Bucks vs. Celtics, April 9th. Beginning of the the turnaround or too far gone for anyone to care?

I'm not watching....I'll check in with 5 minutes to go in the 4th.

Giannis and Middleton should be sitting tonight. That way Dame can go get his "80"

Sounds like Pat Bev is getting the start.

Bucks 26-11 to start. The Celtics look sort of disinterested.

@MichiganPacker2 posted:

Bucks 26-11 to start. The Celtics look sort of disinterested.

Our kind of opponents

@MichiganPacker2 posted:

Bucks 26-11 to start. The Celtics look sort of disinterested.

Bucks are 6 of 8 from three. That's probably not sustainable.

Bucks 37-21 after the first. Good quarter, but after the last 7 games, I'm expecting the bottom to fall out at any point.

Now Bucks 47-23.

Xavier Tillman is not Horford in terms of guarding Giannis.

63-43 at the half. Bucks defense looks better when the other team does have a quick guard that can penetrate.

A complete ass kicking to this point.

Most interesting thing is seeing Giannis up near the top of the key harassing on the perimeter.  Almost Kevin Garnett like and it’s been bothering Boston.  

Wifey flashed me the score - ok so the bucks getting out scored by 30 in the 2nd half??

By the way, Kandace Parker is an idiot when it comes to analysis.  She makes Shaq seem like a rocket scientist.

I’m so sick of the kiss ass treatment of Boston.  They aren’t a tough or physical team.  Punch them in the fucking mouth and keep punching them.  They are a finesse team way more than Milwaukee.  

Bucks 73-53 after Giannis dunk late in the 3rd.

Giannis just went down with a non-contact injury. Does not look good.

Tuned in just in time to see Giannis is injured. Fuck.

Fucking Lillard make a goddamn play

Down to an 11 point lead, but if Giannis really did what I think he just did, next season is fukked too.

Bucks are going to blow this game.

Just hope like heck it’s a calf sprain or calf issue for Giannis.  

Need to finish these fuckers off.  

God I hate the Celtics

Celtics saw the Giannis injury and pulled their starters in a meaningless game or them.

The Bucks say Giannis has a calf strain and won’t return tonight.

Precisely, a left soleus sprain

The NBA playoffs start April 20th so that’s about a week and a half.  I would guess they rest and treat Giannis as long as they can.

@ilcuqui posted:

The Bucks say Giannis has a calf strain and won’t return tonight.

Precisely, a left soleus sprain

That's the best case scenario, and if that's the case he's not playing again this regular season.

I won't breathe easy until they do the MRI on the Achilles.

Beasley played 25 minutes and was 2-7 so maybe starting Beverly is the way to go.

We need positive vibes on Giannis. No negativity allowed lol!!!

The two teams combined for 2 FTs tonight. That's an NBA record

Celtics with 0. That's an NBA record.

The two FTs by the Bucks are the 4th least all time

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/a...-in-a-game-by-a-team

@Tschmack posted:

Beasley played 25 minutes and was 2-7 so maybe starting Beverly is the way to go.

Just for defense it's a win.

So the Celtics didn't want to give the Bucks tape of the game without Giannis so they pulled the starters??

Interesting 🤔

No FT's?!?! LMAO. WTF is that???

Bucks throttled Boston twice in Milwaukee and lost 2 close games in Boston.   We should be afraid of them why?

At some point Horford is going to tip over.  And Porzingis is a bitch.  

I say bring on Boston.  

@Tschmack posted:

Bucks throttled Boston twice in Milwaukee and lost 2 close games in Boston.   We should be afraid of them why?

At some point Horford is going to tip over.  And Porzingis is a bitch.  

I say bring on Boston.  

It obviously on depends on how healthy Giannis is for a matchup.

But, Pat Bev might be the most important role player for any contending team in the NBA right now. The entire defense looks different with at least one lockdown defender on the perimeter, rather than having to play some combination of Dame, Beasley, Green, and Connaughton all the time.

@Tschmack posted:

Bucks throttled Boston twice in Milwaukee and lost 2 close games in Boston.   We should be afraid of them why?

At some point Horford is going to tip over.  And Porzingis is a bitch.  

I say bring on Boston.  

It was also nice to see Jrue in playoff form tonight on offense for Boston. He was 5 for 13 from the floor and 2 for 6 from three.

Satisfying win, even though Celtics had little reason to try hard. Hoping the best for Giannis full recovery before the playoffs.

@MichiganPacker2 posted:

But, Pat Bev might be the most important role player for any contending team in the NBA right now. The entire defense looks different with at least one lockdown defender on the perimeter,

Plus PatBev is knocking down open 3's occasionally. Defense plus a few 3 pointers?? Yes please.

When I watched Giannis go down, he immediately grabbed high at his calf. Almost like a cramp. Heading back to the locker room, Lopez tried to help & Giannis refused anyone helping him walk.

Pray the MRI is positive. Crazy non contact injury.

Heard on the way into work that Woj was reporting no damage to Achilles.  If that’s the case they dodged a major bullet.

Still, calf injuries can be tricky.  I actually partially tore a calf muscle in my late 30s playing basketball - while backpedaling trying to defend a guy in a league I was playing at the time.  Took me about 2 weeks to get back to feeling somewhat normal but probably closer to a month before I got back to running on a regular basis.

Obviously Giannis is a better and more well conditioned athlete (and almost 10 years younger) and has access to world class doctors and treatment so maybe he can cut that time down.  

It's ironic that after all the turmoil in terms of the roster and the coaching staff over the last year that the Bucks chances in the playoffs really come down to whether Giannis can return healthy. The rest (1 seed vs. 6 seed, opponent) really is just secondary.

They could have won 70 games. They could be where they are now. The seeding and matchups are secondary because they have no chance to advance beyond maybe the second round if Giannis is not himself.

I will say that the construction of this year's team gives them a better chance in the first round than if they'd have run the same group back from last year. When Giannis was out or limited last year against the Heat, we got to see Jrue shoot 12 for 42 from three and 34 for 85 overall in 5 games. It's unlikely Dame will shoot that poorly on that volume and maybe they can score enough points to steal a couple of games.

There were several scenarios in play last night when Giannis went down. Obviously the worst, by a few orders of magnitude, was that it was his Achilles and he likely wouldn't play again until the 2025-26 season. That would have essentially forced the Bucks into a really difficult situation. They couldn't sell off all their assets and tank because they don't control their own first round pick for the next 6 years. But why hang onto Dame, Middleton, and Lopez in that scenario to maybe be a play-in team?

However, if he's out for 2-3 weeks, this is actually the second worst scenario to judge what to do next year (again stressing that the Achilles injury would have dwarfed this one in terms of being catastrophic for the franchise). Let's say they end up as the 3 seed and lose to the Sixers or Pacers in 5 or 6 games in Round 1 when Giannis can't play. How do you judge the season? They've been terrible for the last two weeks. Doc Rivers doesn't appear to be the answer. Lillard has never really meshed the way everyone thought he would. You have an aging roster.Do you run it all back next year because you never really got to see this group together when it really mattered in the playoffs? Do you look for a new coach? Horst has botched a large number of moves over the last couple of years. Do you trust him to right the ship?

If you played at full strength and got beat in Round 1 the decisions become much easier. But now, who knows?

The correct decision for the long term interests of the franchise is to do anything you can to avoid the KD/Warriors 2019 scenario where he rushed back off his calf injury and blew out his Achilles in the Finals. Given how poorly the Bucks have played over the last 2 weeks, an objective observer would say they are not a serious Finals contender. So why risk the future of the franchise if there is any increased risk for Giannis? If he blows out the Achilles the Bucks are done for the next decade. That's either way this franchise goes with a healthy Giannis over the next 2 years. You are always at least a borderline contender if he's healthy and if he goes down it's basically over. Even if he wants out in a trade eventually, his trade value would drop to close to zero if that happened. It's hard enough to come back from that type of injury even if you are KD who is one of the best shooters of all time. It's not like Giannis is going to come back and turn into a mid-range jump shooter and 3-point specialist.

The absolute worst case scenario would be to draw the Sixers in round 1.  That’s the one team that can go toe to toe even with Giannis in the lineup.  If he’s not ready, it means you need to give a lot of minutes to an aging Lopez which isn’t ideal.  At least with Giannis you can throw both guys at Embiid.  

With a healthy Dame and Middleton, and good to decent play from Lopez and Portis and Beverly I think they can win a series without Giannis.   I doubt Beverly can give you 20/10 like he did last night but clearly him getting more minutes (compared to Beasley) was a key in the game v Boston.  

My personal feeling is they will likely bring back as much of this team and coaching staff and Horst because the Giannis injury gives them all an out.   If they get bounced in round 1 and Giannis doesn’t play or plays limited minutes I can’t see them making drastic changes.   At least not for next season.