Augustin out tonight after his wife gives birth. Holiday also still out.
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Marv Albert is really losing it.
He just called Sam Merrill DJ Wilson.
Tie game.
The fact that Sam Merrill is playing in front of Torrey Craig tells you a lot.
I just hope like heck Holiday comes back soon. He’s been gone so long now it will take a few games to get him back into the swing of things if he does come back at all.
Bucks defense has been abysmal.
The problems go beyond just missing the two point guards.
Bucks give up layup after layup after layup.
They've given up 98 points with two minutes left in the third and Giannis has only sat out 4 minutes.
Bryn Forbes with his typical soft performance against a good team. He's the type of guy that shoots lights out against a lousy team and then struggles against mediocre and good teams.
That's a very revealing stat.
The Bucks are 0-11 when they are not ahead going into the 4th quarter. They are 19-2 when they are.
Dante having a nice game 
DDV has been great all game. Probably his best career game.
Can they trade Torrey Craig back to the Nuggets if he's not good enough to play in front of Sam Merrill or Thanasis? Even a second-round pick would be worth something.
@Boris posted:Dante having a nice game
But his last 3 drives have been out of control. Bad Donte shows up.
The Bucks half-court offense has completely fallen apart.
It's like they have no set plays to run
Bucks blow an inbounds play, but DDV draws a charge and Giannis seals it at the line.
Looks like we need some work on inbounding
Hey, a win is nice. 20-13 now.
Liked seeing Giannis & Middleton having fun with Bledsoe after the game.
It was nice to see them come through with a basket and a clutch play defensively at the end of a game. The Middleton turnover is what you get when you give him the ball at the end of a game. He’s prone to that.
I am genuinely excited to see how Giannis is working to expand his offensive game. The little hesitations and probing that he’s doing now are really excellent developments. Instead of barreling into a mass of bodies, he probes to see where the movement is coming from so he’s not falling victim to the guard sliding in front to get the charge because he’s reading it, reacting to it, countering it. He’s talked about how they’re “trying things” and are expanding the repertoire as a team, and that work is starting to show. They’re not standing still, they’re using this time to sharpen tools.
I just don’t think Budenholzer will be the guy to get them there in the end. He should have been doing this shit last year, and now it’s too late.
@Music City posted:It was nice to see them come through with a basket and a clutch play defensively at the end of a game. The Middleton turnover is what you get when you give him the ball at the end of a game. He’s prone to that.
The Middleton turnover on the inbounds play was prone to happen to anyone his size catching the ball in that situation. He was triple-teamed against the sideline.
It all comes down to how much you trust Giannis at the line in that situation. I get why you inbound to Middleton - he's 18th in NBA history in terms of FT% and he's hit some so many clutch FTs over the years. But Giannis is who your inbounds pass should go to if you have no timeouts left and no one is open off the original design. If nothing else, you can throw it up high and let him go get it. Having him as an option would also open things up for Middleton.
You have Brook Lopez take the ball out. You set up a pick for Middleton with Giannis to force a switch that either puts a smaller guy on Giannis or gets Middleton more space. Lopez is then your first pass if the guy you get the ball inbounds to gets trapped.
@Music City posted:I am genuinely excited to see how Giannis is working to expand his offensive game. The little hesitations and probing that he’s doing now are really excellent developments. Instead of barreling into a mass of bodies, he probes to see where the movement is coming from so he’s not falling victim to the guard sliding in front to get the charge because he’s reading it, reacting to it, countering it. He’s talked about how they’re “trying things” and are expanding the repertoire as a team, and that work is starting to show. They’re not standing still, they’re using this time to sharpen tools.
I just don’t think Budenholzer will be the guy to get them there in the end. He should have been doing this shit last year, and now it’s too late.
If DDV gives you what he did last night, that's the thing that's going to make the difference.
You can't take away everything if you are a defense, but teams are going to do what the Raptors did last week. Build the wall to prevent Giannis from getting into the paint and then aggressively getting the ball out of Middleton's hands. The whole point will be to make someone else beat you. Holiday is a threat so he'll draw some attention - so the other two guys are going to have open shots. That's some combination of DDV, Portis, Lopez, or Bryn Forbes at the end of shot clocks in the half-court during the 4th quarter of a close playoff game. Which of those 4 do you want taking that semi-open 23-foot shot? I'd say DDV.