do to improve. I see this team wasting much of the prime  years of a generational talent.

Where have I heard this before? Hmm…

”Homefield advantage throughout the playoffs with the top seed, face plant in the playoffs.”

I expected a lot better tonight from this team. And the Bucks not named Lopez and Giannis shit the bed.

And we’re incredibly lucky to have signed Giannis. If I’m the Freak, and looking at this situation, I can’t be too happy.

The guy was playing hurt, and put up a triple double. Meanwhile, Khris Middleton has had all season to get well, and with our season inexplicably on the line against an 8 seed, he face plants into a steaming pile of cow flop, stands up, and face plants again.

Two guys came to play. The rest of the team got outplayed and put hustled by one guy.

Forgive me if I’m a bit negative tonight, MP, Blair et all. I’m just really ticked. Gutless showing by most of our team.

Middleton is hurt. I think he's gutting it out as best he can. I think he's cooked as an elite player, but he's not the problem. The lack of any semblance of a bench makes him play 40 minutes when they weren't letting him go past 30 all year. There was a reason for that. I bet he has knee surgery after the season. The Heat have attacked him because he can't move laterally on that knee. It's not been right since he hurt it in the playoffs last year.

@Tschmack posted:

Barring an OKC 2016 type meltdown by the Heat this series is over.

Going to be an important offseason for the Bucks.  They got really old in a hurry.  

The best part is I’ll bet Miami gets swept in R2.  No way they will keep this up.

The NBA home office is salivating over a Knicks-Celtics EC Finals at this point.

I cannot say enough how badly this team misses the 2021 version of PJ Tucker.  They had a fighting chance to defend some elite wings when he was out there battling.  That said, even that version of Tucker wouldn’t be enough to make up for the decline of Middleton.

It feels like Connaughton has declined as well except for that incredible stretch he had in game 2, he’s been surprisingly unreliable this year.

As far as the future goes, they’re going to need to be very resourceful in developing young talent overlooked in the draft.  Miami had 7 undrafted guys on their roster tonight.  In the very near future, the Bucks are going to need to find talent the same way or they are pretty much screwed.

Maybe we see Holiday get traded at some point in the next couple years to get some draft picks?  Not sure if that’s realistic as it would probably make Giannis want to get traded as well, but they may have to do stuff like that to reload before Giannis starts to decline.

@fightphoe93 posted:

I cannot say enough how badly this team misses the 2021 version of PJ Tucker.  They had a fighting chance to defend some elite wings when he was out there battling.  That said, even that version of Tucker wouldn’t be enough to make up for the decline of Middleton.

It feels like Connaughton has declined as well except for that incredible stretch he had in game 2, he’s been surprisingly unreliable this year.

As far as the future goes, they’re going to need to be very resourceful in developing young talent overlooked in the draft.  Miami had 7 undrafted guys on their roster tonight.  In the very near future, the Bucks are going to need to find talent the same way or they are pretty much screwed.

Maybe we see Holiday get traded at some point in the next couple years to get some draft picks?  Not sure if that’s realistic as it would probably make Giannis want to get traded as well, but they may have to do stuff like that to reload before Giannis starts to decline.

Miami isn't going to win a title this year either. It's just Butler has gone off because the Bucks don't have a single big wing that's healthy enough to slow him down. He's too big for Holiday, but the Bucks are structured to have Middleton, Crowder, Matthews, and Ingles to guard big wings like Butler and Tatum. Every one of them is injured and/or too old.

If Giannis would have been healthy the whole series, the Bucks probably eke out a win in 7 games, maybe even gut it past the Knicks, but then would have been beaten in 4 or 5 games by the Celtics. The Celtics blew them off the floor in the two games they actually played guys this year.

I'm not sure if there is a fix for this. They won the title. It was a top 5 Wisconsin sports moment, but being a title favorite is probably done.  Now, there relevance as a top 10 team may come down to whether Giannis wants to be the next Dirk and be satisfied with one ring and being the franchise hero forever, or go ring hunting in a year or two. They have no assets to improve without gutting their core.

Middleton on two weeks rest was great in Game 1, but he should probably be sitting at this point (and that knee looks to be a chronic issue that's only going to get worse). He's hurting more than helping right now, but Crowder, Matthews, and Ingles offer no resistance at all. I think you may just have to play Ingles more and hope he can give you 20 off the bench without giving up 30. All they are doing is running pick and roll to either get Middleton matched up on Butler or forcing Holiday to hedge so much, Butler gets by him.

I think the break glass in case of emergency is to put Giannis on him, but they'll just hunt Middleton even on that matchup in pick and roll.

I hope we don’t look back on this team 10 years from now and talk about them like the 90s Braves.  Regular season dominance but only 1 title to show for it.  I’m thrilled they got a championship, but we all know the missed opportunity in 2019 up 2-0 to the Raptors and they completely imploded while Toronto won easily against a banged up Warriors team.  Then there’s last season and had Middleton not gone down who knows maybe that’s another title.

This year, from start to finish, has been a shit show with all of the injuries.  The fact that Holiday and Giannis and Middleton missed nearly half the season (collectively) yet they still won almost 60 games is remarkable.  

But right now, they are in deep trouble and I don’t see an easy way out of it.   Clearly Giannis and Middleton aren’t healthy.  Holiday is worn out on both ends and for the life of me I can’t understand why Portis and Pat C and the bench are so inconsistent or ineffective.  

The other question in my mind is if the Heat win game 5 I really think they need to consider moving on from Bud.  Nick Nurse is out there, and he is a really good defensive minded guy.

@Tschmack posted:

I hope we don’t look back on this team 10 years from now and talk about them like the 90s Braves.  Regular season dominance but only 1 title to show for it.  I’m thrilled they got a championship, but we all know the missed opportunity in 2019 up 2-0 to the Raptors and they completely imploded while Toronto won easily against a banged up Warriors team.  Then there’s last season and had Middleton not gone down who knows maybe that’s another title.

This year, from start to finish, has been a shit show with all of the injuries.  The fact that Holiday and Giannis and Middleton missed nearly half the season (collectively) yet they still won almost 60 games is remarkable.  

But right now, they are in deep trouble and I don’t see an easy way out of it.   Clearly Giannis and Middleton aren’t healthy.  Holiday is worn out on both ends and for the life of me I can’t understand why Portis and Pat C and the bench are so inconsistent or ineffective.  

The other question in my mind is if the Heat win game 5 I really think they need to consider moving on from Bud.  Nick Nurse is out there, and he is a really good defensive minded guy.

Nick Nurse would blow out what's left of Giannis' and Khris' knees playing them 40 minutes a night on back to backs. Ibaka, M. Gasol, and Lowry all got old fast because of it.

Bud is one of the greatest regular season coaches in NBA history. His Hawks teams won 60 games without a true all-star (Horford was probably the best player). He's really good at managing minutes and expectations of veteran players and it's those guys that are the 7th-12th guys in your rotation that make the difference between winning 45 and 55 games sometimes. Jevon Carter types.

When you get to the playoffs, the rotation shrinks and that's when Bud struggles. One of the Bucks problems is that their 6th through 12th players are all roughly equivalent. That's great for regular season back-to-backs to rest guys, but not as much when you end up against the top tier teams that can exploit those types of guys with some limitations (Connaughton, Ingles, Portis, Carter, Crowder, Matthews, etc.).

The offense in the playoffs has always come down to Giannis or Middleton going supernova. Middleton was basically a KD clone in the 2021 playoffs. Giannis obviously went crazy against the Suns. Giannis almost won the Celtics series last year by himself. But with both of those guys dinged up, the Heat have decided to let Lopez go crazy and control everyone else. They figure the Bucks shooters can't hit enough open 3s to make up for their defensive deficiencies on the other end. It's the same thing Toronto did in 2019 and the Celtics did in 2022.

Jrue Holiday is not a good enough offensive player to consistently win playoff games as your 1st or 2nd option. His stats tend to crater in the playoffs when he can't abuse the second string guards getting minutes in regular season games. His 3 point shooting in the playoffs as a Buck has been terrible on a large sample size. 30% in 2021, 32% in 2022, and 28% this year. He's suspiciously Eric Bledsoe like. And I think he's done in this series as his body language last night suggested that Jimmy Butler emasculated him.

I think Nurse wore out his welcome in Toronto with some of the younger guys and agree at times he can be a bit prickly.  But he’s a really good Xs and Os guy, and with the exception of this past season he’s gotten a lot of his own players.

Bud might be one of the worst in game adjustment coaches I’ve ever seen.  He’s better game to game, but he’s not a good playoff coach at all.   If they lose game 5 at home him losing his job should absolutely be on the table.

The only positive development is the Grizzlies losing takes some of the attention off Milwaukee but if the Bucks don’t at least show up and compete the rest of this series there may be big changes in store this offseason.

Giannis. Wins a title at age 26 years and 8 months

Rodgers. Wins his only title in Green Bay at 27 years and 2 months

Favre. Wins his only title at 27 years and 4 months.

I hope not, but I fear, that Giannis may only win one title in Milwaukee. Three first ballot HOFers in Wisconsin pro sports in the last 30 years and all won at least won a ring. That's great. Should be celebrate this or be disappointed they haven't (yet in Giannis' case) won more? They could all have been Ernie Banks types, but were validated with a ring.

Robin Yount was 27 years and 1 month when the Brewers played in their only World Series.

There must be something about being 27 years old.

@Tschmack posted:

I think Nurse wore out his welcome in Toronto with some of the younger guys and agree at times he can be a bit prickly.  But he’s a really good Xs and Os guy, and with the exception of this past season he’s gotten a lot of his own players.

Bud might be one of the worst in game adjustment coaches I’ve ever seen.  He’s better game to game, but he’s not a good playoff coach at all.   If they lose game 5 at home him losing his job should absolutely be on the table.

The only positive development is the Grizzlies losing takes some of the attention off Milwaukee but if the Bucks don’t at least show up and compete the rest of this series there may be big changes in store this offseason.

I get what you are saying about Bud, but he lost last year in a 7 game series missing his second-best player, and they are likely to lose this year with their best player missing 3 games and their second-best player clearly still hampered. A HOF-level player who is a crappy 3 point shooter normally went off against them in the 4th quarter last night.

The problem is an aging supporting cast and misfires on personnel decisions the last two years.

The Bucks played 7 guys in the Finals during the clinching games in the Finals two years ago (other than some brief cameos by Jeff Teague to let Holiday sit for a few seconds). 6 of the 7 are still here. The only guy that's gone is PJ Tucker and Crowder and Matthews were poor substitutes for him.

Holiday turns 33 in a couple of months. Lopez is 35. Middleton is a very old soon-to-be 32 year old. They got old and worn down (Lopez last year, Middleton the last two years, Holiday just in general from overuse). They don't have a rotation player that will be younger than 28 next season.

Nick Nurse didn't do squat in Toronto other than one year they sold out for Kawhi Leonard. The last three years they've missed the playoffs twice and gone 116-120 despite having Siakam, Van Vleet, Anunoby, and Scottie Barnes. They were the most underachieving in the league this year. Without that one year of Kawhi, he's not anywhere near what Bud is in terms of success. Just with the Hawks, Bud was much more consistent.

Spoelstra looks like a genius this year, but the Bucks swept the Heat two years ago and he looked like an idiot.

Coaches in the NBA mainly have to stay out of the way and not screw up good things (see: Jason Kidd).

@MichiganPacker posted:

Giannis. Wins a title at age 26 years and 8 months

Rodgers. Wins his only title in Green Bay at 27 years and 2 months

Favre. Wins his only title at 27 years and 4 months.

I hope not, but I fear, that Giannis may only win one title in Milwaukee. Three first ballot HOFers in Wisconsin pro sports in the last 30 years and all won at least won a ring. That's great. Should be celebrate this or be disappointed they haven't (yet in Giannis' case) won more? They could all have been Ernie Banks types, but were validated with a ring.

Robin Yount was 27 years and 1 month when the Brewers played in their only World Series.

There must be something about being 27 years old.

Yup, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones and Robert Johnson to name a few  who also peaked at 27