Bucks 2020-2021 season thread

[adambr2]

Unfortunately, I don't expect Game 7 to go our way but it's better to have the chance than not.

 

A lot of people poo pooed the importance of capturing the 2 seed versus the 3 seed when the regular season was nearing the end. Looks pretty damn important now.

 

Ahem

 

viewtopic.php?p=1353970#p1353970

 

Yeah I know you stressed the importance. Wasn't specifically referring to anyone here. Just social media, etc, a lot of folks didn't seem to think it mattered much if we were the 2 or 3 if we weren't the 1.

[Mr Southpaw]

Play Bobby Portis please

[Austin Tatious]

Middleton has been incredible tonight.

 

One of the most underrated players in the league in terms of being talked about. People know he’s good, just he’s barely mentioned. I’m reading and watching quite a bit national media during the playoffs and there is nary a word about him but he’s a true pro. Not afraid of pressure either. I wouldn’t say that about the full roster….at all.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Middleton is really everything in Game 7. He could exorcise a lot of demons with a great game. Giannis is going to get his 30 but if we can trust Khris with the ball at the end of the game and he's the one shooting free throws it makes it much more plausible.

 

I have no faith and am conditioned to heartbreak but I guess we have a chance. It feels like we've really been dominant for 3 straight games.

[DuWayne Steurer]

If it takes Durant 30 shots to get 32 pts, the defense did it's job.

[Fear The Chorizo]

This game is the end result of Durant having to play all 48 minutes in game 5 two nights ago to get them a W, too...he was really good tonight, but not great.

 

Game 7 will come down to whether the Bucks make enough 3s to offset the difference in free throws based on how games are officiated in Brooklyn compared to Milwaukee. Also, the offense should continue to run through the post, because the Nets have no good answers down there.

[GAME05]

Khris is an underrated superstar when we win and the guy we need to upgrade when we lose.

[DuWayne Steurer]

This game is the end result of Durant having to play all 48 minutes in game 5 two nights ago to get them a W, too...he was really good tonight, but not great.

 

Game 7 will come down to whether the Bucks make enough 3s to offset the difference in free throws based on how games are officiated in Brooklyn compared to Milwaukee. Also, the offense should continue to run through the post, because the Nets have no good answers down there.

 

I still don't get why they're not setting up an all you can score buffet for Lopez. He should be getting 20 to 22 a game this series until or unless bkn proves that they can stop him.

[areacodes]

Nothing in the NBA is more cringey than emptying your bench in a blowout and seeing them flirt with the line of "maybe we need to put some starters back in."

 

Is getting it down to 13 with 1:23 remaining in the game really flirting with needing you put your starters back in?

[OldSchoolSnapper]

This game is the end result of Durant having to play all 48 minutes in game 5 two nights ago to get them a W, too...he was really good tonight, but not great.

 

Game 7 will come down to whether the Bucks make enough 3s to offset the difference in free throws based on how games are officiated in Brooklyn compared to Milwaukee. Also, the offense should continue to run through the post, because the Nets have no good answers down there.

 

I still don't get why they're not setting up an all you can score buffet for Lopez. He should be getting 20 to 22 a game this series until or unless bkn proves that they can stop him.

 

That's easy. They'd rather he shoot 3s.

[owbc]

That was fun.

[adambr2]

Nothing in the NBA is more cringey than emptying your bench in a blowout and seeing them flirt with the line of "maybe we need to put some starters back in."

 

Is getting it down to 13 with 1:23 remaining in the game really flirting with needing you put your starters back in?

 

I didn't say they had crossed that line. It went from 21 to 13 quickly and if it gets down to single digits then yeah you're probably there. I've seen it happen and it is awkward when it does.

[areacodes]

Nothing in the NBA is more cringey than emptying your bench in a blowout and seeing them flirt with the line of "maybe we need to put some starters back in."

 

Is getting it down to 13 with 1:23 remaining in the game really flirting with needing you put your starters back in?

 

I didn't say they had crossed that line. It went from 21 to 13 quickly and if it gets down to single digits then yeah you're probably there. I've seen it happen and it is awkward when it does.

 

I feel like your misremembering how quickly it happened.

 

Bucks were up 21 at 4:06 after Middleton made a shot and then called a timeout up 19 at 3:50 to put in the reserves. Took the Nets almost two and a half minutes to whittle the lead 6 more points, down to 13 - for the NBA, that doesn’t seem to quick to me.

 

Agree 100% with you that it is awkward, and slightly embarrassing, when you’ve got to put the starters back in but don’t feel like it was really close to that in this game. If the Nets had been down 13 1/1.5 minutes earlier I think your comment is more accurate as getting to single digits with enough time to do something would have been more likely.

[nodakfan17]

I’m pleased with last night’s outcome, but can’t help but think it will only pump us up with hope before a crushing Game 7 loss. At least our children will grow up with the ability to manage their own expectations.

[adambr2]

I’m pleased with last night’s outcome, but can’t help but think it will only pump us up with hope before a crushing Game 7 loss. At least our children will grow up with the ability to manage their own expectations.

 

Our parents grew up in the sports era of enormous losers and zero expectations (70s/80s Packers and Brewers, 80/90s Bucks, pre-program development Badgers).

 

We grew up in the sports era of great regular season teams and enormous expectations that were never met.

 

I'm not sure which is worse.

[DuWayne Steurer]

That's where I am. The Brewers can have a 10-game lead and I will still expect them to somehow not make the playoffs. I take whatever success from the bucks that they get. The Badgers will occasionally win a Rose bowl or an Orange bowl here or there and I have learned that that is the level of success that I need to be happy with.

 

The Packers are a bit different. We won in 96, and there was no reason we shouldn't have. That team was absolutely studded with premier talent, and anything short of a super bowl victory would have been a massive massive disappointment. But they did what they were supposed to do and delivered.

 

2010 feels like an anomaly. They were eight and six and looking like they weren't even going to make the playoffs. They won their last two games and squeaked in. Then road victoried their way to the super bowl as a 10 and 6 team and beat the Steelers. Since then we've made it a habit of making it to the NFC title game to be someone else's stepping stone. That 2010 victory, I don't know, it just feels like we shouldn't have been there. Maybe it's my conditioning as a fan of Wisconsin sports teams.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

They followed up their 2010 Super Bowl by going 15-1 and looking completely unstoppable on offense. They deserved to win the Super Bowl in 2010, they just bloomed at the end of the season, they were pretty average in the beginning and middle offensively.

 

The unfortunate part is that they looked to still be "on the rise" in 2010 and primed to play in several Super Bowls. Didn't work out that way.

[adambr2]

That's where I am. The Brewers can have a 10-game lead and I will still expect them to somehow not make the playoffs. I take whatever success from the bucks that they get. The Badgers will occasionally win a Rose bowl or an Orange bowl here or there and I have learned that that is the level of success that I need to be happy with.

 

The Packers are a bit different. We won in 96, and there was no reason we shouldn't have. That team was absolutely studded with premier talent, and anything short of a super bowl victory would have been a massive massive disappointment. But they did what they were supposed to do and delivered.

 

2010 feels like an anomaly. They were eight and six and looking like they weren't even going to make the playoffs. They won their last two games and squeaked in. Then road victoried their way to the super bowl as a 10 and 6 team and beat the Steelers. Since then we've made it a habit of making it to the NFC title game to be someone else's stepping stone. That 2010 victory, I don't know, it just feels like we shouldn't have been there. Maybe it's my conditioning as a fan of Wisconsin sports teams.

 

We're very fortunate that 2010 happened or I think this era of Packer football would be widely seen as one of the bigger postseason failures in NFL history. Maybe we shouldn't have been there in 2010, but there were other times in the Rodgers era that we should have been and weren't.

 

2010 is tough to gauge because we were such a different team at various points in the season. There were times when we looked unstoppable and times that we didn't even resemble a playoff team. It's hard to say we weren't the best team by the time February rolled around, though. The divisional win in Atlanta was the point where I crossed over from doubting to realizing that we weren't going to be stopped.

[adambr2]

They followed up their 2010 Super Bowl by going 15-1 and looking completely unstoppable on offense. They deserved to win the Super Bowl in 2010, they just bloomed at the end of the season, they were pretty average in the beginning and middle offensively.

 

The unfortunate part is that they looked to still be "on the rise" in 2010 and primed to play in several Super Bowls. Didn't work out that way.

 

15-1 is 15-1 but that was about as faux of a 15-1 as you can have and I never felt great about that team going into the playoffs. That 2011 defense was so bad.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

If we are picking apart 15-1 I can easily pick apart 10-6. They essentially lost two games without Rodgers playing, lost back to back games in OT and never trailed by 7 all season. I think their Pythagorean was 12-4 that year and while they looked a bit fluffy in 2011 they were a wild card that nobody really wanted to play the year before.

[adambr2]

If we are picking apart 15-1 I can easily pick apart 10-6. They essentially lost two games without Rodgers playing, lost back to back games in OT and never trailed by 7 all season. I think their Pythagorean was 12-4 that year and while they looked a bit fluffy in 2011 they were a wild card that nobody really wanted to play the year before.

 

I mean yeah they were a really good team in 2010, obviously. Most of their bad stretches in 2010 were during injury riddled times. The difference between the defense in '10 and '11 was night and day. I don't know if that's picking apart 15-1, the defense was just really bad and Rodgers had to be godly and while that worked in the regular season it wasn't enough in the playoffs.

 

I'm not really sure what happened as the defense was quite good in '09 and '10. I think they had some pretty rough injuries in the secondary and never really recovered from losing Nick Collins. I also don't think that BJ Raji ever really developed into the force that they were hoping for. He always struck me as a guy who was content getting by on his natural talent and wasn't willing to put in the amount of work that was needed to be great.

[patrickgpe]

I have no faith in the Bucks to win Game 7, but it really does seem like if they just pound the paint, they'd win.

they dominated the 1st half of game 5, only to lose because KD had the game of his playoff career. I think while less than 50/50, they do have a chance. Granted Harden was much better yesterday than game 5 and I wonder if Kyrie is going to give it a good tomorrow night.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I'd be pretty surprised if Kyrie can go. His game is a lot more agility than Harden's, who can be decent just standing around shooting 3s. He can probably do that, but how many guys can they have on the court who can't run?

[pacopete4]

I don't see a game 7 loss as crushing in this situation. The Nets are supposed to be the better team here. IF the Bucks end up knocking them off and moving on, awesome. If they lose, well it isn't like they're playing some terrible team.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Yeah I don't think the Nets are the better team. With a full roster, yes, but they have no Irving and half of James Harden. This is basically the Bucks without DDV trying to outscore Kevin Durant. He played out of his mind in Game 5 but it probably wouldn't have been enough without the classic Bucks Pumpkin player Green hitting every shot he took. Championship opportunities are probably not going to get better than this season for the foreseeable future with the Lakers hurt and bounced out early and getting a ton of lucky breaks this series. I don't think we're going to win because Wisconsin, but there is really not a great reason we should lose this game.