PG Pacers Game 3: Loss

[ShootingtheJ]

"Our guys got old"

Someone bring up the averages of Dame and Khris this series

Yup. The complimentary pieces haven't been good enough. We knew that was the case before the playoffs even started. We knew we could win it anyway if the big 3 stayed healthy. We need Giannis to rescue us, something he's very capable of doing.

[Fotis St]

The only good thing that comes out of this loss is that I don't have to listen to a Giannis post game press conference repeating the same as he always does.

[MiltownMadness]

Brook is a 7 foot tall mountain who cannot rebound the ball or finish inside, but also can’t defend on the perimeter. Horst needs to ship him out. Never should’ve been brought back.

I don't think you've understood what you're looking at the last 6 years

I’ve watched Brook Lopez become practically unplayable in the playoffs the last three years. Watching him not defend Turner at the 3 point line while also not rebounding the ball has been the worst yet. We’re watching him miss layups against guards and complain about non foul calls for 20 minutes a night.

Kewl

[ShootingtheJ]

Bobby might've done fine on Siakam, but there's an open lane to the rim with 0 resistance whenever he is in the game. He is the type of player who can sabotage team defense especially if Giannis is out

Or, other could actually do their job and defend their man.

[MiltownMadness]

"Our guys got old"

Someone bring up the averages of Dame and Khris this series

Yup. The complimentary pieces haven't been good enough. We knew that was the case before the playoffs even started. We knew we could win it anyway if the big 3 stayed healthy. We need Giannis to rescue us, something he's very capable of doing.

I think most just have trouble coming to grips that Giannis is injury prone, it's the only thing that needs to be said after yesterday

[MiltownMadness]

Bobby might've done fine on Siakam, but there's an open lane to the rim with 0 resistance whenever he is in the game. He is the type of player who can sabotage team defense especially if Giannis is out

Or, other could actually do their job and defend their man.

Or you could play AJJ instead of Bobby and have good team defense

[ShootingtheJ]

You're talking about trading Khris. No. He won't fetch much in a trade and is hilariously undervalued even by Bucks fans. You keep the big 3 together next year, this will work if they can stay healthy

Narrator: They can't stay healthy

Khris is probably as reliable as any player in the game come playoff time.

[emunney]

Yes it is. Like who are we kidding here? He's 6'11 gets down hill and bullies you. His game hasn't evolved the way we had all hoped. He's gotten better at what he does well, but his skillset just never really expanded into more shooting, finesse, post skill etc. He's completely incapable playing off ball because he has no **** clue what to do. Why didn't Dame and Giannis take off as a pair? Giannis is the culprit. And we just watched a year of basketball that shows why Giannis won't age well. He COULD if he wanted to be a dominant roll man, but he won't. He'll keep doing the same thing he's always done while the impact and efficiency declines.

Its only been the opposite, Giannis isn't as athletic now than he was in his early twenties but gotten more efficient every year and his value is more than just 3 steps from half court. Why did Dame/Giannis not take off as a pair? Mostly because the Bucks don't run a real offense and both guys need to pound the ball, however Giannis's stats got better while it was Dame who was greatly diminished impact & efficiency wise. You can't blame Giannis for Dame not being able to create or play off the dribble, Giannis & Khris play off each way better. You have to admit its a Dame issue. Giannis could conceivably change his game given his unique skillset and would still be effective especially more defensive & creation focused on offense if he can't beat guys off the dribble or muscle thru them. Career bad defender is always going to be a bad defender, especially so the older they get.

Bud was a great coach who made what he was given work and was a master of load management, he's basically everything the team needs and will be the best coach available while we're stuck with Doc Rivers who lives ISOing and running starters into the ground.

I don't agree at all. Dame doesn't need to pound the ball because he can actually play off ball, Giannis does pound the rock, and cant. Giannis is hard for anyone to play with because teams load up the paint to stop him. When Giannis doesn't have the ball, he sits on the perimeter and calls for it because it's the only way he actually knows how to play. The problem is Giannis and it will continue to be so. Dame, and most other high volume scorers, like to get to the rim to compliment their shooting, and Giannis makes it harder to get to those spots, because again, teams load up the paint for him. Dame's shot distribution this season reflects that. This is why Khris is a fit, because Khris doesn't get to the rim.

This is all true but I don't think it's a team problem so much as a box score problem for Dame. It takes away some of Dame's driving lanes because the value proposition with Giannis on the floor is always going to point toward defending the paint. This would only not be true if Giannis became not just ok but a very good shooter. But it's not a bad thing for the team that other teams punt on defending the perimeter. The problem with the team is that all the role players we play other than Bev are slow as hell.

[theFireBlanket]

Yeah, that didn't look good. He said he felt better as the game went on according to Doc & himself at the presser that the plan was to play game 4. Hopefully its not going to be something going into next year.

[PG Graveyard]

I still think the Mathurin injury may be a bigger impact than both Dame and Giannis.

-Doris Burke probably

[ShootingtheJ]

Bobby might've done fine on Siakam, but there's an open lane to the rim with 0 resistance whenever he is in the game. He is the type of player who can sabotage team defense especially if Giannis is out

Or, other could actually do their job and defend their man.

Or you could play AJJ instead of Bobby and have good team defense

Bobby has been better than Brook, by a country mile.

[MiltownMadness]

Or, other could actually do their job and defend their man.

Or you could play AJJ instead of Bobby and have good team defense

Bobby has been better than Brook, by a country mile.

Yeah I'm not letting Bobby stay in to be our rim protector, dude might as well be 6 foot next to the rim. Dame/Bev/Khris/AJJ/Brook was the winning lineup yesterday

[theFireBlanket]

I still think the Mathurin injury may be a bigger impact than both Dame and Giannis.

-Doris Burke probably

They're not even all-nba level players, she wouldn't necessarily be wrong.

[MiltownMadness]

When you play Bobby/Brook together, you are expecting Bobby to play like Giannis. It's a recipe for disaster. Brook and Bobby have no business playing together

[theFireBlanket]

When you play Bobby/Brook together, you are expecting Bobby to play like Giannis. It's a recipe for disaster. Brook and Bobby have no business playing together

With Jrue it worked because he gobbled up boards. And Brook also had more speed in previous seasons.

[drew881]

Guessing they already know Dame isn’t playing Game 4 if they are releasing all this news on hisachilles

[MiltownMadness]

When you play Bobby/Brook together, you are expecting Bobby to play like Giannis. It's a recipe for disaster. Brook and Bobby have no business playing together

With Jrue it worked because he gobbled up boards.

Really good point. Now we have Khris trying to outjump 23 year old dudes for rebounds and its ugly. They just take Bobby out to the perimeter and we have no chance of getting defensive rebounds. With AJJ instead this gets flipped on its head because dude is hyper athletic and active

[PG Graveyard]

We have to lead the league in MRIs in the month of April

[KidA24]

This is a Giannis thing.

Yes and No. We were having all sorts of issue this season, when Giannis was healthy and dominating the league. Issues we didn't have a few years back.

Our guys got old. We downgraded at coach. We've blown all our future trade assets. If Giannis comes back 100% healthy, we still haven't solved those problems.

I mean, look, those 3 guys were amazing when healthy this year.

https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced?CF=MIN*G*500&GroupQuantity=3&dir=D&slug=advanced&sort=NET_RATING

3rd in the league in 3-man lineups with over 500 minutes together.

That's incredible.

The problem is, most teams primary 3-man lineups played twice as many minutes together.

[PG Graveyard]

Doc did say Giannis was going to work out hard and didn’t completely dismiss Dame. The move is to punt Sunday night and maybe Dame/Giannis can play Tuesday and beyond. I’m not ready to give up yet. This season has been sick and demented enough maybe we can add a bizarro back from the dead 3-1 series comeback. Stranger things have happened