Bud is a goddamn moron
They signed Torrey Craig to be a defensive stopper. Would have been good to play him instead of Pat C against Jaylen Brown in game 1.
Tonight, Payton goes off and who’s sitting again? Craig plays 3 minutes. Pat C almost 20.
Can’t be paying serious $ to G, Jrue, and Khris and have poor results due to awful rotation decisions. What Coaches are available? Would Ham coach the rest of the season?
As far as I am concerned Bud is on the clock. It’s now 2 games he’s done little to nothing to counter another team getting hot from 3.
I thought Bud was doing a great job with the Bucks until they got to last year’s bubble. From that point on they went from historically good to just OK. They have too much talent to be just OK so I think there’s some genuine pressure on him to turn things around.
There’s a blueprint on how to beat the Bucks and it’s working. Somehow he’s got to figure out a way to defense the 3 ball better or they have no chance of winning a title or even just winning the conference.
We will see what happens in Miami, but the drop defense may not work as well this year. it was weak defending the 3 before, even when the primary wing defenders were Bledsoe, Matthews, Hill, and DDV. Holiday is even better than Bledsoe, but subbing in Connaughton, Forbes, and Augustin for the Hill/Matthews minutes is a huge difference. Hill was 6"3' with long arms and Matthews was 6'5". Connaughton is hunted every time he's in the game. Despite great athleticism, he just isn't very good at fighting through screens.
Forbes and Augustin are 6'2" and 5'11", respectively. Having them and Connaughton close out to challenge 3 point shooters means they are giving up 5-6 inches of length relative to Hill and Matthews. It's a much easier shot for the opposing team. They do have Torrey Craig, but he's a terrible offensive player. However, if there is a defense-only possession at the end of a quarter Craig needs to be in.
Trading for Bogdanovic wouldn't have solved this either. He's not a great defensive player. They'd have been much better off in the regular season bringing back Sterling Brown.
Brown, Ilysavoa, R. Lopez, Matthews, Hill, and Connaughton were the #5-10 players last year. This year it's Connaughton, Portis, Forbes, Augustin, and DJ Wilson. Other than Portis, that's an awful bench for defense.
Teams teeing off on 3s used to be a “well, they won’t be able to do that every game” thing. But the way teams play today, they make contested threes now. It’s part of the league’s DNA. Half the teams in the league shoot 35% or better as a team. Miami will feast this week on 3 point shooting.
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More importantly, it’s the other half of the defense that’s been an issue. The Bucks historically (under Budenholzer) have been #1 defending 2 point shots, which offset the 3 point gap and fit the scheme. And while they’re 3rd in the NBA in this category right now, they’re still giving up almost 50% from 2.
Another issue is turnovers. They were 3rd a year ago in forced turnovers, over 15/game. So far, they’re forcing 9/game.
This is what we talked about pre-season about a rough start. They are not all there yet. They need time. They’re going to take their lumps until then.
I was listening on SiriusXM until the Packer kickoff. Thinking this was already pencilled in as a win.
Wowwww!!!!
A team of the Bucks caliber losing to this shit franchise.....wow.....just WOW!!
@Boris posted:I was listening on SiriusXM until the Packer kickoff. Thinking this was already pencilled in as a win.
Wowwww!!!!
A team of the Bucks caliber losing to this shit franchise.....wow.....just WOW!!
I had it on during the Packer game. The Bucks are better than anyone in the league 1-3. Their 4th and 5th guys are good enough to win with (DDV and Lopez), but the bench looks like a dumpster fire. Portis is an upgrade over Ilyasova, but Connaughton and Forbes have been terrible. Augustin will provide offense, but he's a liability on defense. Nwora and Merrill have looked good in garbage time, so maybe they need to try them in some real minutes. They can't be any worse. The two problems are
1. The drop defense is getting shredded in general.
2. Pat Connaughton is OK as your 8-10 minute energy guy during a regular-season game. He has no business being the 6th man. Here's Kevin O'Connor of the Ringer summing it up nicely.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/...s-early-observations
We know what we’ll get from the best players on Milwaukee’s roster, but I still worry about their role-player replacements. Bobby Portis has taken over for Robin Lopez at backup center, but he’s a far inferior defender, and a much smaller one at that, which makes him a particularly poor fit for the Bucks’ drop defensive scheme. D.J. Augustin, Bryn Forbes, and Pat Connaughton are not the same caliber of defenders as the veterans from last season, George Hill and Wes Matthews. With 90 seconds left in Milwaukee’s one-point season-opening loss to Boston, Connaughton spent a possession defending Jayson Tatum. Connaughton shouldn’t even be on the floor in those moments, let alone matched up against the Celtics’ best scorer. When head coach Mike Budenholzer and general manager Jon Horst look at the film from Sunday, they’ll see Connaughton also got shredded by the Knicks. Maybe then they’ll seek an upgrade.
The problem is that I don't know how they upgrade. They have almost no tradeable assets. Forbes, Augustin, Portis, and Craig were available on those contracts for a reason. It's really, really obvious that Holiday is a huge upgrade over Bledsoe, especially come playoff time. However, you might be a lot better in the regular season having 60 minutes a night from Bledsoe and Hill rather than 35 from Holiday if the best you can do as a reserve is Connaughton. DJ Wilson is getting major minutes right now. 7 million a year spent on Connaughton and Thanasis was worth it if that's what was necessary to keep Giannis, but when you are over the cap and spending almost 12 million on those two and Wilson, that's a disaster waiting to happen. The fact they are missing so many future picks makes it even more difficult to pick up some bench depth that you might be able to get by dumping Wilson's expiring contract and some picks.
The thing is that the Bogdanovic trade wouldn't have helped that much. In fact, it might have made some of the problems worse. DDV has a lot more upside and is a much better on-ball defender.
Why did they allow Sterling Brown to walk for nothing when at least you know he's a viable 9th or 10th guy? Did they tell Matthews they didn't want him back? R. Lopez left because he didn't want to get traded somewhere without having some control over it.
This might be the best Bucks' starting 5 in the last 40 years, but the bench is filled with guys that you'd see on those Bucks teams from 10-15 years ago. it's scary that Tony Snell and Thon Maker would be upgrades.
There was some debate before the season if Forbes should start and DDV come off the bench. Reason being DDV gives you a really solid punch off the bench especially on defense.
Yes Forbes doesn’t play defense. But did Matthews give them much offensively as a starter? Not really. You bring in the second unit of DDV and Portis and DJ and Augustin at least there’s some defense but you bring in Forbes in that scenario and it’s a lot of offense but really no defense. Especially since Bud isn’t playing Craig at all. Seems like he’s caught the Sterling Brown flu. For whatever reason Bud isn’t playing him despite him being a bigger version of Matthews.
This is why I am really down on Bud. He’s got a bit of MMs “we do what we do” but against Nurse and Spoelstra and Stevens they are coaching circles around him.