Bucks vs Celtics series thread

[nate82]

2 minutes ago, lcbj68c said:

Just defend the 3 and this series is different.  Boston isn't going to beat you inside for 48 minutes, let alone 12.  Instead, it's Lopez playing like Rudy Gobert and running at the 3pt shooter 2 seconds after the ball has left his hand.   So predictable

The Bucks don't have the defenders to defend the 3pt shooter and most of the shots are coming off of penetration to a wide open player whoever Lopez was guarding is the player that is open 100% of the time.  Lopez is just done he has no movement at all.  

[OldSchoolSnapper]

1 minute ago, lcbj68c said:

Just defend the 3 and this series is different.  Boston isn't going to beat you inside for 48 minutes, let alone 12.  Instead, it's Lopez playing like Rudy Gobert and running at the 3pt shooter 2 seconds after the ball has left his hand.   So predictable

You can't shoot 15% from 3 and win. Your defense only matters so much. They shot terribly, they never had Khris to stop the bleeding on long offensive droughts. They never got the peripheral player to show up and perform. It was Giannis or Jrue in the games they won. 

They definitely had a chance but they needed that random 25 pt Lopez game or Grayson to go 7/7 again. 

[adambr2]

Budd. It's over, dude.

[nate82]

For the Bucks every player has been a net negative in this game.  Allen in this game has been the least of the Bucks problems it has been Matthews, Holliday, Connaughton Lopez and Giannis who have been the problem in this game.  

[OldSchoolSnapper]

It went 7 games because the Bucks are really good and fight like hell. The Celtics are lucky Middleton was hurt. They missed him on both ends of the floor, badly. It should be apparent to anyone who watched this series that he was so badly what the Bucks needed. There just was no reliable shooting threat at all if Giannis couldn't get inside. 

The Celtics have to guard the Bucks completely differently if they have to account for him. Stinks that the Bucks lost, but this take that they 100% lose with him is a few peppers too spicy for me. You can't take the 2nd best player off a team and assume the same result of a 7 game series. C'mon. 

 

We're all upset they lost. I get it. 

 

[CdrbrgMark]

21 minutes ago, nate82 said:

At what running around like a chicken with its head cut off?

PC has also been in the game at the same time as Allen so again who should be playing when Allen is in?

PC still better at D and hitting 3 pointers. This game ending like I figured it would...a blowout win for the Celts. Very interested in the Suns game tonite, they're no no sure lock to win.

[adambr2]

Probably not an exaggeration to say this was the most poorly played Game 7 in franchise history. 

[DuWayne Steurer]

2 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

Probably not an exaggeration to say this was the most poorly played Game 7 in franchise history. 

If it was just "elimination" games, I'd count that hilarious game 6 against the Bulls when they lost by like 66 I think.

[nate82]

7 minutes ago, CdrbrgMark said:

PC still better at D and hitting 3 pointers. This game ending like I figured it would...a blowout win for the Celts. Very interested in the Suns game tonite, they're no no sure lock to win.

Except he made exactly as many 3 pointers as Allen did a whole 0 of them and played just as bad actually worse than Allen did defensively.  PC sucks I don't get the love for him he is not a good basketball player and is one of the lowest basketball IQ players on the team.  Yes he makes so big effort plays here and there but 90% of the time he is taking a stupid foul or running around the court like a chicken with its head cut off playing out of position 95% of the time. A lot of the open 3's are from PC over running or playing out of position.  

[OldSchoolSnapper]

PC doesn't suck. He's good at filling the exact role he's got on the Bucks. We tried to fill an all-star-sized hole in the lineup with George Hill, PC and Grayson Allen. Unfortunately 1/3 was ok and 2/3 were absymal. 

As Bud just said, we weren't as healthy as we'd like to be, but nobody cares. Somebody had to elevate, probably in game 6, for us to advance. Nobody did. 

[LouisEly]

1 hour ago, HarryDoyle said:

It went seven games because the Celtics choked two games away. After game 1 the series has been a mismatch. And I doubt Middleton could match the 20 three pointers per game the defense is giving up.

Let's put it another way - if the Celtics were missing Jalen Brown, do they win the series?

If the Bucks had Middleton, do they win game 5?  That's all it would have taken to win the series.

[adambr2]

The fact of the matter is that this just isn't a very deep roster. You don't need superstars across the board but the Bucks a couple years ago were known for very strong bench play and whether it be just the fact that they've gotten too old or just bad roster assembly, they just don't have to depth to adequately cover a major injury.

Acquiring Ibaka for DDV, any way you slice it, is a pretty damning stain on Horst's record. We get any adequate veteran for DDV instead of added dead weight and it would have helped a great deal in this series.

[NBBrewFan]

Do the Bulls win all those championships with Michael Jordan without Scottie Pippen?  Middleton isn't the same quality as Pippen, but he isn't that far away to just ignore what a difference he makes when present.  

[CdrbrgMark]

I certainly have no love for PC. They're both not good players. And everyone, including Giannis, totally cashed out the second half of this game. It was hard to watch, their shooting percentage had to be almost historially low. One had to know this could happen, even tho they made it to the 7th game. The Celts were just better throughout the whole series.

 

[DuWayne Steurer]

Yeah they just weren't getting ANY scoring in this series aside from Giannis or Holiday.  They didn't need someone else to be Middleton, but someone else or several someone else's needed to shoulder some of the scoring load.  As noted before, Lopez looks cooked, Allen sucked, and Bud just didn't do anything to adjust.  Bobby didn't play particularly well in this series, unfortunately, and he's the one guy who could have offset the loss of Middleton to some degree. 

It is what it is.  Horst has his work cut out for him. 

[young guns]

It sucks to lose, but my perspective is going to be that when Middleton went down we lost this series and it is a testament to how good this team(or at least giannis) actually is that they still took it to 7 games.

As to the supporting cast sucking, I feel it's more, because of budget, it was a team designed to live off the 3 top guys and have fill ins who could exploit holes created when the defenses focused on those 3.  Without Middleton those holes didn't showup so they struggled mightily.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

You guys are dressing it up a bit much. Most rosters aren't going to be real deep when the top 3 guys are a world class superstar and 2 all stars. If you take one of those guys out, it's tough sledding, particularly when he's the best shooter you've got. You'll beat the Bulls, but it's going to get tough against that upper echelon, which is certainly what that Boston team is. 

Middleton is a bit of a rollercoaster but he'd have been good for at least two 30 point games. When they get it to 85-81 in game 6, you can count on him to hit some shots. 

I just have a hard time wrapping my head around firing the coach and the roster construction when we played the entire series without an all star. It's asking a ton to beat the Celtics without him...and they almost did it. The Ibaka trade is definitely a fair criticism but the unfortunate injury is what doomed the Bucks. 

The NBA playoffs are a grueling slate. You have to get lucky. We got really unlucky, with the injury, and then the ensemble cast just completely unable to hit a shot down the stretch. They'll be ok, but definitely some retooling to do.  

[GAME05]

Maybe if the Bucks had more than one single play on offense they could make adjustments when the opponent is able to defend that single play. They're so reliant on one player's one move that they're a deer in the headlights (pun intended??) when it doesn't work. 

[adambr2]

I'm not even sure how much retooling they can really do. They have almost no tradeable assets or spending power. They'll be lucky just to hang onto Portis. They've hitched their wagon to their Big 3. Maybe there's some incremental under the radar moves they can do to upgrade their bench, but for the most part all they can really do is run it back with Giannis and Khris and Jrue and hope for better results next time. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Yes and that's fine. There are no guarantees of anything. Barring catastrophic injury, they'll be right here again for the next 2-3 years, a top 4 seed with a real chance of being in the Finals. Retooling refers to filling out spots 6-8, which somebody is going to have to do anyway. That is really the margin they are working with; they have to get PJ Tucker, not Serge Ibaka. 

[HarryDoyle]

And I thought our offense was bad today. I don’t think you could play worse offense like the Suns just did on purpose. Good thing I’ll be watching the NHL playoffs from here on out.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Devin BOoker and Chris Paul are a combined 0-11 at halftime from the floor.  

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Warriors will win it again. 

[DuWayne Steurer]

The Suns are down 40, halfway through the third quarter.  Cam Johnson is their scoring leader with 5 points.  Talk about laying an egg in a game 7.  

[CheezWizHed]

23 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Yes and that's fine. There are no guarantees of anything. Barring catastrophic injury, they'll be right here again for the next 2-3 years, a top 4 seed with a real chance of being in the Finals. Retooling refers to filling out spots 6-8, which somebody is going to have to do anyway. That is really the margin they are working with; they have to get PJ Tucker, not Serge Ibaka. 

Going into the playoffs, I considered the downgrade from Tucker to Matthews and that turned out to be pretty big.  Then having Mids sitting escalated the use of PC and Allen, which Boston abused this series.