Damian Lillard buzzer beater reaction, Bucks & Giannis beat Fox & Kings | Hoops Tonight

Damian Lillard buzzer beater reaction, Bucks & Giannis beat Fox & Kings | 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 bucks Kings very weird basketball game Keegan Murray leaves early with an injury uh it doesn’t come out for the second half the Bucks Run a ton of Zone

They on the season typically run fewer than four possessions of Zone uh zone defense per game now they’ve dabbled in it here or there as as they’ve been trying to figure out a way to play defense with this group but it’s never been anything that they’ve leaned super

Heavily into and last night after they gave up 37 points in the uh in the first quarter they ran Zone 33 times in the second third fourth quarter and in overtime it basically was their base defense at that point forward they were in man and transition situations or

After missed shots but basically any dead ball or made basket the Bucks were dropping into the zone and it was a really bizarre game the the Kings basically had the game one in overtime uh Malik monk randomly missed two free throws he’s 85% free throw shooter he

Missed two free throws down the stretch and then dearen Fox who’s a 73% free throw shooter he misses one as well next thing you know uh uh Brook Lopez hits a corner three in transition and Damen Lillard bombs a three at the buzzer and all of a sudden the buck one but there’s

That’s typical regular season weirdness that’s the kind of thing that can happen right but there was a lot of interesting basketball in there from both teams that I want to dive into so let’s start with Milwaukee zone now it’s I’m not sure if they’re calling it and I haven’t done

The appropriate digging in terms of like searching through to see if any Bucks beat reporter has has asked one of the coaching staff about it or not but uh judging from the tape it looks like either a a 212 or a two three where the big man the low the the center who’s

Typically underneath the basket is playing much higher up at like the foul line to you know show on any sort of uh guy coming off of a of a screen at the top of the key to try to contest or to prevent the high post touch which is

Usually a dangerous part in a two3 zone right but I’m not uh really concerned with necessarily what it’s called just schematically that’s what it looks like two guys at the top two guys in the corners and then that Center instead of being directly under the rim was playing

Up around the foul line but it was an incredibly sloppy Zone the Bucs players didn’t really seem to know who to guard or how to rotate when any sort of player movement happened one of the specific themes that kept happening and I clipped like a half dozen examples of this but

When the Kings would just cut a guy through to the opposite side of the floor so let’s say uh uh Kevin herder is on the right wing and the ball’s on the left wing and he’ll just cut through and like the guy for the bucks in that you

Know uh right side corner is kind of pointing like like someone else has got to go get him and no one would get him and because Brooke would be up at the foul line they would just drop the ball underneath the basket for herder for a

Lay or one of the guys would run with that guy but no one would kind of rotate around and then they’d give up a wide open shot on the on the wing or in the corner it was just it was kind of sloppy in that sense basically anytime the

Kings cut a man through the Zone they scored anytime the Kings went with like an odd front where there was a play where like you know uh Malik monk had the ball on the right wing and uh de Fox is on the left wing and Malik Beasley is

Just faceu guarding him and Dame’s on the ball and Kevin herder just kind of settles right at the top of the key in between those two guys and because Malik’s off ball face guarding Darren Fox and because Dame is on the ball there’s just nobody there and Brooke

Even at the foul line isn’t in a position to contest there just toss it over uh to Kevin herder and he makes a three that said one of the reasons why the Bucks were able to stick in the zone as long as they did is uh uh the the

Kings did not do a really good job of attacking it by maintaining those specific things player movement odd man fronts to try to take advantage of the two-man front in the zone right for the most part they just kind of set up in their four out kind of a dynamic where

They have a shooter in each corner and shooter on the wing ball handler on the opposite wing and they just have sabonis come screen the top man and so they took a lot of of like kind of contested floaters and mid-range jump shots which just on a points per possession basis

Aren’t super valuable so even though the the Bucks ran 35 possessions a Zone and only gave up 34 points in the numbers it seems fine but when it came down to the end of the game situations when they needed to get stops it was just really

Easy for for dearen Fox to just come off of that top ball screen Brooke is sitting back shoot that little floater over the top or shoot that little short mid-range jump shot so and and we’re going to get to that when we talk big picture bucks because this is not a team

I think that can get away with running massive amounts of Zone I I just I just don’t think it’ll work against really really good playoff offenses but in this small sample size it actually ended up being one of their more effective defenses up until the end of the game

When they really needed to get stops and so what’s interesting I had a uh I had a what I was doing my film thread this morning there was a bucks fan I I believe a bucks fan who commented on Twitter and they were asking like hey

Why do you think the Bucks went to this Zone do you think it was just because they were sick of tired uh uh sick and tired of chasing the king’s guards around and they just wanted to not have to do that anymore and the reality is is

Like I think that was the idea like I think the idea was how do we make it so that buck uh so that Brooke is always at the rim for every single one of these deer and fox and Malik monk you know ball screens basically uh or at least

Not necessarily at The Rim but waiting in help so that at least if Dame or Malik gets beat soundly over the top of the screen at least he’s running into another another body just by the configuration of the defense all of the damage they were having at The Rim where

They were getting wide open open layups and back cuts and things like that they were cuts it was it was guys cutting behind Brooke but it was not a typical layup line of dear and fox and mik monk getting downhill because of the configuration of the Zone that’s why

They did it that said it still has a very similar job in the sense that if you don’t have Malik monk or excuse me Malik Beasley or dear uh Damen Lillard doing a good job chasing over the top then those guys are getting really comfortable floaters in push shots which

Are kind of typical drop coverage Dynamics anyway right so like when push came to shove at the end of the game it was Dame in particular that dear and fox kept going at and just getting wide open Easy shots in Rhythm against Milwaukee uh and and and and uh Brook Lopez kind

Of sitting in that drop in the zone right and this is where I want to kind of draw a dynamic between the difference between like effort related issues and Personnel related issues because it was interesting watching this game because there were dozens of opportunities for uh for um uh Damen Lillard and Malik

Beasley to chase over the top of a screen in their Zone to try to funnel guys into Brook Lopez now one of the concepts we talk about a lot on the show is the idea of back pressure right so in that bracketing coverage right I’m chasing over the top of the screen

Brooke is waiting so we’re the two ends of the coverage but if there’s only one end of the coverage which is Brooke offering some sort of contest then the on ball player the the the ball handler is not concerned about what going on behind him and so basically when he gets

Over the top of the screen he can kind of get into his bag and he’s comfortable and now it’s like I’ve talked about so many times on the show now it’s like a shooting drill now it’s like when dearen fox is in the gym by himself over the

Summer and he’s coming off of you know one of his trainers as a fake ball screen and kind of settling into that easy shot that he likes to take there in the short range when the backside bracket is included now when he comes off of that screen he’s not comfortable

Because he’s worried about what’s happening behind him and worried about what’s happening in front of him it becomes a much more complicated Dynamic and you know Malik Beasley has caught a lot of flak this year and he has some limitations but interestingly enough like Malik Beasley is actually a pretty

Good athlete like he’s got quickness he’s got you know a little bit of vertical pop he’s got some of that stuff he’s a little undersized right like that that he’s not a very big guard but he’s capable of doing a better job than what we’ve seen for the most part the season

To Malik Beasley’s credit as he said in his postgame pressers like he’s like no no we’re going to figure this out we don’t need to trade like we just need to figure out how to play defense as a group and he’s putting his money where his mouth is from the standpoint of

Effort he really is he’s trying like most of most of Malik’s issues are Focus related there were like three or four clips that I put in that thread today where it’s like he’s just not paying attention or he’s not seeing man in ball or like there’s the occasional

Possession he’ll take off but you can see him trying and so I wanted to highlight two plays to kind of demonstrate to you guys the difference in effort versus just conceding that at the point of attack and it’s two dearen Fox shots and both of these plays are in

That thread on my Twitter feed atore jlt so guys I want you guys to see that so Malik Beasley on the ball sabonis is coming to set the screen Darren fox has the ball they’re out further away from the basket probably like 35 ft from the

Rim and Malik Beasley is trying to deny him the use of the ball screen so he’s sitting up high on the ball screen trying to force Deon Fox to go back towards his right hand right so dear Fox does what every good guard does when

Want to set their man up for a screen so he takes a hard dribble towards his right and then does a behind the back dribble to then go use a screen basically getting Malik to uh abandon his deny position and try to get back in

Front of De Fox so that he can beat him back over the top of the screen which he does right but Malik instead of giving up on the play uses kind of like a Nifty spin move to get underneath the screen and gets back in front of Daren Fox

Daren Fox though when he comes off the screen he’s screaming downhill with that left hand drive so he gets all the way down past the the foul line and when Beasley gets back into the play Daren Fox is almost surprised and on the play Daren Fox takes his power dribble and

Malik Beasley takes the contact in his chest and goes flying and like literally he out of the play and Daren Fox ends up standing completely unguarded 10t from the basket and he he’s like oh I’m wide open and he takes this like weird left-handed he’s a lefty but he takes

This weird little short jump shot that looks just kind of like a break Rhythm jump shot and he misses it and what’s interesting to me about that play is even though it was a wide open shot it was a disrupted Rhythm shot because Malik fought to get back into the play

Put his body on the line and throw off the entire rhythm of dear and Fox’s attack in the pick and roll so that even when he got a good look it wasn’t a good look that he typically practices and so it was just weird like it was it was he

Was in an NBA game in the I think it was in the fourth quarter too and he’s just rising up completely unguarded at 10 ft it was just weird like and off of the different footwork and kind of handle than he expected right now I want to

Fast forward and we’ll come back to that play in a second now I want to fast forward to the the final minutes uh bucks are up by five I think with like a minute and a half left or something same exact setup in the zone Damen Lillard is this is the guy that’s

On ball this time and dearen fox which by the way was because of the way it was organized in their Zone or not fox or Beasley was on ball was typically just based on which side of the floor they the Kings decided to attack from right

So on this play Darren Fox comes off the ball screen and Dame just concedes it so like kind of sort of takes a lunge step to kind of get over the top of the screen but once thearon actually beats him over the top he literally stops playing and so because he stops playing

Darren Fox completely unconcerned with what’s happening behind him kind of goes into this like Nifty Rhythm pull P up 15-footer Brook Lopez actually gets a better contest on it a much better contest than on the wide openen one that Malik Beasley made him take earlier right the difference is that little

Pull-up 15ot jump shot that dear and fox took is the kind of shot he practices all summer the same footwork the same handle and everything that he practices all summer because Dame did nothing to break his rhythm as he’s fighting over the top of the screen so I thought it

Was a really interesting kind of example two different plays like one play where uh Beasley kind of gave up an open shot and one play where damee gave up a contested shot but because of back pressure one shot was missed and the other shot was not one play Malik

Beasley disrupts Rhythm and forces a miss the other play Damen Lillard does nothing to disrupt Rhythm and Daren fox makes a tough shot again like we always focus on shot result and we look at all these different things but more often than not it’s can a defense disrupt your

Rhythm because if they can disrupt your Rhythm that will lead to differences in shot results something that we talk about all the time on the show and we’re going to talk about again when we get to Clippers wolves later because they didn’t shoot the Clippers didn’t shoot

Particularly well and and a lot of Clippers fans even the Clippers broadcast was like oh the Clippers are just not shooting well and it’s like are you watching what Minnesota is doing to disrupt Rhythm actually there was a there was a specific uh clip that I pulled in the um Clippers wolves thread

That’s another great example of back pressure this time actually by Terrence man on Anthony Edwards and one of the interesting things that Terence Mann did right as he was running over the top of the screen he swipes around the back and clips some of the basketball doesn’t

Actually get a steal but make sure ant knows he’s there then as ant is going downhill Terence man reaches out and just puts his left hand on ant’s hip he’s touching it and I thought it was a really interesting example of like disrupting Rhythm because all that’s

Doing is it’s freaking ant out you know in terms of his decision-making process in a really short uh period of time because he’s like oh like Terence man’s right behind me right and on that play Ant drives like headlong into Daniel Tyson gets stripped and turns the

Ball over and that that’s kind of a great example of what I’m talk about like the hand on the hip that’s not going to actually cause ant to miss a shot if he decides to rise up and shoot but what it does is it gets in the ball

Handler’s head it starts to disrupt their typical decision-making process it’s such an important part of of any sort of of of a coverage that involves a big man waiting in ball screens to help at The Rim now one of the big reasons why I I brought this particular example

Up and went into such detail is this is where I want to talk about the Bucks defense in the big picture because they beat the Celtics the other night right and what was really interesting to me about that game was early on in the game Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown kind of

Co-opted the offense and they were really really hunting their own shot and they were constantly settling for these tough mid-range jump shots over Chris Middleton and Yannis who by the way in a mat just purely from a matchup standpoint Tatum on Middleton or brown on Giannis or vice versa is not actually

As good of a matchup as Derek white or Drew holiday against um Damen lard and Malik Beasley that’s where those matchups are and so what I thought was really interesting about that is like we’ve talked a lot about we’ talked a lot about Boston’s offensive approach right and whether or not they’re they’re

Like going to be able to out execute a lot of these teams and that was an interesting example to me in the Boston Milwaukee matchup of like yeah we talk a lot about Malik Beasley and Damen Lillard as perimeter Defenders but what if Boston’s not deliberate enough to

Attack those guys and what if they do have Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum just constantly try to attack better Defenders and and that leads to problems for them but we’re going to get to that a little bit more in a little bit when we talk about the Boston Celtics match

Up which I want to get to later on in the show but specifically though to win four playoff series you’re probably going to have to go through a skill guard of some kind like let’s say you beat Boston and you end up in a series against Denver who’s the guy that you’re

Putting on Jamal Murray right so like this is a consistent issue that we’re going to see and what I find encouraging about it is Malik is trying and Dame is capable of playing a hell of a lot better than he did I thought like Dames

Saved the day he made the bomb he made the prayer he won the game but they should have lost and if Sacramento makes their free throws they lose and Dame had a huge role to play in that down the stretch because he wasn’t even trying there were there were I

Talked about the one at the end of regulation there’s another one in overtime that’s like borderline embarrassing and I clipped that play and I put it on my Twitter feed again a two-point game in over over time and Dame is just like n I’m not even going

To get back in the play like I’m just like he just there’s like almost no effort taking place there and like this is where it gets interesting because like I I don’t know that the Bucks have the assets necessarily to go bring back a really high level 2-a player to

Replace Malik Beasley and Malik is shooting the out of the basketball this year and attacking Closeouts well like Malik Malik really is and so at a certain point Malik Beasley just kind of getting better at this might be the best hope for Milwaukee in the long run that

Said it’s going to require two things they’re going to have to get more effort from Dame and maybe this is just handling the you know eating regular season Innings so to speak but when they get to the postseason at least Dame is going to have to at least try to do some

Of this stuff doesn’t have to do a ton of it but he’s going to have to do a better job than he’s been doing and then secondly on offense they’re going to have to reach that Denver esque level of inevitability because I don’t think this team is fast enough on the perimeter

Defensively to be a dominant defense right this is where I want to get to the uh the Bucks offense down the stretch so uh once again they closed with a lot of Dame Giannis pick and roll and Sacramento was blitzing them for the most part and uh there you know at first

Dame was having some trouble with the blitz cuz they were doing a really aggressive job uh blitzing him and preventing that easy pass but then Dame countered that by using a nice mix of like swing passes along the perimeter to make the roll man pass or

Uh at one point he used like a really Nifty reverse pivot to kind of get out of that mess but like basically with the blitz they were generating these short roll opportunities for Giannis and then from there there were two things that stood out to me one a little bit of

Indecisiveness from Giannis like there was a play where Pat Conan’s wide open in the corner and he like didn’t want to throw it to him and then like he hesitated and then he did finally throw it to him but he threw it way too high and so the advantage was gone and then

Like a couple possessions later he does actually throw the ball to Pat conon in the corner but he misses the three and it’s like he’d be in Rhythm if you just keep feeding him there like trust me if if your offense keeps generating wide open Corner threes for Pat conon like

You’re going to score a lot of points like that that’s a shot he he’s going to hit at well over a point per possession right there a little bit was like the layout of the floor like i’ I’ve talked about before I really really like the

The cleared side pick and rolls for Dame and Yannis so like when you clear the side let’s say Dame has the ball in the left wing and Yannis comes and sets the screen and he kind of short rolls off to the left you know elbow extended or left

Wing kind of short range like 20 feet from the basket on the left side of the floor then with the Kings all their help Defenders are on the other side of the floor or in the paint and even if they’re in the paint Giannis would have a head of steam going downhill towards

Them and so Dame Dame can bring the two Defenders over and just kind of hook a looping pass over the top and jannis can just kind of catch and rip to his left but they were running it in the middle of the floor and one of the things that

Sucks about operating in the middle of the floor is it’s just really hard to see both sides of the floor there was a play that I clipped and and added to that to that thread where Giannis short rolls it’s a Dame Yannis pick and roll in the middle of the floor Blitz comes

Easy pocket pass but on the play when when Giannis catches it Malik monk is ignoring Malik Beasley in the left corner and comes over to kind of like help and like build a wall on Giannis and Malik Beasley standing wide open in the corner a a guy who’s shooting what

Damn near 50% from three this year right and well over 50% in the last few games right and jannis just doesn’t see it because it’s behind him and he ends up dribbling into the lane and taking one of those you know kind of hook shots at

Like a push floater in the lane from like 12 feet out that he ends up missing and that’s an example of what I’m talking about like it yeah it’s it’s true that if you run it on the the cleared side the rotations are a little easier for the defense on the on the

Weak side but that doesn’t matter if Giannis can’t actually make the the the pass to that guy right and so what I like about clearing the side is it simplifies the decision-making process and any sort of negative impact of making the defensive rotations easier because the shooters are more closely

Packed on the weak side is undone by the fact that it’s just easier to see it’s just easier to see for Giannis in those situations and I clipped a bunch of examples of the damanis pick and roll and like there were a bunch of examples

Of them just not really being as as as kind of locked in in terms of of making the reads as they could be I talked about the Giannis missing conon in the corner I talked about Giannis missing Malik Beasley in the corner there was a play where Dame just decided to snake

The pick and roll which means he tried to get back over to the other side after he went over the screen as Giannis was rolling and they like ran into each other there was a play where they did run a cleared side pick and roll for

Giannis and Giannis was open on the left wing and instead of Dame making the pass he dribbled into traffic and forced a floater over four bodies and missed it right point being like they can get so much better at this stuff and so kind of

To to bring it all back uh into the big picture here what’s encouraging to me about the Bucks is three things one Malik Beasley is trying and he can get way better at defense so can Dame Dame is not trying yet but he’s capable and a

Unit I don’t think they’re going to be able to run Zone but I do think that they’re capable of at least getting to a higher level of Defense than where they are currently two their offense can still get so much better Sacramento flat out out executed Milwaukee down the

Stretch in this game in overtime z0 basically the the Kings outplayed them until they choked at the foul line like and a big part of that was the Dame Yiannis pick and roll not quite generating the consistent offense that it needed to generate they can get better there that’s encouraging and then

Three what we learned in that Celtics game which is like Boston definitely has the Personnel to expose all of Milwaukee’s flaws and to beat them in a seven gamer I think they do I think they’re the personel to do that every team in the league I think they’re the

Most talented roster right problem is will they be diligent enough to do so and I thought that the Milwaukee Boston game where Milwaukee jumped them early heavy dose of pullup tough jump shots from Tatum and brown early not a lot of stuff through Derek white and Drew

Holiday early to just try to get the defense in rotation against Milwaukee’s guards and it was a big part of how Milwaukee ran away with that game obviously schedule played a role Celtics fans I’m fully aware it was a really tough schedule back in back to back I’m

Just talking schematically in that game Boston didn’t have a super smart approach and I think that’s a great indicator of like if if I was trying to make the case for how Boston in Milwaukee could go Milwaukee’s way it would be Milwaukee reaches their individual defensive ceiling the damanis

Pick and rolls unguardable and consistently generates high quality shots and Boston just has bad process that would be how it would break down and so again an encouraging week of basketball for the Milwaukee Bucks from the standpoint of like they went undefeated you beat the Celtics you mandle the Celtics encouraging stuff

Obviously getting a Damen lard game-winning three is is a big deal for just you know kind of legitimizing the trade and showing why you trade for Damen Lillard but there’s just so much room for Improvement I choose to go positive there there’s so much more room for improvement for this particular Team

All right the Kings they had this game won again in regulation they came back by getting stops in the half court against the damanis pick and roll and by dearen Fox getting buckets on the other end I talked about the ones against Dame and his little drop coverage game tying

Shot was kind of a transition possession and it was really interesting good defense from Milwaukee because you’re down two or you’re up two so you just don’t want to lose like it’s overtime or or or or win the game basically right and Giannis ended up picking up Daren

Fox in transition and he had to press up on Daren Fox Daren Fox is shooting the out of Pull-Up threes this year so you got to take that away and then all the help Defenders were glued up off the ball as they should be because you don’t

Want to give up a three that could beat you right but I just wanted to shout out Daren Fox because he ended up getting an angle on Giannis and finishing above him at the rim and there’s just not many players in the league who can do that

Against an athlete like Giannis and then in overtime they out executed Milwaukee and then and just choked the game away at the foul line to put it simply that that’s just what happened I mean Darren Fox uh 73% shooter goes one for two Malik monk 85% shooter goes 0 for two so

You know obviously that that that’s that’s tough that’s a tough way to lose a game and they’re six and six in their last 12 15th and offense 16th in defense over that span Darren fox has cooled off quite a bit Darren Fox’s first 21 games 30 points four rebounds and six assists

On 48% from the field and 40% from three in this six and six stretch over the last 12 25 five points per game four rebounds and five assists per game on 44% from the field and 37% from three so Daren fox has cooled off but uh Deon

Sabonis is playing at the highest level of his of his career in my opinion 23 points 14 rebounds and nine assists over the last 12 games 66% from the field and 56% from three and again kind of looking a big picture with the Kings I trust

Darren Fox and Malik monk to be able to generate quality shots in the playoffs I do they just need to bracket their defense properly again when you don’t have really high level Rim protection you need to be excellent at the point of attack and excellent in Weak side help

And rebounding and that’s where that athletic forward archetype comes in and this is why I was happy with them at least talking about SE yakum because it’s it reveals to me that the king’s front office at least has their mind in the front place like to me that

Archetype of player that big athletic forward that can clean up as a low man in Rim protection and defensive rebounding is like a prerequisite for this team to have any sort of real Championship potential and so in my opinion like if you if you get dearen Fox at the level he was playing

To start the year and you get a a pascal SE yakum on that front line like they’re not in the Denver tier but they they enter into that tier of teams that could win the conference if things go right and so I’ll be really curious to see

What they end up doing here uh at the Deadline

Jason Timpf reacts to the Milwaukee Bucks win over the Sacramento Kings. Damian Lillard hit a game winning three-pointer in overtime to knock off De’Aaron Fox and the Kings. Jason explains the offensive firepower from both teams as the two elite offensive teams put up over 140 points, and how this kind of game could be a springboard for the Bucks and Giannis Antetokounmpo for the rest of the NBA season.

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