2021 NBA Finals: Milwaukee Bucks vs Phoenix Suns BUCKS WIN THE TITLE!!!!

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Giannis may win the Finals MVP even if we lose if the series is competitive enough.

[MrTPlush]

Giannis may win the Finals MVP even if we lose if the series is competitive enough.

 

I would say there is zero chance of this happening because one of Chris Paul or Devin Booker would play too well to not get it on the winning team. Sure, Giannis could win if Booker/Paul play like they did last night, but then the Suns aren't winning this series. I will admit though, I am not overly familiar on the history of the losing team having the player win MVP when it comes to the NBA.

 

If one wanted to make bold predictions for that award I would say Chris Paul winning it with worse stats (but still somewhat close) than Devin Booker would be the true darkhorse scenario, if the Suns won it all of course.

 

That isn't to take anything away from what Giannis is doing, especially with his recent injury scare.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I think it's happened only once with Jerry West. Chris Paul would most likely get it just because of his career arch, but if Giannis keeps scoring 40 points a game while pretending his leg doesn't hurt and it goes 7 it's within the realm of possibility.

[nate82]

The most impressive thing about yesterday's win was the amount of pressure yhe Bucks were able to put on Paul. Jrue did an awesome job in containing Paul and creating some turnovers.

 

This started to happen in game 2 but the Suns were hitting their shots and not missing or barely just missing.

 

Now I remember why Frank isn't a good center as guards still can out rebound him from time to time.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Kaminsky is probably done. He was awfully close to done the first time PHX let go of him.

[adambr2]

Since Torrey Craig started the season with the Bucks and is now on the Suns, he will receive an NBA title ring with any outcome in this series.

[jjfanec]

I had seen some people posting about how jrue isn't much of a step up from bledsoe. The second and third quarters of last night show how wrong that is. His ball movement was incredible and his 3s in the 3rd are just something bledsoe did not do. Those shots were huge. Jrue has been far from perfect but he is simply a better player than bledsoe in almost every aspect. He also isn't afraid down the stretch. Bledsoe looked like a deer in headlights. It is easy to make quick takes after a bad game but there is a reason jrue is regarded around the league as a better player than bledsoe. Last night was a prime example. I say this while being a big bledsoe fan

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The Jrue = Bledsoe thing is just low-hanging fruit that people say when frustrated that he isn't shooting well because they were traded for each other. If they had released Bledsoe and signed Jrue 2 years later it wouldn't be a thing because the two are a mile apart.

 

Is he the needle-moving Wade to Giannis's Shaq? No, but it's not his fault the Bucks acted like he was. He's a very good player. He's strong, long for his position, a heady defender that does lots of things well and is a bit streaky of a shooter.

Edited July 12, 2021 by OldSchoolSnapper

[jjfanec]

The Jrue = Bledsoe thing is just low-hanging fruit that people say when frustrated that he isn't shooting well because they were traded for each other. If they had released Bledsoe and signed Drew 2 years later it wouldn't be a thing because the two are a mile apart.

 

Is he the needle-moving Wade to Giannis's Shaq? No, but it's not his fault the Bucks acted like he was. He's a very good player. He's strong, long for his position, a heady defender that does lots of things well and is a bit streaky of a shooter.

 

Agreed. He will never be an mvp guy like wade but in a lot of ways he was what the team was missing.

[adambr2]

Jrue is always going to be a lightning rod for criticism because he was, in essence, the last ditch effort of this era to build a championship team around Giannis. Jrue was our all-in, and he's the reason we can't do anything else now -- either spending on free agency or through the draft.

 

Not through any fault of his own, of course.

 

Salary breeds expectations as well. Maybe we do expect too much from Jrue and Middleton, but they've been compensated with the expectation of being the 2 and 3 options on this team. Lopez by comparison doesn't get nearly the compensation but also doesn't carry the fan expectation of carrying this team when Giannis can't.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Kaminsky is probably done. He was awfully close to done the first time PHX let go of him.

 

Had a good run in the league. Much better than I would've thought as a sophomore, and about in line with his skill set by the time he graduated.

 

Dekker's the guy I thought might have a chance to be real good as a pro. Kind of a Duncan Robinson type, though injuries really ended up tanking his NBA career.

 

Devin Harris will probably go down as the best pro I really remember in a Wisconsin uniform. I was a bit on the young side for Finley.

 

Big win for the Bucks last night. Hoping this is the reverse of that Toronto series from 19.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Max contracts are kind of a silly thing to hold against a player because they are essentially what is required to keep any good player on your team. You can't low-ball any quality player because there is almost always some other team willing to max him. It's one of the drawbacks of the whole max deal thing, if you can call it that. Obviously without max deals, LeBron would have a $1 billion contract and it would taper off from there but that's not what we have.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Oh, and Michael Finley > Devin Harris.

[adambr2]

Max contracts are kind of a silly thing to hold against a player because they are essentially what is required to keep any good player on your team. You can't low-ball any quality player because there is almost always some other team willing to max him. It's one of the drawbacks of the whole max deal thing, if you can call it that. Obviously without max deals, LeBron would have a $1 billion contract and it would taper off from there but that's not what we have.

 

I don't think that people really hold it against a player, but it definitely raises the bar as far as fan expectations, fair or not.

 

I feel like I have a pretty good handle on contracts and valuations in both MLB contracts and NFL contracts but I am totally lost on NBA player valuations. I don't understand at all why someone like Holiday is worth 40M a year when someone like Malcolm Brogdon who is younger and does some things better and some things not as well is "only" worth about half that. I don't get why someone like Brook Lopez goes from making 21M+ a year to suddenly having to settle for 3M in pennies from us at age 30 to back to 13M a year. None of it makes any sense to me at all.

[homer]

Bahktiari pounding a beer might be my favorite Bucks home playoff game tradition ever. His dad doing it after he did yesterday was so damn funny.

[owbc]

The national media narrative of this series is quite intriguing...everyone has rescinded their bad Giannis takes and it's basically Giannis vs. the Suns now. They are ready to ascend him to GOAT status of NBA big men if the Bucks can come back and pull this upset.

[sveumrules]

Salary breeds expectations as well. Maybe we do expect too much from Jrue and Middleton, but they've been compensated with the expectation of being the 2 and 3 options on this team. Lopez by comparison doesn't get nearly the compensation but also doesn't carry the fan expectation of carrying this team when Giannis can't.

 

Middleton & Jrue ranked 16th & 42nd in salary this year, per Spotrac.

 

Middleton & Jrue ranked 19th & 11th in WAR this year, per 538.

 

Even if they fell short of some fans' expectations at various times, their performances on the whole were commensurate with their compensation.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The national media narrative of this series is quite intriguing...everyone has rescinded their bad Giannis takes and it's basically Giannis vs. the Suns now. They are ready to ascend him to GOAT status of NBA big men if the Bucks can come back and pull this upset.

 

They have to set the table for their clicks.

[LouisEly]

Jrue is always going to be a lightning rod for criticism because he was, in essence, the last ditch effort of this era to build a championship team around Giannis. Jrue was our all-in, and he's the reason we can't do anything else now -- either spending on free agency or through the draft.

 

Not through any fault of his own, of course.

 

Salary breeds expectations as well. Maybe we do expect too much from Jrue and Middleton, but they've been compensated with the expectation of being the 2 and 3 options on this team. Lopez by comparison doesn't get nearly the compensation but also doesn't carry the fan expectation of carrying this team when Giannis can't.

I think it's more inconsistency. Not just with shooting, but being aggressive and trying to drive the lane or pick-and-roll to the rim with a big. I think a couple of weeks ago he said basically that he had been called inconsistent before.

[MrTPlush]

Jrue (and Bledsoe prior) catches a lot of flak he probably shouldn't. The problem he has, that many other championship quality teams don't, is the fact the #1 and #2 guys really don't take over games. If Jrue has a horrid game in the playoffs Giannis/Middleton aren't going to make us not notice. We are either losing or it is probably really close. When you are led by James/Durant your #3 could go 0-10 and you might not even realize/care.

 

Some of it is justified though. His shooting is down around 10% when comparing regular season to playoffs and his defense can be inconsistent at times. Yes, he brings defensive value when he isn't hitting buckets...but unfortunately for him the Bucks need him to score. Maybe somewhat of an unreasonable expectation for him to do that every single finals game...but that's what they need and what fans want.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

is the fact the #1 and #2 guys really don't take over games.

 

Nobody other than a Bucks fan would say this. Middleton took over the Conference Finals and Giannis has done everything humanly possible to take over the last 2 games of this series. Giannis hit the game-winning shot in Brooklyn. If you limit "take over" to winning the game then Durant didn't "take over" Game 7, which he absolutely did and still lost.

 

This whole Giannis doesn't take over games boils down to Giannis isn't Steph Curry draining threes at the end of a game. Giannis has made scoring 35 points and grabbing 10-15 boards so routine, it is now boring. His FT problems this playoffs are 100% fair play to criticize but seeing the same player night in and night out begins to jade the hometown fans as to how good he is. The fans always become hyper-focused on the nights things went wrong, whereas if you asked someone who's seen Giannis 5 times this year they would have a much more glowing report.

 

As far as Middleton goes, he has a bunch of 10 and 12 points games, but that is precisely what separates guys like Middleton from Giannis. It is a small chunk of players that can be depended upon to score 25 a night, literally all the time. Very few teams have two of those players.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I think the biggest difference in how the Bucks perform as a team offensively in these 7 game series against opponents that try to make adjustments from game to game lies with how efficient Giannis is on the offensive end - if he is able to get his within the normal offensive flow of the game it automatically gives players like Middleton and Jrue, Lopez better scoring opportunities, and they look like they have a gameplan. When the offense is routed through Giannis inside and initiated from Jrue or other guards this tends to be how the Bucks look offensively.

 

Where they scuffle with Giannis on the floor offensively is if the Bucks get into too much iso ball expecting Giannis to create from the top of the key - particularly if other shooters aren't efficient from the perimeter. Then the Bucks offense looks stagnant mainly because Giannis is a 7' point guard trying to force his way to the basket against 2-3 defenders and his teammates are planted around the 3 point stripe - that's going to look clumsy no matter what.

 

Either way, Giannis a great enough to wind up getting his - if it seems like he gets a quiet 35 within the flow of a game, that's normally when the Bucks win big. He's never going to be that explosive scorer and drop 50 on occasion with the ball always in his hands because he's not a great 3 point shooter, and that's just fine. Particularly against this Suns team, he belongs inside the paint scoring at will and getting a bunch of players in foul trouble.

[Outlander]

LOL at Giannis never taking over games. He already has more 40+ games in the NBA Finals than Durant and Kobe.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

It's just an especially freezing take considering the timing. I'm legitimately dumbfounded how anyone who watched the end of the semis, the end of the ECF and the last two Finals games could still say that about Giannis and Khris. It's just one of the effects of being hyper-focused on "our" guys. If you watch the same guys all the time you are destined to find things about them that are frustrating to watch.

[KeithStone53151]

My biggest issue with jrue is him taking so many bad tough shots the first two games, and plenty of other games. Game 5 and 6 of the last series and game 3 this series he was incredible, and most of his scoring comes off clean looks. The only guy who should be taking contested shots from beyond 10 feet on this team is Middleton and it still be considered a good look.