PG: Nets Edge Out Bucks in Game 2

[Magic Giannison]

I feel empty, disappointed and sad....

[fan230]

The Jrue trade was very bad. Another non shooting pg like Bledsoe.

Plus we traded away our future with all those picks.

And we signed this non shooting pg to a max type extension.

We needed a 2nd shooter to be there besides Khris in the starting lineup.

Bogdan would have been that.

Khris failed badly to score. Had an immediate effect on Giannis as I knew it would, given our lack of shooters in today’s nba.

We were defensive ly overmatched with ki and kd.

End of story.

Every thing else is just extra, not the core reason.

[leroyjw10]

This series has been as predictable as it comes. Bud gets outcoached, Giannis chokes at the line, and Middleton can’t make a shot. Rinse and repeat.

[fan230]

Think about this:

Jrue is a non shooting pg. Teague cannot shoot. Pat C shoots well every few games. DdV is a poor shooter and he is our starting shooting guard, and we had Wes last year as a sg who was even a worse shooter than ddv.

Khris is the only good shooter who stopped scoring against the Nets.

No wonder Giannis played scared because while he has v strong offensive skills, he cannot shoot at all.

Brook used to shoot well 2 years ago when we performed the best but no longer can.

We were enamoured with Jrue’s lock down ability which was a no show against the Nets kd and ki.

Tucker can only score corner 3 s which he failed with.

Brook failed in shooting.

Giannis tried shooting; it was pathetic to see his desperation.

A very poorly constructed team.

It was a no brainer to have good shooters around Giannis and we could not.

Our vaunted defense of PJ and “lockdown “ Jrue was no match for the accuracy of kd and ki.

Where do we go from here?

I say we keep Khris our only shooter, keep Forbes of course in the bench. Try to trade Jrue for a shooting point guard. Get a shooting guard whocan score.

Giannis was like the square peg in a round hole yesterday . Trying 3 pointers when that is not his strength only because he saw the complete collapse of outside scoring for 2 games in a row.

I am not going to talk about defense as Jrue and PJ failed. Plus stopping kd and ki and jh was impossible.

Our only hope was a strong offense.

Get scorers who can score from a distance. Every thing else will fall into place even against good teams.

[fan230]

Firing Bud is an easy way out to vent. Will be of little use unless we get a better coach which is v hard.

Yes he needs to be flexible and all that but when the team is constructed in the way it is, just changing the coach will not help especially against good teams.

[jschligs]

Firing Bud is an easy way out to vent. Will be of little use unless we get a better coach which is v hard.

Yes he needs to be flexible and all that but when the team is constructed in the way it is, just changing the coach will not help especially against good teams.

It will help if the coach of similar skill actually runs a game plan and managed his players right.

[Kurgan 45]

So, the main movements after the game5:
- fire Bud
- trade Middleton, Lopez, Donte, PatC, PJ
- sign Dame/Beal, Rose, Harrel

Again the infamous finish of the season, like Sucks, not Bucks.
Pain...

[MoreTrife]

No part of this team between Giannis, Khris, Bud, the role players, etc inspires confidence in terms of potentially winning a title. Like Mavs fans for example can at least find hope in the fact that Luka is an absolute killer playoff player and just 22 years old, and Carlisle is a really good coach. You just build around that. Giannis is the worst playoff superstar by a mile and he’s 8 seasons in, the rest of our roster isn’t nearly good enough, we have the worst playoff coach in the league, and we’re capped out with no draft assets. I’m not saying blow it up completely but it’s hard not to think about it.

One more coach. And if no improvements then, have to think about a major overhaul.

Spitballing: Giannis for Lillard, picks; Middleton and those picks for PG. None of these dudes would re-sign, however, and Giannis is a local icon who stayed, so it'd be really cold to do that.

Yeah. I don't think we ever win anything with Giannis but he's shown so much loyalty when others wouldn't have and he's such a good dude, you just have to put on your party hat and listen to the band as the ship slowly sinks.

[ABucksFan]

The worst part about losing is hearing Media talk **** about Bucks for days. All the podcast talk **** about them for days. Nets get rode on. Literally avoiding all social media and basketball content.

[paulpressey25]

I love Jrue, but he is not the creator/organizer we needed.

Dunn talked about this on his podcast this morning. Jrue is not a PG, and the team doesn't have PG.

You go back to two years ago, and the supposed rift between Brogdon and the organization over Malcolm wanting to be the PG. That was supposedly why we didn't match, and were set on trading him. He wanted out over that matter.

Was Malcolm flawed? You bet. But he probably was the best "PG" we had on the roster.

[BucksStatsGuy]

I don't venture much to these parts anymore, but I think this is a very good example of just how exponential the talent scale is. 99th percentile and 95th percentile is a massive difference.

Giannis seemingly short circuiting when presented with any sort of adversity becomes a major problem for Khris, because while he is one of the best shot makers in the game, he isn't QUITE as good as that Kyrie/Steph/Harden/KD/Dame level. Khris shouldn't be forced to out-ISO Kevin Durant, but well, when Giannis **** the bed, he has to, because we have no shot creators on the team. The crazy thing is that he's even managed to do it sometimes! And it pains me to say it, because I love Khris with all of my heart. But if Giannis is going to do this year in and year out, he probably is not the right type of shot maker you need. But we have no real assets to trade (except for Khris/Jrue themselves), and it will become increasingly hard to sign a FA here after potentially 3 straight embarrassing playoff exits if you keep the same people around.

[paulpressey25]

The worst part about losing is hearing Media talk **** about Bucks for days. All the podcast talk **** about them for days. Nets get rode on. Literally avoiding all social media and basketball content.

For me the worst part of this is some twitter and media guys hyperventilating on Bud. If they lose this series should Bud go? Of course.

At the same time, everything we saw last night was the culmination of seven years of an ownership group that was spotted Giannis, Middleton, cap room and draft picks. And their first decision was to continue the Herb Kohl "allow me to meddle" organizational chart. Keeping Hammond on board and also recruiting Jason Kidd (add in hiring your son Alex for bonus points) was an obvious disaster at the time. You make a decision that bad as your first major move out of the gate, and it foreshadows all of this.

[yannisk]

There is a lot to say about the shortcomings of this team.

Bud is stubborn and cannot adapt,

we don't have a great playmaker. Giannis/Middleton/Jrue try to play make and none is particularly good

We don't have a dynamic scorer,

Brook is slow footed on defense and the whole defensive scheme is gimmicky

the bench is thin. Pat and Teague are unplayable.

But the worst thing is that we play worst that we should play even with this shortcomings. Team has a loser mentality, Giannis cannot hit an ft shot, the shooters miss all 3p shots, Middleton is successfully guarded by Irving, Giannis launches 3p shots 5 seconds on the clock. We are getting outworked by tired veterans.

we need a big shakeup and we don't have the assets to do it. Probably we replace Bud, Giannis changes his ft routine and hits 65% in the regular season, we replace Portis and Forbes with some other veterans on the minimum, we convince ourselves that this is a new team before we fail again next summer. Maybe in the meantime we trade Middleton for a worst player. The year after Giannis asks for a trade.

[Coach Carter]

This all start with Giannis. When your best player plays stupid, selfish and scared that destroy entire team chemistry. He is what he is. Regular season player who shrinks in playoffs because he has low BBIQ and because he is not natural baller. He plays basketball because he is freak and has incredible athletic abilities. Not because he loved it when he was kid or something. He doesn't feel basketball. He is athletic freak. That's all. And in playoffs he cant handle pressure so he is even worse. But he will make us good regular season team and we will win 1st rounds of playoffs. That is much more then what we had for decades.

And you cant trade him. I mean, you can find some good trade for him, but you just cant trade a guy who decided to resign with your small market team when he was 2 time MVP. You just cant do that. No meter how bad he is from now on. He was 2 time MVP who decided to be loyal to small market team. End of story.

I guess this is the conversation about giannis that most of us knew was coming but didn't want to have.

In 2019, we lost to a very good raptors side. I don't know if they were more talented than us but they definitely played better in the bigger moments and it takes mental strength, belief, confidence (call it what you want) to do that. I just knew they had it and we didn't and we still don't. It also takes smarts and if i remember correctly giannis fouled out in game 3. He was a defensive anchor for us up until that point, challenging n swatting everything and keeping us in that game. He left the game and kawhi secured the win, initiating the gentlemen sweep. I feel we mentally checked out after that close loss.

Some time after the raptors title win, I remember lowry speaking about kawhi's composure during the big moments. He said that he brought calmness and confidence to the rest of the squad. He also said that the team took on his persona. Remember lowry was a playoff choker alongside defrozan. That all changed with kawhi's arrival and lowry is now a changed man. Thus i agree that it all starts with your best player.

Regarding trading giannis, agreed, you just can't. With 8 years of service, this is a kid we took a chance on at no.15; you're not expecting a x 2 MVP and multiple allstar at that stage of the draft. We took jabari at no.2 the following year. Giannis wasn't suppose to be better than jabari. He took us to the conference finals. He changed a lot for this franchise. His uniform, the no.34 has become iconic. I see kids here in Australia wearing it. He may not deliver a ring like kareem did but he's already one of the best players in bucks history (3rd all time scorer) and you just don't trade a guy like that. For the most part, I think i speak for everyone when i say, the giannis era has been a whole lot of fun. Winning a chip ain't easy. There are a lot of studs (Malone, Barkley, Nash, Iverson etc.) that never got one.

[yannisk]

I feel empty, disappointed and sad....

what is your prediction for the Buck's future?

Watch on YouTube

[soboMP3]

I love Jrue, but he is not the creator/organizer we needed.

Dunn talked about this on his podcast this morning. Jrue is not a PG, and the team doesn't have PG.

You go back to two years ago, and the supposed rift between Brogdon and the organization over Malcolm wanting to be the PG. That was supposedly why we didn't match, and were set on trading him. He wanted out over that matter.

Was Malcolm flawed? You bet. But he probably was the best "PG" we had on the roster.

Jrue is not a PG now? Perhaps such bold claims can be made when we have a coach that doesn’t use Giannis as a PG 50% of the time. I thing Brogdon wanted out of the city regardless of basketball. He hated it here and called it the most segregated/backwards city he had been in, basically.

[ABucksFan]

It's really simple Giannis can't win or be that guy with a jumpshot. Don't compare him to Shaq, Shaq could get buckets AT WILL down low, it's that simple, Shaq was unstoppable. Giannis for as much of a genetic freak he is can't do that. Harden/Dame/Beal should've been our targets, team fell in love with Midds. I get it...we groomed him etc etc, but he was never the answer. Jrue is an excellent player as well, but him and Midds as a core...IDK I don't think you win with that. Hope I'm wrong.

Also, we are no WAY in hell trading Giannis. That's just a NO. Unless he demands it, this shouldn't even be spoken of.

[slos]

My biggest concern for this series was how playable Brook would be. It’s not his fault, he was awesome against Miami, he is trying his best against Brooklyn but this matchup is not in his favor. I was afraid that this would happen because I know Bud is too stubborn not to start Brook. Now I just hope that the two blowout Ls will force him to make that adjustment.

Keep Brook in the bench, start Forbes and gamble on his hot shooting to keep up with high scoring Nets. Let the ball in Jrue’s hands and have Giannis attacking the paint with four shooters around him. Play smart and he will either score or create an open 3.

Jrue (40)/Teague (8)
Forbes (28)/Pat (20)
Midds (40)/Tucker (8)
Tucker (20)/Giannis (20)/Portis (8)
Giannis (20)/Brook (28)

Less Brook, less Portis, more small ball with Giannis starting and finishing the game at C.

[BucksRule18]

Woke up this morning with a sick feeling in my stomach. I love Giannis to death, but even if by some miracle we were able to land a guy like Lillard, Giannis would still want to run the offense. Maybe the 2 MVP's have gotten to him, but he definitely wants to be the next Jordan, Kobe, Lebron. He can't do that if playing second fiddle to a ball hog. Middleton and Jrue will never be mistaken for the main superstars on a championship level team. I know these were only rumors, but it did seem that Giannis didn't want Chris Paul on this team or even Harden. He wants to win a championship being the alpha dog and we'll continue seeing the same thing happen to this team year after year with a different coach. He just sees himself dominating in the regular season and thinks he can ultimately do the same in the playoffs.

[averageposter]

I came away from the first game, looking at the outside shooting and said obviously if you shoot your average you'd be in that game, despite not looking great defensively there either. Can't play that uninspired inefficient again etc.

Then you have this second game. From the tip to the finish there just isn't any indication there is any kind of plan. Long gone is any kind of defensive intensity, gone is any kind of playing off each other. If there is any place Bud thinks they have an advantage you couldn't discern it from their actions. This isn't the three playoff Dames or Three playoff Lukas they are certainly capable of being, One guy played a couple possessions and the Bucks haven't made those kind of heroics remotely necessary.

It feels like the Bucks used all their intensity, creativity, adjustments game planning to excise the Miami Heat demon, then put their feet up on their desk and forgot it all. After 3 playoffs end this way, this has to be it for the current staff, and maybe part of the core.