PG Heat: Loss

[Siefer]

Miami is a miserable team to play against, even when we win. Spo maximizes what he has against us and plays to his win conditions. First, force Giannis to either give up the ball, be inefficient, or hit a bunch of foul shots, and if the refs don't call a single foul when you grab and hit, hell yeah. Second, set a million screens above the arc, and try to hit 20+ threes. When it doesn't work, they get completely waxed. When it does, the Bucks often melt down in frustration.

Zooming out, yeah, Dame has been a C- (relative to his standards) so far, we really miss Midds, and both Jae and Pat have lost a lot of juice.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

jrue, javon, matthews all gone.... AND GRAYSON. you guys always leave grayson out. hes a huge loss too. the biggest besides jrue and on both sides. using analytics and on/offs he was a much bigger asset to our defense than hes given credit for.... and blah blah blah takes to long to get his shot off for a guy who never misses i know i know

[SirChurros]

Kinda funny to watch ... we are missing too many assignments and our drop scheme still hurts us.

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Can’t take anyone who doesn’t know the difference between waste and waist, seriously.

[fan230]

Bud had asked Wes to guard Butler after Jrue was failing to do so. Wes briefly did a good job. Then Jrue waved Wes off when he tried to guard Butler again. Bud didn’t overrule his star guard as that would cause other problems.

Yes Bud missed a crucial timeout/s but that happened when he was processing his brother’s death.

In the penultimate game, we were leading the Heat. But suddenly in the last 5 minutes, both Khris and Jrue inexplicably played very poorly and we lost that very crucial game.

Also, in that game, Giannis had returned after missing games due to injuries (these missed games helped the Heat win earlier games), yet he still had a triple double in that penultimate game.

We blamed Bud for all the above, and see where we are today!

Also in retrospect I think that Horst’s seat was becoming too hot after the Miami loss. He had to do something.

[tsamo]

The criticism of Dame is justified. He's been underwhelming, especially over the last month. But I think his performance issues speak to the lack of chemistry between him and the rest of the offense - particularly Giannis. Dame and Giannis just have not figured out how to work together and maximize each other's potential. Part of that is the fact that Dame was brought in relatively late in the offseason, and part of that is the fact that Griffin wasn't the right coach to help foster that growth. But I think a significant barrier is that neither Giannis nor Dame have figured out how to be effective off the ball.

Giannis has never in his career played with a superstar ballhandler, particularly one with Lillard's offensive abilities. Lillard has always been the guy to run the show back in Portland, whether he was paired with CJ or LMA. Both Giannis and Lillard were given carte blanche to run their offenses around them, and they both initiated offense consistently with the ball in their hands.

I think the key here is that Damian Lillard must be the guy to get the lion's share of the ballhandling, and Giannis just had to become more effective as a screener and roller, more comfortable operating out of the post, and has to defer to Lillard otherwise when it comes to ballhandling. Lillard also has to become better operating without the ball when Giannis is in the post and/or double teamed. He can screen for Giannis, too. But Dame has to be the primary ballhandler and initiator of the offense.

That's going to be hard for Giannis, because he thrives taking dudes off the dribble and steamrolling to the basket. And he can still do that when Dame is on the bench (Doc has to stagger them as much as possible). But this offense will not work in the playoffs if Dame is just standing in the corner while Giannis is dribbling the ball up the court. It'll just be a redux of every playoff failure when teams just wall off Giannis.

I don't care about the rest of the regular season if Doc just focuses all of his efforts on maximizing their two man game. Because if he can get that right, I think we'll beat anyone and everyone.

Yeah, I'm not buying it.
For specific games this year, we've seen Giannis falling back and letting Dame take the lion's share of the ball handling duties.
The result in those games? Giannis has way less impact with no ball in his hands and Dame is still as bad if not worse.
Maybe as some people said, Dame is just who he is, as his splits are right around what they were last year.
Maybe he'll show up in the playoffs, but as a friend of mine said, he'd trade Lillard for Young with not another thought before people find out Lillard just is not a winning player.

[LUKE23]

Bucks net rating is currently +3.2. Last years team ended at +3.6. Given that they had the worst coach in the NBA for however many games, it’s at minimum a wash and that’s with Dame shooting near career low from 3.

It’s fine if you like a “grinding” style more, but please don’t say last years team was any better. It wasn’t. And the reason we moved on from Jrue is because he has been an absolute trainwreck on offense in the playoffs.

Also Allen isn’t any better than Beasley and Bev is just as playoff playable as Carter.

[rilamann]

To be fair I don’t think dames a drunk or wanted to date models in Miami. I just don’t think he’s anywhere near as good as advertised. He has had the best marketing department in the nba.

When most people say Dame looks drunk or hungover, I don't think people actually think he's drunk or hungover. I would assume most people are being sarcastic because Dame looks totally disinterested and checked out mentally.

Dame looks as if he could be drunk or hungover, but I don't think most people actually think that is the case.

I said it back in November and I will say it again. Giannis has some bad games too on occasion, but Giannis could play 25 years in the NBA and when he has a bad game no one will ever even jokingly accuse him of being drunk or hungover.

Why?

Because even when Giannis has a bad game, he never looks disinterested or checked out mentally.

I do agree that Dame isn't as good as advertised, I've been saying for years and long before he was a member of the Bucks that Dame is overrated. I always thought Dame was a all-star level player, but overrated if you call him a Superstar.

That said, you can tell when a guy's heart just isn't into it.

And I would bet all my chips on the fact he's pissed because he wanted to go to Miami to party but he ended up in Milwaukee.

The guy literally demanded to be traded to Miami and said he would refuse a trade anywhere else this past summer. Then at the last second before training camp, got sent to Milwaukee.

I get that Miami is a good team and I could see Miami being on a list of 5 or 6 teams. But if you were serious about winning a championship, you wouldn't be hell bent on being traded to Miami and refuse a trade anywhere else.

It's a real Scooby-Doo mystery we've got here....lol.

[sidney lanier]

We knew it would be a jagged learning curve with Doc and his assistants, just as it was with Griffin.

Last nights game goes well beyond the coaching. It is a Miami matchup problem.

We fired Bud for not being able to handle Miami.But we're learning the Miami problem wasn't all on Bud.

Their personnel, as coached by Spoelstra, has figured out how to contain Giannis, bother our other shooters, and in the meantime, get wide open looks themselves. We've seen it now for years.

Very true. Maybe someday officials will notice that every spread-eagle screen Bam sets is illegal and put a dent in Heat Culture. Until then, we need to find a way to counter the little Spo cheats that are built into the way they play, and I think Doc will.

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[chonestown]

you could just as easily drawn the conclusion that the franchise needed to move on from giannis for his ft ineptitude and lack of fundamentals that makes him a bad option for gaurding top players.

I could not just as easily draw that conclusion.

I could not draw that conclusion even in the most tortured of reasoning.

Bud's entire coaching career carries the millstone of playoff underachievement.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

Bucks net rating is currently +3.2. Last years team ended at +3.6. Given that they had the worst coach in the NBA for however many games, it’s at minimum a wash and that’s with Dame shooting near career low from 3.

It’s fine if you like a “grinding” style more, but please don’t say last years team was any better. It wasn’t. And the reason we moved on from Jrue is because he has been an absolute trainwreck on offense in the playoffs.

Also Allen isn’t any better than Beasley and Bev is just as playoff playable as Carter.

last years srs 3.61 over an entire year without khris and our starters playing less and with more load management. this year its 2.61 largely with khris and the guys playing the most minutes in years.

im not even going to address the allen vs beasley and bev comment. there isnt a decision maker in the league that would agree with you. so thats just an extremely lousy opinion. but in your defense we all have them so no big deal tho

[LUKE23]

Khris was on a minute restriction and didn’t play B2B for large part of the season and is now hurt again. And like I said, last years team had Bud, this years team had worst coach in NBA.

This years team is no worse. It’s just different. And Dame was added for the playoffs more than regular season while Jrue was a better regular season player. We will see how it shakes out.

Your takes on Grayson Allen and Jevon Carter are laughable, also.

[jimmybones]

I don't have kids but I truly empathize with how brutal it is for Dame to have to be away from them, his kids are young too, even harder. Money will never replace family so I don't feel less bad for him because he's loaded.

I preface that way because I hope this question comes off in good faith. But, is it completely unprecedented for a pro athlete to be traded to a new city as he's going through a divorce and leading to him being separated from his kids? Again, not coming from a place of "just suck it up, pro athlete, etc." but just truly trying to gauge how much of his situation is potentially effecting him on the court.

If it is, the next level of questioning has to be "how do we 'fix' this?" Short of reuniting him with his kids, which we have no power over, what even can be done? Guys get traded and fail to live up to expectations due to injury or age or just flat out falling off all the time...but...

...even considering how bad I feel for the guy on a personal level, if we traded for a great player only to never see his greatness due to him being unable to focus on playing basketball due to personal turmoil that has got to be some of the worst luck possible. I don't know, as humans we all try to make sense of our uncertainties and I guess I'm just spit-balling here. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

*Reserving the right to amend all of this when Dame goes on a heater in March and we go into the playoffs absolutely cooking.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

Your takes on Grayson Allen and Jevon Carter are laughable, also.

i think allens and carters reputations before they became bucks and now reputations and specifically their fg% this year after they were bucks..... should lend one to the idea that a drs visit and head scan would be next if you thought higher of carter than allen

more specifically.....

allen is top 5 elite at a skill that is the most highly valuable offensive trait in the league today and combines it with unselfishness and self awareness.... on the other side hes average or even above average on defense by every available metric. his next contract will be better than his last one. you could say basically hes decent and he knows his role and plays within himself. he has a clue so to speak with what his value is and he stays in his lane. thats a good thing

carter is a inefficient selfish chucking shrimp who plays all over the road. he'll be in and out of the league the rest of his career after this horrible deal hes on is over largely because he hustles good and teams might want to take a chance he could have a shooting year like he had last year one last time before hes gone forever. basically he sucks and has no clue he sucks and thats a bad combination

the idea one would describe them as comps is hysterical

[stillgotgame]

Still mostly annoyed by the fact that Kevin Love is allowed to stick around the NBA because refs fall for his **** of just falling around and flailing near guys, and nobody takes him seriously as a threat offensively.

That scumbag also tried to innocently slide under Bobby while Bobby was up in the air shooting.
Stealth trash, the kind of move that gets players hurt.
Bam does this crap all the time too, ask a Knicks fan.

[jute2003]

Straw that broke the back. This team can go to hell.

Hope Ballys enjoyed that $20 they robbed me of.

You'll be back. As soon as they beat the Hornets by 11.

You really think it'll take that much?

[Frank Nova]

Where in the world are these accusations of Dame being a drunk and wanting to bang super models coming from? Because he’s a rapper? I’ve never seen anything about this until ppl here have mentioned it. Where did that all start from?? That just seems so ridiculous.

[yannisk]

The criticism of Dame is justified. He's been underwhelming, especially over the last month. But I think his performance issues speak to the lack of chemistry between him and the rest of the offense - particularly Giannis. Dame and Giannis just have not figured out how to work together and maximize each other's potential. Part of that is the fact that Dame was brought in relatively late in the offseason, and part of that is the fact that Griffin wasn't the right coach to help foster that growth. But I think a significant barrier is that neither Giannis nor Dame have figured out how to be effective off the ball.

Giannis has never in his career played with a superstar ballhandler, particularly one with Lillard's offensive abilities. Lillard has always been the guy to run the show back in Portland, whether he was paired with CJ or LMA. Both Giannis and Lillard were given carte blanche to run their offenses around them, and they both initiated offense consistently with the ball in their hands.

I think the key here is that Damian Lillard must be the guy to get the lion's share of the ballhandling, and Giannis just had to become more effective as a screener and roller, more comfortable operating out of the post, and has to defer to Lillard otherwise when it comes to ballhandling. Lillard also has to become better operating without the ball when Giannis is in the post and/or double teamed. He can screen for Giannis, too. But Dame has to be the primary ballhandler and initiator of the offense.

That's going to be hard for Giannis, because he thrives taking dudes off the dribble and steamrolling to the basket. And he can still do that when Dame is on the bench (Doc has to stagger them as much as possible). But this offense will not work in the playoffs if Dame is just standing in the corner while Giannis is dribbling the ball up the court. It'll just be a redux of every playoff failure when teams just wall off Giannis.

I don't care about the rest of the regular season if Doc just focuses all of his efforts on maximizing their two man game. Because if he can get that right, I think we'll beat anyone and everyone.

The problem with Lillard is that he is not hitting his shots, we all hope that this will improve, he has proven he is better scorer than what we have seen so far. He gets the ball plenty, apart from his shooting I have not seen anything to suggest he is some kind of great play maker, I have seen better passing from Middleton than him. He misses easy passes/reads, he is a scoring pg not a floor general.

[JayMKE]

The fact is that Giannis is better with the ball in his hands than Lillard so asking Giannis to defer doesn't make a lot of sense, if Dame can't be effective without him pounding the ball then its simply a bad pairing and he never was as good as people thought to begin with. We need a guy who plays defense and compliments other players on offense more than we needed another guy dominating the ball & taking 20 shots a game. You guys said Murray was a bad fit but what we have right now I don't think is going to work between Dame & Giannis.

[LUKE23]

Giannis is better with the ball in his hands in transition. Halfcourt possessions should be starting with Dame with the ball and working actions off of that. There still isn't nearly enough Dame/GA PnR. That's on coaches and players.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Bucks haven't had a dude like this in a while but there's just a level of variance you have to accept with a guy like Dame. He might get 40 one night win you a game but he's also going to shoot 4-16 some days and because he's a bad defender he'll be a pretty big net negative those nights.

Just is what it is and you hope he has more good than bad games when it matters.

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