The Budenholzer Doomsday Clock

I think it’s fair to say Budenholzer was willing to learn from past mistakes and grew as a coach this year.

I won’t deny that it was hard watching this team take a step backwards in the regular season from the level of play the last 2 regular seasons.

In the end, it was all worth it.  The tinkering  with strategy and philosophy that Bud was doing January thru April paid off from May thru July.

Getting a bunch of competitive guys with sizable egos to get along and play hard night after night is no easy task as dozens of failed NBA coaches have discovered over the years. It takes the right combination of players and the right coach to make it happen and while their were plenty of times I doubted coach Bud, he proved his worth in the end.

Congrats to coach Bud and his staff for making the doubters like me eat a heaping serving of crow.

@YATittle posted:

I was wrong.

his adjustments in the Sun series after game 2 were excellent.

he deserves an extension

He actually made some great adjustments after game 1 but they just couldn't make enough shots in game 2 to match the hot shooting by the Suns. The crappy 2nd quarter was the difference in the game. Suns hit a lot of contested 3's.

I agree, PackerHawk, and think Bud did amazing work in the Suns series. Keep them guessing on D was great.

I think Budenholzer did adjust- but the criticism still holds weight because it came after they were down 2-0. You need to be ahead of your opponent, force them to adjust, and you’re not always going to get bailed out by an all-time great performance.

That said, I don’t want to totally shit on the guy.  The Bucks clearly identified Paul as an attrition candidate, and they unleashed the hounds on him all series. He proved unable to go the distance. He was a diminishing return each game until he could really only give them about 15-20 min of quality play, and that looked to me like something the Bucks knew. It really tilted the series, because it left them with only Booker against the Bucks big 3.

Will that work against the Nets at 100%? No. But it was the right call in this series.

Budd putting Jrue on CP3 & full court....making that old man WORK his ass off every possession.

It was perfect. I'm just glad Pat C. in Game 5 & Bobby Portis all series gave them the minutes they needed. Especially game 6 for Portis. Giannis needed just a little help & he got it from the People's Champ. Kha$h money with some timely buckets too.