The Milwaukee Bucks blew a great opportunity to win against the Golden State Warriors without Steph Curry, but didn’t turn up for a fight and lost 104-93. Giannis stuffed the stat sheet on bad shooting with 20 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists. Kyle Kuzma chipped in with 22 points on 5/13 (yes, you read that correctly) from three. For the Dubs, Jimmy Butler had 24 points, eight rebounds, 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?
If I had to diagnose what is causing the Bucks problems into one phrase, it would be “attention to detail.” The difference between winning and losing is found in a team’s attention to detail throughout the game. The Bucks have the talent to win games, but they are nowhere near as connected as they need to be. They continue to let themselves down on the details. For example, the Bucks battled back with a 14-0 run in the third quarter. They were up 76-70 with 1:04 left in the third. What happened from there was a complete meltdown:
0:44: AJ Green fumbled a pass from Giannis, and Buddy Hield nailed a transition three.
0:32: KPJ decided to attack Gary Payton II, the best defender on the court, with 18 seconds on the shot clock and had it sent back, Kuminga got two shots attacking in transition.
0:09: Kuzma missed a wing three with eight seconds left in the third quarter, Butler (a bad three-point shooter) got it in transition and was fouled by AJ Green shooting a three. Again, why anybody would be contesting a 29% three-point shooter like that is beyond me. Dubs were up 78-76 at the end of three.
11:10: KPJ fouled Butler (a bad shooter!) on a step-back long two with 1.7 seconds left on the shot clock, which he made.
10:57: Brook Lopez comes down and shot a turnaround fadeaway over two Warriors and missed.
10:18: Dame tried to split a double-team (where he there was no space to do so) with KPJ open at the top of the key, and Hield got another transition three. The score was then 86-76 and the Warriors had gone on a 16-0 run in about three minutes of game time.
Three More Detail-Based Observations
The Bucks screeners need to be better at relieving Dame of point-of-attack physicality.
The book is pretty much out on how to slow down Milwaukee: be physical. But what does “being physical” mean? On defence, it means making it hard for the other team to get into the actions they want to run. The most relevant Bucks example is pick-and-roll actions. Dame wants to get downhill and attack dropping big men. Teams combat this by getting closer to him at the point of attack and trying to dictate his actions as opposed to the other way around. This makes Dame harder to screen because firstly, the POA defender is so close to Dame that they become slippery and more difficult to hit; the screener risks setting an illegal pick as well. Secondly, the screener knows they are going to be taking a lot of contact by the POA defender, who is not getting detached without a fight. Point being that the task of simply setting a screen becomes much more tedious when you increase physicality and make the offensive team do more stuff. Regardless, all these details are executed nightly by the NBA’s best screeners—I don’t see anything close to this from Giannis and Brook.
Love him or hate him, Draymond Green (last night’s opponent, ironically) has made his entire career off perfecting these minute details. Green has prided himself on being the best screener in the NBA and my north star is for Giannis to get even 70% to that level. Taking any amount of contact to get your teammate separation, sprinting into every screen so the screener’s defender is late to the action, immediately flipping the pick if the defence ices it (sends the action towards the sideline or baseline). These little things separate elite screeners from meh screeners. And I watch the games and see this very issue as a major reason the offence is sometimes so stale, especially in the fourth quarter. And guess how teams are going to guard Dame at the POA in the playoffs if this doesn’t get sorted? Yup. They’ve all got the film.
Kyle Kuzma needs to be assertive in whatever he’s doing.
This was a rough start for Kuzma as the Dubs clearly had a plan to leave him open, even though Doc denied that being their plan postgame (he said he heard Steve Kerr chewing his guys out for leaving Kuz open). Regardless, I think Kyle needs to do one of two things when he’s open from deep. Firstly, if they are going to leave you open, shoot with confidence. The first few attempts were kind of half-hearted. When Kyle was assertive to shoot the open ones, it felt like they went in. Secondly, if you’re not going to shoot, make yourself a screener. Screen hard, create separation, and become a short-roll playmaker or attack a mismatch. And one other note: Kuz is not a good enough shooter to where heat checks should ever be in his repertoire. After he made his fifth, Kyle shot another few that were bad shots. Like, this one is a big nope:
Damian Lillard shot badly, but his off-ball defence was more disappointing.
Dame’s off-ball defence was bad against OKC; his ball-watching was the main reason OKC pulled away in the late first and early second of that game. He continued that trend last night. The number of times he lost his man off ball was simply unacceptable and came at crucial points in the game. Here are a few examples:
Bonus Bucks Bits
The Bucks only had nine TOs to the Warriors’ 18. Golden State had 10 in the third quarter.
The Bucks got basically nothing from their bench, losing 39-13 in scoring off the pine.
Milwaukee also lost fast break points again, going down 18-9 despite having half the TOs Golden State did.
Ryan Rollins got minutes as the ninth man with Jericho Sims out.
Up Next
The Bucks continue their West Coast swing against the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. Central. Catch the game on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin or stream it on our Playback and YouTube channels.
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