Today we’re going to be talking about the Milwaukee Bucks start to their season, and how they’ve been struggling despite what their record might suggest. After acquiring Damian Lillard and trading away Jrue Holiday, the Bucks were expected to lose some of their defensive identity. But fans weren’t aware of how bad they would turn out to be. After the first handful of games, they find themselves towards the bottom of the league in defense, leaving some people wondering if this is their new identity. If you guys enjoyed this video, be sure to hit the like button and slap the sub button with your nose (also the bell).
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7 Comments
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This teams been hard to watch tbh but I’m sure in a month or 2 they’ll be good
Yeah, Bucks hard to watch.
I feel like this is a bi-product of the amount of changes that this surfaced. Most of the times you only change the coach, so the personnel stays the same, so the coach already has an idea of what works and what doesn't so it's less hard to adapt. However, like you mentioned, the Bucks changed their coaching staff, they lost one of if not the best defender, and added a whole new offensive powerhouse. So Adrian Griffin has to come in and coach the team from scratch, something he hasn't done before, and he somehow has to figure out, like you pointed out, how to balance all these moving parts, honestly, if this team was already cooking and blowing everyone by 20-30 points, he'd be the GOAT coach. He clearly is still learning (point proven on the fact that the only started to put Brook in drop coverage 2 games ago, and he got 8 blocks).
Regarding the PnR, I think this also might be the fact that they want to find plays that aren't just the PnR while they can. They probably know the PnR works wonders, so they don't want to just spam it. What if something happens and one of them gets injured? What if come playoff time a team finds an amazing way to defend it? They do however have to find a balance between using it and not spamming it, 7 times a night isn't cutting it. Another example is the high screens for Dame. They used it 3 times in a row vs the 76ers and scored on all the attempts. You can see them at 7:21, 7:27, so they clearly know it works, they just don't want to spam it and want to try new things.
Also, Khris is slowly easing himself back to the team, and he's honestly the glue. When he's on, the Bucks just work much better. And also you can easily see Giannis isn't used to playing with Dame. Check at 1:18. Why is he taking a three with DAMIN LILLARD free sitting there? There's no need. Now add to this the fact that the young guys (Marjon and AJJ) are playing well and might take Pat's and Malik's minutes, they're much better defensively and offensively, well… when the train gets going, they won't need to score that much honestly.
There's also stuff they've already fixed. They're lowering Malik's minutes and increasing other's peoples because they realized they need better defensive weapons. On the first two games you never saw Giannis look for Dame on the drives, on the transition chances and now you can clearly see, that's the type of stuff they've seen in film and fixed.
And finally, Giannis was cleared to SPRINT just a month ago, he had knee surgery, he has been honestly playing like ass in some parts of these games, stupid turnovers, and you can clearly see he's athleticism is not all the way back yet. The one good game he had was yesterday vs the Nets, he bullied Simmons and it looked like himself again. If he comes back to that, a lot of the Bucks problems will also be solved.
So yeah, the Bucks are a hot mess, but even in this hot mess, you see flashes of what this team COULD be, and I think their potential is insane. Get Pat and Malik out of the lineup and put Marjon, Jae etc there. Now you have a 6′ 7″ SG that has a 7 foot wingspan and is a good defender and is shooting 57%!!! from 3PT, Giannis, Brook and Khris to cover for Dame, that has to be enough.
Just a reminder that last year the Bucks started 9-0 and had a 16 game win streak later on, and in the end got bounced out in the first round. So, early season isn't an indication of what will happen in June.
The Bucks are experiencing the same drop-off without Jrue that the Warriors saw after losing GP2 following their championship run. Subtracting your best perimeter defender has a domino effect that puts a huge strain on team defense.
they need to replace Beasley with a 3 and D guard