PG Memphis - Bucks Fade

[Plossum]

Get khris back into starting lineup asap!

This seems an obvious change to make. Midds and Dairy to the starting lineup. We’re asking too much of Prince as a vet min guy to be a starter.

Lopez, Giannis, Midds, Dairy, Dame
Prince, GTJ, Ajax, Bobby, Rollins.

Here’s an interesting stats: the bucks have logged 10 five man units that have played 30mins or more together. Only four have a positive net rating but all four are actually pretty crazy good (all +20 or higher).

But Doc has leant most into the starting lineup with Jax at SG (most minutes) and GTJ as SG (second most minutes). Both are negative lineups.

Someone needs to get in docs ear and show him the data. Play the lineups that work more minutes.

[Baddy Chuck]

One thing I would like to see is Doc trusting Ajax more. Understand he's probably a frustrating as hell player to coach but he's the best at what we have to fill a hole the team needs. This is like the 3rd or 4th game I can remember in the past couple weeks where Ajax provided fine minutes, the team was playing well with him and then Doc just removes him from the game. Subbed out up 10 in the third quarter and didn't play the rest of the game. AJ and Khris played well so understandable but there's got to be minutes you can find for Ajax.

We've gotten diminishing returns in his net rating cuz teams know they can stick their rim protector on him. Edey guarded him. Also, he was poor on d. Kept over-committing and breaking down our d.

What we need is to get a wing defender who's smarter & not so dysfunctional on d. Until then, play Green more, & Ajax is a situational, limited minutes guy. If he's playing well, keep him out there. But this wasn't 1 of those games. It's the last thing Doc deserves a critique for. There are plenty legit reasons to rip him.

So let them play Edey or whatever, them playing fast and running us out of the gym beat our breaks off. When Edey was posting up half the game before they took him out the game looked pretty comfortable. Ajax was 1 for 2 from three and making pretty good plays getting the ball in the paint.

Again, not saying Ajax is perfect. He's frustrating as hell. But in that spot he's the best, pretty much only, thing we got. If the mistakes start to hurt the team, or what he brings isn't needed and other guys are brining it then sure, limit his minutes. Tonight we got absolutely man handled the 18 minutes he sat to end the game. Maybe nothing changes with him in there but we we do know what happened without him.

[fan230]

Dame has been disinterested the whole time he has been with the Bucks. He cannot defend, cannot create for others. He is good at pointing to his fictional wrist watch. It was a disaster to get him and lose Jrue.

[MickeyDavis]

I knew this season was doomed back in October on media day when Giannis said that him and Dame had not gotten together 1 single time over the entire off season. Not 1 time. In an off-season that began the 1st of May.

Like I said back in October when people scoffed and said it was a nothing-burger. Do I think Giannis and Dame getting together a few times in the offseason would have made them that much better on the court together this season?

No.

But it showed an absolute and utter lack of commitment and sacrifice.

Now fast forward from the 1st of October to now February and through almost 50 games into the season, this team looks like it has an absolute and utter lack of commitment.

Get together and do what? Shoot? Talk basketball? They had just spent every day together for 7 months. Dame spending time with his kids did more good than hanging out with Giannis. There are a lot of reasons why this season has gone the way it's gone. Giannis and Dame not being BFF in August isn't one of them.

[Plossum]

I knew this season was doomed back in October on media day when Giannis said that him and Dame had not gotten together 1 single time over the entire off season. Not 1 time. In an off-season that began the 1st of May.

Like I said back in October when people scoffed and said it was a nothing-burger. Do I think Giannis and Dame getting together a few times in the offseason would have made them that much better on the court together this season?

No.

But it showed an absolute and utter lack of commitment and sacrifice.

Now fast forward from the 1st of October to now February and through almost 50 games into the season, this team looks like it has an absolute and utter lack of commitment.

Get together and do what? Shoot? Talk basketball? They had just spent every day together for 7 months. Dame spending time with his kids did more good than hanging out with Giannis. There are a lot of reasons why this season has gone the way it's gone. Giannis and Dame not being BFF in August isn't one of them.

We just don’t have the cattle at the end of the day. I do still think this team can win the title though. But we’d need to go on a huge heater ala the 2023 Heat.

[rilamann]

Do I think Giannis and Dame getting together a few times in the offseason would have made them that much better on the court together this season?

No.

But it showed an absolute and utter lack of commitment and sacrifice.

Get together and do what? Shoot? Talk basketball? They had just spent every day together for 7 months. Dame spending time with his kids did more good than hanging out with Giannis. There are a lot of reasons why this season has gone the way it's gone. Giannis and Dame not being BFF in August isn't one of them.

Read those parts of my post again.

[Daver]

Bring in butler n williams trade pat get under 2nd aprin call it a day

[paulpressey25]

The bottom line is that Dame, Khris, Brook, Pat and GTJ aren’t punching their weight.

I don’t put Dairy, Ajax, Rollins or Taurean in there because no one expected them to punch anything. But those other guys? Not a one of them is equaling their performance from prior seasons.

[Plossum]

The bottom line is that Dame, Khris, Brook, Pat and GTJ aren’t punching their weight.

I don’t put Dairy, Ajax, Rollins or Taurean in there because no one expected them to punch anything. But those other guys? Not a one of them is equaling their performance from prior seasons.

GTJ has been fine for us. That he gives us anything as a vet min guy is a bonus. I think Khris will get there.

Dame is the big concern. He has stretches where you think he’s worked it out but then takes a few steps back to the point you wonder if he’s made any progress at all.

End of the day, Dame is the most important player on this team in terms of whether we make it to the promised land or not. We know we’re going to get MVP level output from Giannis but Dame is way too inconsistent atm with his effort levels and production. If he sucks in the playoffs we’ll go down with him. If he can do what we know he’s capable of then we’ll make a deep run.

[HKPackFan]

Surprised we kept it under 140.


The team makss me sad.

[DanoMac]

Read on Twitter

Yikes…

[blazza18]

Giannis said something similar in the preseason. He's just talkin'.

[tonyreyes123]

Read on Twitter

Yikes…

Bucks lose in the first round again he’s 100% asking for a trade

[brewbucks]

It's time we put Jon Horst in our sights again. Sell me on why not.

I don’t understand why this man didn’t retool after the 2022 season. Like it blows my **** mind on why he continued to bring back the band instead of making moves. Too much comfort smh.

[old skool]

I think Portis' absence is severely hurting the Bucks against big teams. When Lopez or Antetokounmpo sat, Memphis would play Edey and Jackson Jr, forcing the Bucks to use Middleton or Prince or Ajax defensively. It's not like Jenkins could not anticipate that the Bucks would have to play much of the game with only one true big. Lopez sat 18 minutes and Giannis sat 11. For 29 minutes of a 48 minute game, Memphis could hunt the undersized defender with a big.

That mismatch wears a team down. It wears a team down on a given night. It can wear the Bucks down over the ten days Portis has been out. It's not that Portis is that great of a player, it's that the drop off from Portis to the next front court option is so huge.

Before Portis missed these last five games the Bucks were averaging less than half a rebound per game than their opponents. In those last five games opponents have out rebounded the Bucks by 52.

Before Portis missed these last five games the Bucks were giving up 10.4 offensive rebounds per game. In the last five games Portis has missed they are giving up 15.8 offensive rebounds a game.

[AussieBuck]

Loved going with the slowest possible lineup in the 4th and basically sticking to it against a young team determined to use their athletes against us. Just really great.

[ShootingtheJ]

Dame has been disinterested the whole time he has been with the Bucks. He cannot defend, cannot create for others. He is good at pointing to his fictional wrist watch. It was a disaster to get him and lose Jrue.

Dame has way more trade value than Jrue, but now we need to cash in that trade value before it disappears.

[TonySnellJr]

For a former DPOY Giannis can be very disinterested in defense.

To be fair to Giannis, defense is played as a team. When you are surrounded by a PG who looks checked out every other game and is generally a defensive sieve anyways, a 33 year old coming off double-ankle surgeries who quite literally can barely move his feet laterally, and your center is 36 and the slowest player in the league (I love Brook but you can only have so many late career renaissances), it can be hard to consistently bring a DPOY impact which he still does at times.

[German Athens]

Dame has been disinterested the whole time he has been with the Bucks. He cannot defend, cannot create for others. He is good at pointing to his fictional wrist watch. It was a disaster to get him and lose Jrue.

Jrue is putting up 11ppg on 56.7 ts%. We would absolutely be **** if that’s what we were getting from Jrue, since Khris and Brook have continued to decline.

It’s definitely fine to wonder what we could have gotten instead of Dame, with the 1st and 2 swap. A lot of people were clamoring for Dejountae and keep Jrue. Dejountae hasn’t been very good in New Orleans and just tore his Achilles. That probably wouldn’t have been a very good move either.


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[jimmybones]

Even beyond the center position, which is a major problem and needs an overhaul, the fact that we're starting Taurean Prince and Dre as our wings is honestly embarrassing.

Correct, people can say it doesn't matter who starts and to an extent I agree, but this grouping is just kinda absurd. Let's inject some athleticism with Dre, cool, I get the rationale behind that in a vacuum. Now let's negate that improved athleticism by playing a large and mostly slow 3/4 tweener as our 3 because he has a classic 90s style 'SF' body type. If you're going to have a lumbering oaf of a center you can at least fill the rest of the floor with more mobile wings.

Any sane and modern NBA coach would be playing 2 of Green, Trent and Dre as your wings. What's the rationale for starting Prince other than he has a prototypical SF frame? Vet presence? We have 3 vets in that unit already. Can shoot a little bit? Green can shoot, defend, pass and move better.

Just do the obvious thing and play Green at the 2 and bump Dre down to the 3. This makes so much more sense.