Warriors at Bucks, January 13th - No Steph

24-33 Bucks, after 1 quarter.

33-24 at the end of one.

The Warriors are basically a G league team tonight with Curry, Paul, and Draymond out.

More horrible defense by the Bucks and the Warriors get it back to 35-33. Dunks and wide open 3s.

Warriors cut the Bucks' lead to 2.

Bucks still sleepwalking.

Portis has returned to being awful for 2024 after one great game. He's 1 for 6 from the floor and has been abused trying to play defense.

Bucks allowing a lot of lane penetration.

Middleton is playing like he's drunk.

Last three possessions.

Middleton turnover, Middleton dribbles off his foot out of bounds, Beasley dribbles off his foot out of bounds,.

Bucks down 46-41

@MichiganPacker posted:

Last three possessions.

Middleton turnover, Middleton dribbles off his foot out of bounds, Beasley dribbles off his foot out of bounds,.

Bucks down 46-41

Then give up a transition layup off a make. Down 48-43.

A continuation of the pathetic play they've had the last two weeks other than the Celtics game.

Warriors up 5, 48-43. Putting lots of pressure on Lopez to stop the Warrior's breakaways.

Bucks gave up 24 points in the first half of the second quarter.

Now the Bucks give up 4 offensive rebounds on the same possession.

Terrible D rebounding by the Bucks. Warriors had about 5 put backs there.

Warriors up 56-54 at the half.

Bucks lucky to be only down 56-54 after a pathetic second quarter.

Bucks now down 5 in the third.

The Warriors are playing the second of a back-to-back without 4 of their top 6 players.

Pathetic.

Now down 7 after the Bucks defense gives up a wide open 3 to Klay Thompson in a set situation.

If they lose to the JV Warriors tonight in this situation, heads should roll.

Portis ties it with a 3 and Dame gives us the lead! Ajax with some good D leading to Dame's 3.

Giannis has entered into a terrible stretch again. Turnover machine.

Maybe the Bucks hire Greg Gard. His team isn't playing like this.

81-83 Bucks after 3.

Tied in the 4th. Hard to overstate how overmatched Portis looks trying to play defense. Lopez unplayable too.

Ajax!

Sloppy looking.

Stupid basketball.

Allowing Klay to get multiple open 3s and then Giannis takes an early shot clock 3.

Maybe someone should cover Klay Thompson.

118-129 Bucks win.

So how bad did they lose?

129 - 118

Bucks end up winning by 11, but had to play Dame and Giannis 37 minutes on the front end of a back to back.

Bucks really extended the lead when they brought in Jackson instead of Lopez/Portis/Connaughton.

I think Connaughton might be out of the rotation soon. Might as well play Jackson instead.

@PackerHawk posted:

So how bad did they lose?

Jackson was the key guy in this one. 10 points, 10 rebounds in 27 minutes. They were behind by 1 when they brought him in during the 4th quarter. He provides point of attack defense.

True on the minutes but they did have 3 days off before the Celtic beatdown with lower minutes.

@ammo posted:

Maybe the Bucks hire Greg Gard. His team isn't playing like this.

The Bucks biggest problem is they are generally terrible fighting through screens. Gard's guys ALWAYS fight through the screens.

Is Griffin fired yet?

Not sure where Connaughton fits as he isn’t a good defender and his 3pt shooting has been spotty since the injury.

Jackson Jr should be getting more minutes because it looks like he can actually defend guys.

Early to mid-January.....Did they figure something out with Jackson?

I think having Portis out there with Giannis has helped open things up, but the most encouraging development has been Middleton.  You saw last night he took over the 4Q and honestly we haven’t really seen that in a couple of years pre-injury.

@Boris posted:

Is Griffin fired yet?

Only if he loses in the first round of the playoffs.

@Boris posted:

Early to mid-January.....Did they figure something out with Jackson?

Jackson is really different than most of the other guys they've taken a flyer on during the Giannis era. He was a terrible shooter in college, but the second best player on an NCAA title team despite averaging 7 points a game.

The formula has always been to basically have Giannis, Middleton, Bledsoe/Jrue/Dame, Lopez/Portis, and then another guy. Sometimes Lopez/Portis. get played off the floor and they have to go with two "other" guys, but for the most part that's who gets minutes.

They've tried a lot of guys they try to set up as the 5th starter/wing minutes guys. Drafting where they draft, the picks are going to have flaws. The guys they sign as free agents are going to have flaws given their salaries. They end up with several types.

The best "other" guy they had was Brogdon, but he was hurt a lot, and they essentially traded him, Bledsoe, and George Hill (and about 10 draft picks) to first upgrade to Jrue and then upgrade to Lillard. Brogdon could defend, shoot the 3, and play PG. He's the ideal 5th guy (and they win a title with him 2019 if Bledsoe hits anything or Giannis hits FTs against the Raptors).

Other than that, they've slotted 3 types of "5th guys."

Type 1: Classic 3 and D. The goal was for these guys to be decent defenders (and more importantly, switchable) and hopefully hit enough open 3s to keep defenses honest. All of these guys were turnover machines when they were run off the 3 point line. George Hill was a potential exception, but he was ancient by the time he was a Buck. DDV did almost everything they needed, but he had 3-4 possessions a game where he'd drive wildly to the rim and throw up a prayer. Other than Hill, none of these guys had good vision as passers.

Connaughton, Matthews, Crowder, PJ Tucker, Sterling Brown, DDV, DJ Wilson, Beauchamp, Ojeleye, George Hill, Torrey Craig

Type 2: Great shooters, but can't guard anyone or handle the ball.

Beasley, Forbes, Ingles, Korver, AJ Green, Nwora, Merrill, Mirotic,

Type 3. Pure point guards that can't defend or shoot consistently. Point guards that can handle the ball well, but can't guard anyone, and don't shoot particularly well consistently. These guys got minutes when Bledsoe/Jrue/Dame sit.

Jeff Teague, Cam Payne

Outlier. Jevon Carter. Great on-ball defender, decent enough 3 pointer (as long has he's not jacking up pull up 3s in playoff games). Terrible as a point guard distributor and just too short to play in a playoff game in crunch time.

Jackson is a tremendous passer and Griffin is trying him at point guard now. He got Payne's minutes last night and brought the ball up the floor a few times. He's a very good defender, a very good rebounder (better than any of these other guys listed), and may be the best passer of any Buck. He has tremendous court vision and is a threat for a triple double if he plays big minutes (the points are the biggest problem).

Can he be a poor man's Draymond Green or is he just too poor an outside shooter to play (especially alongside Giannis)? That's the question.