The Milwaukee Bucks lost on a four-point play in the final seconds against the Indiana Pacers, 115-114. Their losing streak now sits at three games and they are now equal with the Pacers and Detroit Pistons record-wise. Despite the final play, Giannis was the Bucks’ best performer with 19 points, 17 rebounds, and seven assists. Brook Lopez added 23 while Dame had just 15 on 4/14 shooting. For the Pacers, Pascal Siakam had 25 points, 12 rebounds, and five assists; Tyrese Haliburton had 14 points and 10 assists. Read our full summary of the game here and catch a six-minute audio recap on the Bucks+ podcast Bucks In Six Minutes below.
What Did We Learn?
Well, judging by Doc’s postgame comments, we learned that the Bucks were not prepared for the final play. For those who didn’t see it, here is the play:
Doc said that switching and waiting for Indiana to come to them, as opposed to guarding them man-to-man full court, was the problem.
“We’ve seen [the play], we’ve worked on it, we just lost them. I told our staff, ‘we’ve got to have our guys prepared better for that.’ We were off the bodies. You could see us screaming before the play that we were already off the bodies. So we were in trouble before the play started. There was no reason to switch and we just did. [Haliburton] was open the whole play. There was miscommunication there… That’s on me and our staff, not on our guys. We’ll have to figure it out, because that’s a play that should never happen.”
Three Observations
The Bucks got killed on the fast break.
Milwaukee had 15 TOs to the Pacers’ 9. So a decent differential there, but six more TOs is not responsible for losing 3-31 on fast-break points. I mean, that’s a stat that doesn’t even feel real. Many of the Bucks TOs would’ve had to have been of the live-ball variety; Indy outscored Milwaukee 23-12 in points off turnovers. Over the last five games, the Bucks are tied for the third-highest turnovers committed in the NBA. As the last play showed, inches can be the difference between winning and losing, and scrapping for stops only for guys to be so careless with the ball and give it right back really hurts, man. They lost by one point and gave away 11 extra points due to their own inability to secure the basketball.
Indiana got good looks from three all night long.
If it’s any consolation, the Bucks probably didn’t deserve to even be in this game with the number of good looks from three they gave up. Myles Turner went 1/8 and it felt like all of his looks off the pick-and-pop were pretty wide open. And I get that you’re going to have to give some stuff up with Brook in that drop defence, but it wasn’t just that. There were instances of classic Bucks overhelping, not communicating in transition, etc. They certainly didn’t look like a team that was connected very much.
Doc is trying stuff with the rotation.
I noticed that Doc, presumably after the second-quarter debacle against the Cleveland Cavaliers, had gone back to staggering Giannis and Dame much more. There weren’t long periods with both of them off the floor. I also noticed a few details such as Gary Trent Jr. not getting in until the second quarter (although he did finish the game) and KPJ coming in a tad earlier than usual.
Bonus Bucks Bits
Not to over index on one comment, but Giannis spoke after the game about if he thought he could’ve done anything differently on the last play, and at first, he didn’t really think so. But then it seemed to dawn on him that he could have not contested so closely to risk fouling the shooter and at worse, the Bucks would’ve been going to overtime. I mean, should he not know this stuff like the back of his hand by now?
The Bucks seem to be one of the more inefficient teams at converting on challenges. I had a quick look on the web and couldn’t find anyone tracking this from game to game (maybe there is?) but having that last timeout would have been very handy to advance the ball with 3.4 seconds left.
Tough one for Jericho Sims. We’ve seen teams opt to blitz Dame with Sims as the only big on the floor, and he was caught in a few spots needing to make four-on-three decisions and wasn’t quick enough. -17 on the night.
Kuz (-18 in 30 minutes) not being able to finish the game is both good (that Doc was willing to bench him) and bad (that he just isn’t a guy you can guarantee is going to help you in crucial moments).
Taurean Prince, I’m loving the way you’re shooting those catch-and-shoot threes, but these off-the-dribble forays are getting a bit much. I was surprised to see he went 7/16, because it felt like he played a pretty good game. TP made just three of his eight two-point attempts.
Up Next
The Bucks are back in action tomorrow at home against the Los Angeles Lakers at 6:30 p.m. Central. Watch the game on TNT or stream it on our Playback and YouTube channels.
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