Pacers missing Haliburton. Lopez and Grayson out for the Bucks.
Bucks up 10 after one
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Pacers within 4 and Giannis with 3 fouls in the first half.
Jevon Carter has been terrible. Cost them at least 6-8 points in a short time period.
Packers have gone on a 12-1 run and the Bucks are in danger of playing with their food and getting in a close game.
Gotta love the officiating. Giannis sitting the rest of the half because of two terrible calls.
Bucks playing half interested and still up by 9.
Giannis played only 10 minutes because of some BS fouls.
Only a 5 point lead late in the third. Bucks defense is giving up wide open corner 3s way too much.
The Bucks are BEHIND to the Pacers who are playing without Halliburton and a few others.
Bucks are down 3 to the Pacers going to the 4th.
They got lit up in the 3rd. Just an embarrassing performance. The Pacers scored 49 on the Bucks.
@MichiganPacker posted:Bucks are down 3 to the Pacers going to the 4th.
They got lit up in the 3rd. Just an embarrassing performance. The Pacers scored 49 on the Bucks.
Pacers end the quarter on a 14-2 run.
Don't want to lose the #1 seed later because you let Jordan Nwora and George Hill embarrass you - which is part of what happened in the 3rd.
Bucks down 7.
Jevon Carter has been horrible. Horrible.
This would be one of the worst losses of the Bud era. To lose to Jordan Nwora kicking your ass at home.
Bucks have now given up 70 points in 18 second half minutes.
Down 12 to a lottery team at home.
This is embarrassing.
And Middleton has done nothing to pick up the slack with Giannis on the bench. 5 of 13 from the floor 14 points in 31 minutes, of which 4 are from the line.
Pacers 19 of 40 from 3. Just…wow.
We really can’t afford to just give away games to inferior opponents like this, especially at home.
Defense has been MIA without Lopez in the second half.
Giannis going 5 of 10 from the line isn’t helping.
@lambeausouth posted:This is embarrassing.
And Middleton has done nothing to pick up the slack with Giannis on the bench. 5 of 13 from the floor 14 points in 31 minutes, of which 4 are from the line.
Middleton is not the problem. It's Connaughton and Carter. They have been absolutely annihilated.
When they lose a game 7 in Boston or Philly, this might be why
2:31 left in the 4th, and the Bucks have given up 76 points in the second half to a bunch of scrubs.
When the Bucks are playing a game 7 in Boston remember this game.
@lambeausouth posted:2:31 left in the 4th, and the Bucks have given up 76 points in the second half to a bunch of scrubs.
Bucks announcers, who I usually like, are making excuses.
Just say they sucked. Giannis sucked. He was eaten alive on defense.
Pacers were 13 for 17 from three in the second half. And most of them were with no one within 5 feet of them
@ammo posted:When the Bucks are playing a game 7 in Boston remember this game.
This was a half assed defensive effort.
The Bucks were up 90-77 with 5:23 left in the 3rd quarter.
They were outscored 62-33 over the last 17:23. By Jordan Nwora, George Hill, TJ McConnell, Nesmith, and Nemhard.
@lambeausouth posted:Pacers 19 of 40 from 3. Just…wow.
We really can’t afford to just give away games to inferior opponents like this, especially at home.
Defense has been MIA without Lopez in the second half.
I'm not sure if Lopez would have helped. The Pacers probably shot 2 dozen 3s with no one within 4 feet. Lopez wouldn't have helped that.
I hope the players are embarrassed. They should be.
@MichiganPacker posted:I'm not sure if Lopez would have helped. The Pacers probably shot 2 dozen 3s with no one within 4 feet. Lopez wouldn't have helped that.
I guess I’m just struggling to understand how this could happen, MP. You get a 2.5 game lead in the conference with 14 games left, and you’re playing at home against a team with nothing to play for, missing one of its top players.
This should have been a gimmie, and for a half, the Bucks were out in front. The entire team just laid an egg in the second half. I mean 84 points. Really?
@lambeausouth posted:I guess I’m just struggling to understand how this could happen, MP. You get a 2.5 game lead in the conference with 14 games left, and you’re playing at home against a team with nothing to play for, missing one of its top players.
This should have been a gimmie, and for a half, the Bucks were out in front. The entire team just laid an egg in the second half. I mean 84 points. Really?
I watched the whole thing.
A lot of it was Giannis got in foul trouble and then basically quit playing any defense so he could stay in the game. The Bucks basically played with 4 defenders in the second half when Giannis was on the floor. TJ McConnell drove on him 3 times for layups in crunch time.
The other part was going under screens to allow wide-open 3s and letting corner 3s happen over and over.
Connaughton and Carter got their asses handed to them by Nwora and Hill.
It was a lot of things, but if Giannis shows up like he usually does, he drops 45 and actually plays defense and they win. He was terrible tonight, in large part because of the foul trouble.
It’s the NBA, so needless to say we shouldn’t be surprised.
For everyone piling on the Bucks for getting worked by a bad Indiana team, have you also followed Boston and Philadelphia? They’ve both had some awful losses to bad teams. It happens.
What concerns me is Pat C hasn’t looked the same since coming back from his last injury. Middleton is still playing mediocre ball. And 4Q defense at times this year has been a problem.
The Bucks have had about 3 embarrassing performances this year where they have been run out of the gym. There were some other losses that were frustrating, but were due to 1-2 miscues or bad breaks at the end of a game (Giannis throwing away in inbounds pass against the Bulls, Holiday dribbling out of bounds against the Warriors, Harden hitting a 32 foot 3 pointer with less than a minute left against the Sixers).
But there were three games that they didn't show up even with Giannis playing.
1. Charlotte hung about 50 on them in the first quarter of that game in Milwaukee.
2. Another where Memphis lead them by 45 after the third quarter and put 47 up in the third.
3. Last night's 49 point Pacer quarter.
The common denominator is that all 3 losses were to teams that the Bucks were old and slow and wouldn't want to run with teams they know they could beat. Those 3 were shameful defensive performances. Those 3 just ran even after made baskets and beat the Bucks down the floor for layups or wide open corner 3s and just ran them off the floor.
I think whoever the Bucks play in Round 1 of the playoffs is going to try to do this against them. If the Bucks are a 1 or 2 seed, some of their possible matchups will be the Pacers, Bulls, Wizards, Hawks, and Raptors. I think the only chance those teams will have is to do that, so the Bucks better decide to make more of an effort against those types of tactics.
I think something to consider is in the playoffs the pace slows down and it becomes more of a half court game.
Ironically, up until 2020 the Bucks were run and gun not unlike teams like Charlotte and Indiana. It got them nowhere until they understood how to adapt to the more deliberate, physical style of play and obviously adding Holiday made a huge difference.
@Tschmack posted:I think something to consider is in the playoffs the pace slows down and it becomes more of a half court game.
Ironically, up until 2020 the Bucks were run and gun not unlike teams like Charlotte and Indiana. It got them nowhere until they understood how to adapt to the more deliberate, physical style of play and obviously adding Holiday made a huge difference.
I think a series against Boston, Philly, or Cleveland (and probably Miami or Toronto) will become a half court slogfest.
But, the Bucks may give one of these run and gun teams a punchers chance to steal a series if they don't get more serious about these types of games. Maybe a team can't do this to win 4 of 7, but you want to minimize the stress of that first round series before you get into a slugfest.
When the NBA went to a best of 7 format for round 1 it basically eliminated or greatly reduced the odds of the underdog stealing a series.
As we’ve seen with the Bucks, it’s possible for one of those teams like Chicago to win a game or two just by shooting the lights out. The problem is if you don’t stress defense and rebounding - or have the players to do it- you won’t have much of a chance against teams like Milwaukee or Boston that will bludgeon you to death. Not to mention those two teams specifically have a lot of guys that can match the other team in terms of shooting and scoring.
My earlier point was all of the contenders in the East have had a number of ugly losses this year. Boston has more of them than Milwaukee.
Yes it’s frustrating to watch but IMO this is where the league either has to extend out the regular season to avoid back to backs and load management, or they need to reduce games. There is no reason they need to play 82 games when most teams really only play hard for about 60 of them.
@ammo posted:When the Bucks are playing a game 7 in Boston remember this game.
Hell, Boston has Philly to deal with now. They are behind them in the loss column.
I'd be real surprised if either team catches Milwaukee at 2.5 back with like a dozen games to play.
