PG San Antonio: Dame Time boats races Spurs

[blazza18]

The Bucks are going to be lose in the second round because they can’t stop anyone and rilamann is going to go into a post game thread and write a story telling us he never trusted this team or Griffin.

[old skool]

The Spurs played hard, while the Bucks did their best to stay motivated and focused. The Spurs likely walked away feeling OK about their performance. The Bucks could not take satisfaction in any result less than a 20 point blowout. It was hard for me to criticize the effort. The Bucks were going to win absent an out of body 3-point barrage from the Spurs. Difficult for the Bucks to get excited about a game that offered little in the way of interest or challenge.

[old skool]

I think the Bucks are currently at their ceiling. Their health ceiling. Few games missed by core players due to injury or rest management. As a result. I think their record is better than their performance to date. The schedule has been soft and made softer by the latest 6 game home stand. We will have a better handle on who the Bucks are when we play San Antonio for the final time on January 4. Between now and then the Bucks play 7 games, all against teams .500 or better, and 5 of the 7 on the road.

After having played only 13 games of 27 against teams currently .500 or better (48%), 39 of the remaining 55 games are against teams .500 or better (71%). Inordinately healthy, with lots of home games and lots of games against teams with losing records.

Nonetheless, the Bucks are clearly meshing better on both ends of the court. While improvement is visible in almost every aspect of their play, they are vulnerable to injury to Giannis or Lopez. The lack of front court depth would pose serious problems.

[greekbuck34]

Stop using these games to prove that our defense is a joke. We were clearly coasting last night after our 21-3 run and we are incapable of playing Griff's defense without 100% hustle from everybody and Giannis on DPOY mode all over the place.

With Bud, Giannis and Brook would park the bus inside the paint and the only men who were hustling their ass through screens and players were Jrue/Wes/Carter to cover for the drop defense. You can coast like that, especially against bad teams that can't shoot wide open pullup jumpshots, and it was the only defense we run for 5 seasons in a row.

The problem in tha past was that we couldn't coast on offense. We needed our 3s to hit or Jrue and Khris to have over 30% FG. Otherwise Giannis had to score +40 through the wall of defenders.

This season we are scoring blindfolded. We are not even trying and we get 130 points at times. All because we switched from Jrue/Wes/Carter to Dame/Beasley/Payne, the spacing is insane and our offense is extremely versatile. I will take that defense/offense trade off any time of the week. Especially since Bud's defense was not consistent at all against the good shooting teams.

[ShootingtheJ]

Still pretty much the same. We have an absolute garbage defense that's not going to get us anywhere in the postseason. It's comical that these bad teams can run up such high scores against us.

Not defending the defense, but part of the high scores against us is because of pace. We're playing faster. It's a higher possession game.

Which is why this stat called defensive rating exists and the Bucks have been bottom 10 in it the entire season.

We're not bottom 10, and they've been middle of the league ever since we changed Brooks role.

[ShootingtheJ]

The Bucks are going to be lose in the second round because they can’t stop anyone and rilamann is going to go into a post game thread and write a story telling us he never trusted this team or Griffin.

Which team is beating us in the 2nd round? Our crunch time defense has actually been good, wouldn't our playoff defense be similar? Also, you don't think we'll add a defender in trade? Horst is extremely aggressive.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

The Bucks are going to be lose in the second round because they can’t stop anyone and rilamann is going to go into a post game thread and write a story telling us he never trusted this team or Griffin.

yep..there have been some positive signs but here are the facts....

our srs, adjusted net rating, expected wins are all more in line with how the rockets, warriors, magic and knicks have been performing. SRS for emample is all within a point. with giannis specifically playing more minutes and more games than he has for years along with the minutes dame plays compared to the approach of previous seasons that remains a bit alarming. we should certainly be well ahead of the numbers we now seem to be holding

so bottom line the actually good teams in the league have far out performed us so far and the metrics show a large gap. emphasis on LARGE gap. so we have some work to do.

its just much to early for victory laps when we have played the 2nd easiest schedule of any team and have been so disorganized and disjointed that our own players have been calling us out in frustration as we see nightly oursleves as well. the best we can do here is stay patient which im really trying to do.

if this season has shown me anything the positive signs of the potential we could have especially with dame brings me hope... but i remain convinced that we do not have the man on the job that can lead this team to a championship level. ive perhaps moved on from suggesting we may never achieve what we had with bud.... but it is of course dependent on whether we get a guy back that can coach and have this teams respect to the high level bud had these past 5 years. to me the idea griff has the potential to become some bigtime champion type is beyond ludicrous.

[GHOSTofSIKMA]

I think the Bucks are currently at their ceiling. Their health ceiling. Few games missed by core players due to injury or rest management. As a result. I think their record is better than their performance to date. The schedule has been soft and made softer by the latest 6 game home stand. We will have a better handle on who the Bucks are when we play San Antonio for the final time on January 4. Between now and then the Bucks play 7 games, all against teams .500 or better, and 5 of the 7 on the road.

After having played only 13 games of 27 against teams currently .500 or better (48%), 39 of the remaining 55 games are against teams .500 or better (71%). Inordinately healthy, with lots of home games and lots of games against teams with losing records.

Nonetheless, the Bucks are clearly meshing better on both ends of the court. While improvement is visible in almost every aspect of their play, they are vulnerable to injury to Giannis or Lopez. The lack of front court depth would pose serious problems.

very good synopsis and good point on giannis and lopez. both with drtgs along with all starters that are acceptable. bobby tanks our drtg hard. we need to see about getting a third center that can protect the rim a little who shows some interest in hustling and a small attempt on getting back after all the hard work and focus on offense like bobby has. injury to giannis or lopez being a problem would be a problem indeed

[GiannisAnte34]

The Bucks are going to be lose in the second round because they can’t stop anyone and rilamann is going to go into a post game thread and write a story telling us he never trusted this team or Griffin.

Which team is beating us in the 2nd round? Our crunch time defense has actually been good, wouldn't our playoff defense be similar? Also, you don't think we'll add a defender in trade? Horst is extremely aggressive.

Boston or Philly probably

[GoldenAntlers]

Sheesh. Get some sun.

[JayMKE]

Not too much credit need to be had when beating up the worst teams in the league. Stats are cheap now, Griff doesn’t have much to do with our offensive talent, eventually they were going to figure out how to play on their own on offense. Don’t think defense works as well that way.

[pifhluk23]

5 game win streak…how we feeling bout Griff these days?

Team is looking better but I keep harping on how ridiculously easy and home weighted our schedule has been. This next stretch is a little tougher with Magic, Knicks x 2 Pacers x 2 but I still want to see us against Celtics, Wolves, 76ers, Thunder, Nuggets etc. before judging whether we've improved or not.

Still dead last in SOS and we have the 4th hardest schedule for the rest of the year.

[midranger]

There’s been a lot of misery here to support cherished narratives.

[PG Graveyard]

If it makes you feel any better about our win last night the Pelicans lost at home to Memphis and the Suns lost to the Trailblazers. Also the greatest top 6 in history lost to the Warriors because they can’t score in crunch time. Somehow that rarely gets mentioned about said greatest 6 man unit.

Edit: forgot Ja came back, but if we want to go back one day Philly lost at home to the Bulls.

[Ron Swanson]

Yep, Celtics losing to an aggressively mediocre Warriors team cuz they look like the worst 4th quarter and clutch time offense out of all the contenders. Meanwhile, "we didn't beat the Spurs by enough"....

I'll take our problems over theirs any day.

[JimmyTheKid]

Why are some of you guys so damn miserable all the time? Enjoy the ride. I have a feeling the defense will fix itself in the playoffs when the intensity goes up.

I’m no fan of Griffin, but I also don’t make it a habit to be so damn insufferable after every win.

Its definitely been a lot more fun since Griffin stopped insisting Brook and Bobby defend in space 30+ feet from the basket. Also finally putting obvious rotation member, Andre Jackson, Jr., in the rotation has helped. I've stopped complaining about the coach in every post game thread as a result. Am I still a bit nervous about Griffin's ability to make quick adjustments when things get dicey come playoff time? Well, yeah, considering his sloth-like ability to execute the obvious. Luckily AJJ is taking full advantage of his opportunity, almost giving Griffin no choice but to play him meaningful minutes going forward.

[MiltownHawkeye]

Yep, Celtics losing to an aggressively mediocre Warriors team cuz they look like the worst 4th quarter and clutch time offense out of all the contenders. Meanwhile, "we didn't beat the Spurs by enough"....

I'll take our problems over theirs any day.

Yeah I agree. It feels like there's more low-hanging fruit to be fixed on this team than there is on the Celtics. Even with Griffin's incompetence (still think he should have been fired already but it's soon getting to the point it's too late) I have more trust that we'll cobble together a decent defense than I do that they'll find someone with enough playmaking/basketball IQ to fix their 4th quarter issues.

[randy84]

I think the Bucks are currently at their ceiling. Their health ceiling. Few games missed by core players due to injury or rest management. As a result. I think their record is better than their performance to date. The schedule has been soft and made softer by the latest 6 game home stand. We will have a better handle on who the Bucks are when we play San Antonio for the final time on January 4. Between now and then the Bucks play 7 games, all against teams .500 or better, and 5 of the 7 on the road.

After having played only 13 games of 27 against teams currently .500 or better (48%), 39 of the remaining 55 games are against teams .500 or better (71%). Inordinately healthy, with lots of home games and lots of games against teams with losing records.

Nonetheless, the Bucks are clearly meshing better on both ends of the court. While improvement is visible in almost every aspect of their play, they are vulnerable to injury to Giannis or Lopez. The lack of front court depth would pose serious problems.

Probably less so this year than in years past. With Dame, the Bucks can still compete even if Giannis is out for a period of time. In years past, this was usually a death knell.

Lopez, on the other hand, could be a big issue with only Rolo as backup. I really wish the Bucks would have signed a better backup especially with Brook's age.

[jschligs]

The benefit of going to a game against a team like the Spurs is I was able to move to center court 8th row without notice in the 2nd quarter.

[buckboy]

This game has no bearing on my opinion, personally.

This is a poorly-coached team with an incredible amount of talent offensively. The defense is bad. The record is pretty because they've played the easiest schedule in the league.

I've been as optimistic as anyone, but the defense needs to improve a lot if this team is going to be a serious title contender. I'd feel better about that possibility if we had a different coach.

And I don't care about a "gotcha" moment and I certainly don't care about some BS about Bud.

Hoping for the best, not expecting much at this point.