After a 104-93 loss on Tuesday to a Golden State Warriors crew that was resting “exhausted” high scorer Stephen Curry, Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers held a gathering with superstars Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, according to NBA insider Chris Haynes, because the Bucks seek for “ways to improve” a crew that has misplaced 5 of its final seven video games within the warmth of a battle for postseason seeding within the Eastern Conference.
Haynes’ sources described the assembly as “an open forum” wherein all three events may share their factors of view on why Milwaukee’s offense has continued to lavatory down late in video games, and a “productive” session between the coach and gamers tasked with getting the Bucks again to competing for championships after consecutive first-round playoff exits.
[You could win $25K in the Women’s Bracket Mayhem contest. Enter now!]
For the season, the Bucks rank sixth within the NBA in offensive effectivity in the first quarter, tied for tenth in the second quarter, 14th in the third quarter … and dead last in the fourth quarter, scoring simply 105.8 factors per 100 possessions within the remaining body. The struggles develop much more pronounced once you focus in on crunch time, with Milwaukee producing a mere 97.1 points-per-100 in “clutch” situations — when the rating is inside 5 factors within the remaining 5 minutes of the fourth quarter or time beyond regulation — whereas capturing simply 38.7% from the field and 30% from 3-point land with practically as many turnovers (38) as assists (44) in these eventualities.
After sputtering for many of the first half in opposition to Golden State, the Bucks roared again within the third quarter, using the playmaking of Antetokounmpo and scorching capturing from Kyle Kuzma and Brook Lopez to erase a 17-point deficit and take a lead into the ultimate minute of the interval earlier than the Warriors answered with a Jimmy Butler-fueled 16-2 Warriors run. The recreation was nonetheless within the steadiness within the clutch, although, with Milwaukee trailing 96-93 with 4 minutes to go — just for the Bucks to attain simply two factors on 0-for-6 capturing the remainder of the way in which, stumbling to the end line as Golden State closed out its fifteenth win in 18 video games since trading for Butler and rejuvenating its season:
The Warriors deserve a fair proportion of the credit score for Milwaukee’s late-game struggles in its lowest-scoring outing of the season — most notably Draymond Green, who completed off a masterclass performance against Antetokounmpo that served as a reminder of simply how phenomenal a defender he stays, eight seasons faraway from his lone Defensive Player of the Year trophy.
Watching these possessions, although, Milwaukee’s total stagnation leaps off the web page.
Giannis clears out the left wing to assault Draymond, with Lillard one move away to occupy Gary Payton II … and all three different Bucks stay stationary as Antetokounmpo goes to work, ending up with a non-rim runner over a superb contest by among the finest defenders on this planet.
Giannis kicks the ball to Dame on the correct wing, flashes to the correct elbow and calls repeatedly for Taurean Prince to vacate the correct nook to attempt to take away Butler from the help-defensive equation on the robust facet. Several seconds elapse earlier than Prince follows the instruction; Jimmy doesn’t chew, staying put as a result of Milwaukee’s already all the way down to 10 seconds on the shot clock by the point Antetokounmpo comes as much as attempt to set the ball display screen for Lillard.
The display screen try itself goes nowhere, as a result of Giannis by no means truly makes contact with Payton, shuffling from his proper hip over towards his left and standing perpendicular to the sideline — an angle that left Dame nowhere to go on his proper, forcing him to reject the display screen, retreat and attempt to make one thing occur with a tough left-hand dribble at midcourt with seven seconds left on the shot clock. The end result isn’t horrible — a Gary Trent Jr. catch-and-shoot look over a late contest by Brandin Podziemski — however it definitely wasn’t Plan A or B out of that motion.
“We didn’t execute [the play], but that wasn’t why we lost the game,” Rivers stated after the sport, in keeping with Eric Nehm of The Athletic. “We didn’t execute most of the game. We’re in an offensive funk right now and we have to get out of it.”
On the following journey, once more, Milwaukee doesn’t even strategy stepping into its main motion — a Trent Jr. inverted ball display screen for Giannis, aiming to both get the massive fella downhill in opposition to a smaller guard on a change or open a pitch again for a clear catch-and-shoot 3 — till there are 14 seconds left on the clock. That goes nowhere, so Giannis pivots right into a handoff to Dame, with GPII throughout him and Draymond in his lap on the hedge, Podziemski sliding as much as take Trent, Jimmy choosing up Giannis on the roll, and Buddy Hield zoning as much as play two on the weak facet, leaving Milwaukee with no higher choice within the dying seconds of the clock than a tightly contested Dame stepback within the nook.
Going oh-fer down the stretch in opposition to a protection that ranks seventh in the NBA this season and second since Butler’s debut doesn’t, in a vacuum, represent a disaster. But when it comes on the heels of similar struggles throughout latest losses to the Magic, Cavaliers and Thunder — three different top-10 defenses, replete with size and physicality on the level of assault — it represents the continuation of a troubling sample for a Milwaukee facet that’s now 11-18 in opposition to teams with a .500 record or better, 5-15 in opposition to teams with top-10 point differentials and simply 2-12 mixed in opposition to the Cavaliers, Celtics, Knicks, Thunder, Rockets and Nuggets — the highest three seeds in every convention.
This Bucks crew was anticipated to overwhelm opponents with offensive excellence after pairing Antetokounmpo and Lillard earlier than final season. Milwaukee now sits just 14th in offensive efficiency and has scored 117.9 factors per 100 non-garbage-time possessions with Giannis and Dame sharing the ground, in keeping with Cleaning the Glass — a mark that might rank seventh within the NBA for the complete season. Good, however not nice — and, even with Antetokounmpo continuing to produce at an MVP level, definitely not nice sufficient to constantly beat the sort of opposition Milwaukee’s prone to face within the playoffs.
Opponents seeking to defang the Bucks offense can cross-match wing defenders onto the floor-spacing Lopez, slot larger defenders onto Kuzma — who was guarded primarily by Quinten Post and Chet Holmgren within the final two video games — and have them sag off to clog the paint, daring Milwaukee’s trade-deadline acquisition to knock down sufficient perimeter pictures to beat them. He’s 27-for-88 from 3-point vary (30.7%) and 38-for-120 on jumpers overall (31.7%) for the reason that commerce deadline — a degree of ineffectiveness that can solely embolden opposing defenses to proceed cranking up the stress on Antetokounmpo, Lillard and Lopez when the video games matter most. And, at this stage, they all matter most.
Milwaukee’s West Coast street journey continues Thursday with a matchup with the Lakers, who rank 11th in defensive efficiency for the complete season and third since acquiring Luka Dončić, who will miss the Bucks game. The Bucks enter Thursday’s motion at 38-30, a recreation behind the Pacers for fourth place within the West, and in a digital tie for fifth with the surging Pistons, contemporary off a buzzer-beating game-winner by Cade Cunningham on Wednesday. If Rivers, Antetokounmpo and Lillard can’t discover solutions to drag the Bucks out of their offensive malaise, it may price them home-court benefit within the first spherical of the playoffs — and doubtlessly drop all of them the way in which all the way down to the sixth seed and a matchup with a Knicks crew that has blown Milwaukee out in each of their conferences this season.
“It’s everything,” Rivers said after the Warriors loss. “We’re missing shots too, but we don’t have the right spacing. The ball’s not moving. We’re not attacking. We’re not getting to the paint. I got a whole list. But we gotta do it, and I gotta get them to do it. That’s my job.”
