PG Indy Game 2: Series Tied 1-1

[humanrefutation]

Also I think when no defense is working, i t is time to play Livingstone and Thanasis. In all likelihood it won’t work but times are desperate and ajj or mjb are of no use, nor is Danilo.

We fired a Championship coach coz we lost in ghe first round. Whom should we fire this time? Horst or Doc or both? We have a good chance of losing in the first round.

In season full of bad looks for the Bucks.

Firing Bud because the Bucks lost in round 1, but then not firing Doc because you lost in round 1 might be the worst look of the season.

Doc will get excuses, but then why didn't Bud get any excuses?

But the Bucks are in a lose lose because if you fire Doc it's going to be a really bad look, too.

From now on whenever I hear the ole saying If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging I will always think of Jon Horst and the 2023'24 Bucks season...lol.

I wasn't the biggest Bud fan and I thought it was time to move on, but Horst firing Bud started it all and since then, Horst has just continued to keep digging himself into a deeper hole.

I was strongly opposed to the Doc hire, but you've got to give the guy a full season before you cut bait. He's only had like 6-7 practices with these guys all season.

[rilamann]

Also I think when no defense is working, i t is time to play Livingstone and Thanasis. In all likelihood it won’t work but times are desperate and ajj or mjb are of no use, nor is Danilo.

We fired a Championship coach coz we lost in ghe first round. Whom should we fire this time? Horst or Doc or both? We have a good chance of losing in the first round.

In season full of bad looks for the Bucks.

Firing Bud because the Bucks lost in round 1, but then not firing Doc because you lost in round 1 might be the worst look of the season.

Doc will get excuses, but then why didn't Bud get any excuses?

But the Bucks are in a lose lose because if you fire Doc it's going to be a really bad look, too.

From now on whenever I hear the ole saying If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging I will always think of Jon Horst and the 2023'24 Bucks season...lol.

I wasn't the biggest Bud fan and I thought it was time to move on, but Horst firing Bud started it all and since then, Horst has just continued to keep digging himself into a deeper hole.

I was strongly opposed to the Doc hire, but you've got to give the guy a full season before you cut bait. He's only had like 6-7 practices with these guys all season.

17-19 though and probably going to get punked by a #6 seed.

If someone thought Doc should be fired because we didn't get to the Finals or even the conference Finals, I would agree with you.

But sub .500 with Giannis & Dame? Come on now.

If the Bucks went 22-14 with Doc and we had a competitive 2nd round series and we lost, then maybe I would be optimistic about next season with Doc and I would say that with a full training camp and full season, things might turn out a lot better.

One of my biggest NBA epiphanies in the 30+ I have followed the league, is how putrid of an NBA head coach Doc Rivers is. Until I had seen him up close coaching my team, I had no clue.

[Sigra]

Dame cant do it alone. Middleton had a lot of rest before game 1 so he was great in game 1. He will not have that much of rest for other games.

I knew that so I predicted L in game 2 if Giannis doesn't play.

And I will now predict L in first round if Giannis doesn't play game 3. Game 4 is too late. Last year Giannis was back for last 2 games but at that moment Miami had 2-1 advantage. Margin for error gets little and nerves start to play with you. If we give Giannis one more game to rest it will be game over IMO.

Now, off course, we are all in the heat of this fight, but if we can take a pause and look at big picture:
2020 playoffs-Giannis injured vs Miami
2021 playoffs-only 72 regular season games-a lot of luck-Bucks champions
2022 playoffs-Middleton missed all but first 2 playoff games
2023 playoffs-Giannis injured vs Miami
2024 playoffs-Giannis injured again and Middleton is running on fumes

82 regular seasons are just too much for Giannis unfortunately and Middleton is done.
Dame is still not done but he clearly save energy during regular season.

The end is near. For this great Bucks team I mean.

But it was great run and we will always remember it.

[JayMKE]

Only way Doc isn’t HC going into next season is if he gets promoted to executive, the Bucks aren’t going to pay out the deals for 4 different coaches. Who could the team even credibly hire? Let Doc be team president and offer Bud to come back HC and GM. Lol

[slos]

Let’s not overreact from one L. Actually winning one without Giannis and earning him an extra week while boosting Dame’s confidence is a nice outcome so far. We just need Giannis now in Indy taking away that brutal Beasley and Crowder minutes.

Dame (40)/Bev (8)
Bev (20)/Green (14)/Pat (14)
Midds (40)/Pat (8)
Giannis (40)/Bobby (8)
Brook (28)/Bobby (20)

As long as we have our Top 8 guys healthy and Doc doesn’t need to play anyone else I’m comfortable we can win any series.

[Fotis St]

2nd straight year Giannis not available when it matters.... Just sit his @$$ on the last 10 games of the regular season, regardless what the f he says he wants to play. Stupid decision from Giannis and the whole Bucks Org to let him play injured after a dumb 4 Ls streak. I can't believe eveybody thinks Giannis is some kind of superhuman ... how superhuman looks at the bench sitting out ?

[mediocrityrules]

Bucks got abused inside portis has to be the softest big ive seen doesnt help that indy has 15 more fgs than the bucks

I was just going to say the same thing about Portis. When he's playing center he's as soft as butter.

[Sigra]

I can't believe eveybody thinks Giannis is some kind of superhuman ..

He is anything but. Lets compare him with white chubby guy Nikola Jokić (same age-29)

Jokić--447 regular season games last 6 seasons-didnt miss a single playoff game in his life
Giannis--399 regular season games last 6 seasons-injured in 4 of this 6 seasons in playoffs

Giannis will get statue in front of Fiserv at the end of day. As he should.

But he is injury prone.

[HKPackFan]

I can't believe eveybody thinks Giannis is some kind of superhuman ..

He is anything but. Lets compare him with white chubby guy Nikola Jokić (same age-29)

Jokić--447 regular season games last 6 seasons-didnt miss a single playoff game in his life
Giannis--399 regular season games last 6 seasons-injured in 4 of this 6 seasons in playoffs

Giannis will get statue in front of Fiserv at the end of day. As he should.

But he is injury prone.

Giannis takes on more violence than most players in the NBA. And he dishes it out.

I don't think it's fair to compare him to others. His type of play is so physical and so violent it takes a toll. Eventually he will have to change his game to stay more healthy as he ages.

If they called all the contact he gets there would be 30fts per game.

[pifhluk23]

Celtics are probably the only team in the league that I would put as favorites to beat the Pacers without their best player.

[JEIS]

The crowd was pretty a$$ tonight. But how many times can you chant defense and have Siakim get to the rim at will for an easy layup?,

Crowder was very bad, but expectations were that Bobby and Kris would pick up the slack, knowing the Pacers were heavily double teaming Dame from last game. That didn't happen. Pacers played tight defense. Tony Brothers was a factor too. Some sus calls the first 3 quarters. Indy was getting the ball in crappier players hands, or Bobby who was missing bunnies and dunks.

Also, the AJJ talk is more of "what you are doing is not working", so, change something. A younger quicker player might be able to alter some shots better than what we were currently getting. Even the Thanasis talk, some energy/ Spasticness hands in their face could potentially throw them off their game some with a less beatable and predictable defender. Not saying he should play 30 min a game, but switch things up a few plays, keep them off rhythm.

[Turk Nowitzki]

I want them to humble this Pacers team so badly and I'm not sure it's happening without a healthy Giannis. They so deserve to be humbled.

[Plossum]

Doc needs to shorten the rotation. Dame, Khris, Brook, Bobby, Pat B and C and AJ are prob the only competent NBA players we have atm. Beas and Crowder need to be cut. One is a spaz, the other washed.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

It dawns on me tonight that it is complete malpractice for us to not have developed either Maarjon or Jackson Jr into at least a 15 minute playoff rotation guy.

At the same time, we would be so much better with Giannis getting 38 minutes that it almost doesn't even matter to pick the first two games apart.

Whatever

I'm willing to bet Marjon never never plays any meaningful basketball even if some team 'develops' him next year by giving him court time

[ShootingtheJ]

Jae Crowder was an abomination.

And Beasley, and Portis, and AJ Green except for one play

AJ Green? He was the only guy who made Pacers miss.

[ShootingtheJ]

Doc needs to shorten the rotation. Dame, Khris, Brook, Bobby, Pat B and C and AJ are prob the only competent NBA players we have atm. Beas and Crowder need to be cut. One is a spaz, the other washed.

This becomes much easier next game with Giannis on the floor.

[fansinceforever]

Brook made a couple plays but he also gave away several bc he can't pop out to the perimeter and these team doesn't communicate enough to make that switch work.

If Turner shoots well, he has the potential to blow every game wide open.

We don't have time. Giannis needs to play next game.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Khris isn't the problem.

We're already a pretty scratchy team and then our MVP candidate got injured. Fact is, Giannis papers over a lot of the severe cracks this squad has. Without him we're probably close to the level of like Chicago or Atlanta.

I mean, take any Playoff team's best player from the squad and would you back them to win a series let alone the NBA title? Boston could prob sustain a deep run without Tatum (but not win) and that's about it.

Even with Giannis, this was going to be very competitive series. Without him, our game plan is pretty much hope to hell we get hot from three and they don't.

Part of the issue is Khris isn't the Khris from 3 years ago. He played probably as well as he could, brolo played great offensively and made some big plays defensively but has lost a step / game has adjusted, Dame played great offensively but still a sieve on defense. Like these guys are trying but this is probably a play-in caliber team without Giannis. I don't think the play was an embarrassment, I think they just ran out of gas and momentum turns because we were hoping washed up Jae could hit game changing shots.

[ShootingtheJ]

Celtics are probably the only team in the league that I would put as favorites to beat the Pacers without their best player.

I agree with this, and only the Celtics could do this because they have the worst best player of any contender.

[soxperry]

Bye Khris.

Clear as day: Hes got to go.

Its all about the playoffs. Dame and Giannis can easily soak up his shot attempts. We need a wing who can defend and hit kick out threes. We dont need Khris's offense. If Giannis or Dame are hurt, we have zero title chances anyway, so theres no good argument to keep him.

Khris is still better than Klay. Ship him to Orlando where they can surround him with defense.