Why Doc Rivers has struggled early with Bucks, can Giannis & Dame fix it?| Hoops Tonight

Why Doc Rivers has struggled early with Bucks, can Giannis & Dame fix it?| Hoops Tonight

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So you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball one of the interesting things down the stretch of bucks Blazers was leaning into switching both teams down the stretch leaning a lot into switching the Bucks readily switching their smaller

Guards onto Jeremy Grant into SC scens and then on the other end of the floor one of the things that the Blazers were doing they played this young Wing named tman Kamar on Daman Lillard who was doing a really good job just with his length and athleticism kind of

Containing there and then what they would do is anytime they’d set a screen with Brook Lopez or Janis sanana kmo you’d just see DeAndre or Jeremy Grant just switch on to Dame in a lot of those sequences and so turned into a lot of one-on-one basketball down the stretch

And it was like Jeremy Grant making you know tough shots over the top anony Simons the gamewinner that he had that left right euro into the floater was ridiculous and then on the other end of the floor Dame kind of picking on those switches had a really explosive dunk

Driving by DeAndre Aton that was kind of encouraging like again I really do think a lot of Dame’s struggles some of them come down to him and just his ability to make shots and how he’s been struggling on that front but a good chunk of it is

I think Rhythm and just kind of figuring out where his opportunities are to attack with that particular group but it was kind of an interesting uh port team because Portland kind of gets written off as one of the bad teams around the league but they have a lot of talent

Like deand rton can go into the post and he can get over to that left shoulder and he can make that hook shot over the top you play off of Malcolm Brogden when he’s doing his between the legs dribbles he can rise up and he can knock down

That pullup three Anthony Simons was like basically Dame’s Protege for a while and has added a lot of that highlevel shot making that Dame had and he’s a bigger better athlete than Dame was like they have a lot of Firepower and they can cause problems for teams

Jeremy GR is a is a good basketball player and like like his shot making and especially from three has been kind of a revelation over the course of this last segment of his career these are all really good basketball players and they are a tough matchup especially in

Portland and you know Milwaukee had a really ugly stretch there in the middle of the fourth quarter Damen Lillard was just throwing the ball away all over the place again I want to give some credit to Tani kamaro for just the job he did applying ball pressure and forcing him

Into a lot of those turnovers Yan ran somebody over and had a turn over was missing free throws it was just ugly as the Bucks went down by double digits but they made some plays late Portland was deliberately ignoring Brook Lopez and help defense situations which ended up

Becoming a theme at the very end of the game which we’ll get to in a few minutes but Brooke hit a couple of big threes Dame had that driving dunk against DeAndre Aton to make it in a one-point game and all of a sudden it was a close

Basketball game then we get our final sequence so it was 115 to 112 Dame comes off the ball screen gets DeAndre Eon on the switch beats him off the dribble Rises up throws it down again very encouraging Play Just for where Dame is at physically then they get a stop they

Run a ball screen with Jeremy Grant on Anthony Simons they switch or Anthony Simons sets a ball gets a ball screen from Jeremy Grant Malik Beasley switches onto Jeremy Grant they go to make the post entry into Jeremy Grant and Malik Beasley does a really nice like kind of

Three quarter front gets around and knocks the ball away and forces a steal so then on the ensuing play on the sideline out of bounds the Bucks Run a wide pin down into a dribble handoff which is also known as a zoom scre Zoom action right so imagine a a Dame

Starting in the uh in the corner right and imagine Chris Middleton inbounding the ball to Giannis and as right after he inbounds he runs down and sets a pin down for Dame so that his Defender is already navigating a screen before he gets into the dribble handoff Dame comes

Off the dribble handoff gets a little bit of air space Rises up for three and misses after the Miss Portland gets the defensive rebound but Giannis and Malik Beasley apply some back backourt ball pressure onto Anthony Simons and they force a steal next thing you know Dame

Is throwing the ball up to Giannis at the basket for a dunk all of a sudden Portland’s up by one so from there Portland goes down the floor and they run a cleared ISO just basically a 1 14 flat for aern Simons against Malik Beasley he makes a a nice

Dribble move going to his left a nasty Left Right Euro Step into that floater an fry Simons is one of the best floaters in the game really athletic play too really impressive footwork makes a tough shot so it’s 116 115 so the Bucks go down the floor and they run

The exact same Zoom action but Doc Rivers makes a little bit of a tweak instead of having Chris Middleton as the guy who sets the pin down and Giannis with the dribble handoff instead he has Giannis set the pin down and he has Brook Lopez run the dribble handoff

Here’s where that’s interesting knowing before that what we saw from the that that middle to late portion of the fourth quarter Portland was completely unconcerned with Brook Lopez taking threes now he did burn them he made a couple but in that fourth quarter stretch but we knew that Portland’s game

Plan was to ignore Brook Lopez right so what’s interesting about that is the first time they ran the zoom action it was Chris and Giannis and Brooke was on the weak side and so as as a result Dame when he came off of the ball screen had

A little bit of space didn’t have a double team coming right when you run a ball screen which a dribble handoff is effectively a ball screen when you run a screen for the ball handler where the screener is a guy the defense is not worried about shooting you are inviting

A double team and so basically what ended up happening is Doc Rivers made a double team far easier for Portland to execute damee comes off the dribble handoff and Brook uh uh basically uh Malcolm Brogden just completely ignores uh uh uh Brook Lopez and double teams

Dame they throw the ball back to Brook Lopez he pump fakes actually gets a pretty solid look but he misses it they have to foul Portland goes down they make two free throws then it was the second confusing decision from Doc Rivers he has Damen Lillard inbound down

Three two yanis and I think there was like what 5 seconds left or so and of course Portland immediately fouls this now again one of the things I saw going around on Twitter last night that is a pet action for Milwaukee at the end of a game what they’ll do is they’ll have

Dame inbound to Giannis Giannis will just basically hand it right back off to Dame so that he can get ahead of steam and a little bit of a ball screen type of thing in the back court to get going they ran that exact same action against the Sacramento Kings when Dame hit his

Gamewinner but there was a big difference they were only down by two in that game against Sacramento so the idea of fouling gets more convoluted right because you yeah you might like Giannis is a a poor free throw shooter but you’re not just going to gift wrap him a

Chance to go to the line and tie the game right but down by three where most teams are making a decision over whether or not they want to play defense or they want to foul you’re now making that decision for them and so Portland immediately fouls Giannis he goes down

And misses both free throws and the game is over now for the record cuz there’s going to be there I saw I saw it on Twitter last night a lot of people going after Duc that’s not why they lost the game you you didn’t lose the game

Because of those decisions at the end but like even with that weird kind of layout for the zoom action Brook Lopez still got a pretty damn good look and he missed it and he had just made two so I I feel like that’s kind of playing the

Result so to speak if Brook Lopez makes that you call him a genius right again I would say whenever you got a guy that’s going to be double teamed off of I don’t want him in it ball screen I’d rather have him off the ball so it’s just a

Little bit easier to manage but they still got a decent look that’s how it turned out right on the Baseline out of bounds again don’t like the configuration but it was a one-point game after the infiny Simons floater I look back to like how about Dame

Throwing the ball all over the court in the middle of the fourth quarter when he just was struggling with Portland’s ball pressure just in general some of the ways that Milwaukee’s offense bogged down in the middle of that fourth quarter so to me in a 48 minute game

It’s really silly to pretend like that’s the reason why they lost it’s not the case however there just have been some questionable decisions from Doc in these first couple of games with him as the head coach and mainly what I point to there because what I talked about is

When they hired doc I liked it because Adrien Griffin wasn’t exactly some sort of tactical genius but he was really struggling to motivate the group the group did not believe in him and so I thought doc would be able to come in pull out some belief from that group and

Clean up the margins get them better at the point of attack defensively get them better in helping recover situations defensively and specifically get them better in transition defense sprinting back getting matched up and communicating things along those lines right I didn’t think doc was going to

Come in and just be some sort of schematic genius that’s not what he’s known for right but here’s the thing margin for error in the postseason is very small this is something I talk about all the time like if you really look back at these specific series and

The way some of these uh games have gone o over the course of of over the course of the playoffs in recent years you can point to singular points where things s right like you look at like the Phoenix series Phoenix tied that series The Phoenix Denver series Phoenix tied that

Series at two and in game two they kind of had a lead there for a while and it kind of slipped away late Denver earned that win but like you can see it’s like okay if game two goes differently what if Phoenix takes a bigger lead maybe

They have a better chance right the Lakers Warriors series in game four it’s like Lonnie Walker hits a bunch of tough pullup jump shots over Steph Curry and Steph gets a couple of looks against Anthony Davis late now well defended looks but maybe those go in and and the

Series looks different right like the seven game series is going to more often than not put the best team forward that’s the design of a seven game series but the margins are tight in a seven game series as well and so in tight margins you can’t afford to make

Significant mistakes and so between that end of game play between some of the offensive layout stuff that I’ve pointed out between that weird switch against Denver we talked about they were switching and then scram switching against Denver down the stretch and they had it configured nicely so that Giannis

Would end up on Jamaal Murray and Brook Lopez would end up on Nicole yic but down the stretch randomly when they got it 2-1 possession game Doc switched it up and put Brooke on Jamal in the switch and he got cooked and you’re like what

Why why why did you switch that up right so like again it’s not a major concern it’s just something to keep an eye on because like the margin Milwaukee’s not going to sweep Boston Milwaukee’s not going to sweep some of the you know Miami or something like that it’s going

To be tight contested series and you like those kinds of mistakes can swing games and can swing series so it’s just something worth keeping an eye on in the short term one last thing I wanted to get to on the Bucks as well uh it was not a good defensive game overall for

Milwaukee and Portland but in the fourth quarter they were really good they held him to an offensive rating below 90 a bunch of key stops specifically once again I thought Malik Beasley and Damen Lillard really turned up their defensive engagement down the stretch of that game and for the record

It’s been a theme this season as you can see in the the numbers for Milwaukee and their clutch defense but there are some encouraging notes coming out of the early doc Rivers’s situation in Milwaukee where you’re seeing just better defensive engagement at least in specific spots and that could go a long

Way for this team and what their playoff potential is so again in a loss still some encouraging stuff coming out of Milwaukee He

Jason Timpf reacts to the slow start in the Doc Rivers era of Milwaukee Bucks basketball. After starting 0-2 as head coach with losses to the Nuggets and Trail Blazers, can Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard turn things around?

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