GT: Nets @ Bucks Game 6 - 6/17/21 8:30 pm EST

[NyCeEvO]

From the outside, Rick Carlisle seems like a great, smart coach although I don’t know how he’d get along with our stars.

Sean should admit he made a mistake and at the very least demote Nash to assistant coach (if not just let him go completely) and bring in someone who knows what they’re doing.

This is what happens when you based on nepotism and not merit.

The only trait I like about Nash is that he’s more willing to change lineups game-to-game when things aren’t working. Most coaches are too stubborn to give up so quickly. But that’s literally the only coaching attribute I like about him.

No one can convince me that Marks looked at hiring Nash from an objective standpoint and thought he was the best candidate. Nash openly admitted he skipped the line. He could’ve been an assistant coach and waited a few years before running the show. Nope, immediately vaulted to head coach of a team with the most offensive talent in history.

Marks gave the keys to the Ferrari to his 13 year old son. The kid just crashed the car and the focus is on the accident and why the kid didn’t have the skills to drive it as opposed to the parent who gave the kid the keys. Of course, the kid was liable to crash it because he has zero experience driving.

Marks should’ve brought in a professional driver to handle the Ferrari. In the interim that driver could show the kid how to drive over time so that in a few years time, he knows how to handle it and won’t crash.

My standards are high for this team because our talent should honestly have us challenging the 73-9 regular season W-L record. But because of our poor history, we gladly accept a season where we’re on pace to win 50ish games because we’re not used to winning. Even with having just two stars healthy we should’ve got the best record in the league.

I called it back when I watched us play in person against Chicago at the end of the season. That was the most upset I’ve ever felt after a win because we only won by sheer talent. We are so undisciplined and clueless, especially on offense. It’s truly a shame that we’ve lost more than one game this postseason because we have the talent to beat every team as long as we have someone at the helm who knows how to optimize our offense and defense.

Nash is going to walk away unscathed because of the injury excuse. I’m going to cry if we blow the title next year because we were convinced that injuries were the only reason why we didn’t win this year.

[NyCeEvO]

Kd shouldn't be bringing up the ball and chucking 3s constantly. Or just isolating while 4 guys watch him play. His turnovers have been terrible and his handles are a bit off at times. Last game you ran high screens or screens on Lopez, tonight you get "give it to kd".. I know Nash was hired because he's Kds guy and it allowed him and Kyrie to do whatever they wanted but dude is a trash coach LOL. Hey let's get down 16 and then call a timeout! how about you call it in the middle of the run you dumbass?

The offense is give to the stars and let them figure it out. I understand player empowerment and ego, but I’m beyond pissed that:

1) Marks allowed his friend to skip the coaching line because he thought Nash’s EQ was more valuable than other coach’s IQ for this team

2) MDA fooled us into believing that he actually gave a damn. I’ve never seen him more relaxed than on our sideline. Granted he is an assistant coach, but he was named the coach of the offense. He has done jack ****.

It’s inexcusable how inefficient we are on offense. Superstar ISOs are supposed to be a ancillary bonus to the offense, not the whole offense itself.

Like I said earlier, when Nash praised the team for getting back into the game (when in reality it was only due to a short spurt of Harden’s individual brilliance) and then said “if you don’t have the shot, just swing the ball or the weak side” it confirmed all of my suspicions. We don’t really run stuff. We just read and react out of ISOs. We got through the regular season solely due to the ungodly concentration of offensive talent that comes when we have just two stars playing, let alone 3.

We cannot win a championship with this level of ineptitude on offense. Our defensive schemes aren’t great either but at least that can be partly blamed on the fact that we don’t have the personnel to be an elite defensive team.

I want MDA gone and an offensive assistant who actually reads the defense and adjust to be hired.

I can’t imagine Marks firing Nash, so I won’t fantasize about that happening.

I think mda basically runs the entire offense and Nash is just a figurehead tbh. If you guys had a great staff nobody could touch you in the league. And defensively the roster never made sense because Kd is your best perimeter defender and also rim protector as well. Coming off a blown achilles that is too much to ask imo and the front court is tiny. Griffin and green get the minutes there with a bit of Claxton and kd at the 4 while he gives you height he's thin. Nash should go but he's tight with Kd so I doubt they'd do it even though it's best for the team.

Agreed 100%. I’ve been saying all of this since Day 1. We should barely rarely lose a game with our Big 3, and we should coast to the ECF even with just 2 stars. MIL is playing beneath their potential as well, but just not as poorly as we are.

This season felt like Marks mailed it in after getting Kyrie and KD, believing that the job was done and that winning was just a formality. It’s a shame that we’re going to use the injury excuse as the reason to not make changes when the problems are so glaringly obvious.

[DarkXaero]

Nash is going to walk away unscathed because of the injury excuse. I’m going to cry if we blow the title next year because we were convinced that injuries were the only reason why we didn’t win this year.

Injuries are the only reason why we don't win this year...This series would be a sweep or gentleman sweep with a healthy Nets team, that **** is pretty obvious.

I think some of you seem to expect perfection from coaching staff, which simply doesn't exist. Every single team in the league has its fans bitching about coaching. Too many fans out there who think they know better and think that they understand the game better than all these head coaches, assistant coaches, and front offices out there. It's never that simple. I'm not saying Nash or this coaching staff hasn't made mistakes but the blame game is all too easy in hindsight. You literally complain about the same thing every time, our offensive schemes and sets, "why can't we run these plays every time, etc.". It's not that simple.

The Bucks defense is taking away our ability to run our offense at the pace we want, and they're blowing up our sets a lot. That type of disruption results in bad offensive possessions where it seems like there's little to no flow. That's not what the coaching staff has asked for, that's what ends up happening. And then we adjust to their adjustments, and so on, it's a back and forth war with adjustments. We've been outmatched in this series since Kyrie went down. Before that, we were the clearly superior team. You guys are acting like Bucks are some scrub team that we should be beating on the road as if we're still better than them. We are not better than them right now, and it's going to take a very special effort to beat them in game 7.

[Jay555]

Nash is going to walk away unscathed because of the injury excuse. I’m going to cry if we blow the title next year because we were convinced that injuries were the only reason why we didn’t win this year.

Injuries are the only reason why we don't win this year...This series would be a sweep or gentleman sweep with a healthy Nets team, that **** is pretty obvious.

I think some of you seem to expect perfection from coaching staff, which simply doesn't exist. Every single team in the league has its fans bitching about coaching. Too many fans out there who think they know better and think that they understand the game better than all these head coaches, assistant coaches, and front offices out there. It's never that simple. I'm not saying Nash or this coaching staff hasn't made mistakes but the blame game is all too easy in hindsight. You literally complain about the same thing every time, our offensive schemes and sets, "why can't we run these plays every time, etc.". It's not that simple.

The Bucks defense is taking away our ability to run our offense at the pace we want, and they're blowing up our sets a lot. That type of disruption results in bad offensive possessions where it seems like there's little to no flow. That's not what the coaching staff has asked for, that's what ends up happening. And then we adjust to their adjustments, and so on, it's a back and forth war with adjustments. We've been outmatched in this series since Kyrie went down. Before that, we were the clearly superior team. You guys are acting like Bucks are some scrub team that we should be beating on the road as if we're still better than them. We are not better than them right now, and it's going to take a very special effort to beat them in game 7.

Bucks won 13 out of 13 in their last 13 home games so it's difficult to beat them. Their road games are not as good which is the same as us 7 out of 13. Meanwhile, we won 9 in a row in our last 9 home games. I like our chances in G7. Anything can happen tho.

Also not sure if it's a coincident or. We won all the playoff games (away and home) so far when TNT was the broadcaster and lost all when it was ABC or ESPN. Hope this trend continues..

https://ibb.co/hcMSJhD

[NyCeEvO]

Middleton is the key player for the Bucks and in no way should Harris, Shamet, and Green be the main defenders. If Brown isn't the primary then KD needs to be on him. With how limited your offense is right now, Middleton going off is effectively game as Giannis is still getting good production regardless.

I am also surprised there hasn't been any use of Griffin/Claxton together as a combo which theoretically would offer better paint resistance and would let you play a bigger lineup with KD at the three.

Griffin isn’t agile enough to guard Middleton on the wing and Claxton wouldn’t have the stamina to guard Middleton the whole game. Plus, I’m sure Middleton would have someone set screens until they get a defender worse than Claxton on him before attacking.

In the off-season, Sean Marks could’ve gotten a couple agile, long defenders (who would’ve been much more capable of staying with and contesting the shots of guys like Middleton) for vet min contracts. Instead, we quadrupled-down on offense and let our 32 year old star coming off an Achilles tear be the primary defender for the team.

[NyCeEvO]

Nash is going to walk away unscathed because of the injury excuse. I’m going to cry if we blow the title next year because we were convinced that injuries were the only reason why we didn’t win this year.

Injuries are the only reason why we don't win this year...This series would be a sweep or gentleman sweep with a healthy Nets team, that **** is pretty obvious.

Of course, injuries would the reason why we wouldn’t win. My contention is that are injuries should not be an excuse for why we don’t play as well as we should.

I think some of you seem to expect perfection from coaching staff, which simply doesn't exist. Every single team in the league has its fans bitching about coaching. Too many fans out there who think they know better and think that they understand the game better than all these head coaches, assistant coaches, and front offices out there. It's never that simple. I'm not saying Nash or this coaching staff hasn't made mistakes but the blame game is all too easy in hindsight. You literally complain about the same thing every time, our offensive schemes and sets, "why can't we run these plays every time, etc.". It's not that simple.

I can understand this criticism. How can a guy sitting at home possibly no better than the coaching staff who are (presumably) experts? That’s a valid question.

But I’d also respond by saying you’re just making the assumption on the basis of faith that the things I’m saying are wrong. Instead of limping my critiques in with everyone else, analyze them yourself to see if they hold any weight. If you can prove that my critiques are wrong, do so; I have no problem admitting fault when someone proves me wrong.

One piece of evidence I have working in my favor is that in my first post in the Game 5 thread, one of the suggestions I made was running KD PnR action above the 3pt line so that he could get downhill for either an open shot or could pass to ball open teammate when the defense collapsed on him. We played terribly as a unit last game until we did precisely that for KD in the 2nd half. Go look at my post again and watch the tape of Game 5. Maybe I know more than you think I do.

Since everyone has an opinion, it’s impossible for everyone to be right. At the same time, just because everyone can’t be right that doesn’t mean that all opinions are wrong.

The Bucks defense is taking away our ability to run our offense at the pace we want, and they're blowing up our sets a lot. That type of disruption results in bad offensive possessions where it seems like there's little to no flow.

I agree that the Bucks are taking the ability to run our offense, but I disagree that it has anything to do with pace. Show me one single time that we’ve started running our offense with pace (I.e quickly) and we were stifled. That doesn’t happen. We walk across the halfcourt line between 16 and 18 second mark, in part due to the fact that Jrue or Tucker guard KD or Harden in the backcourt giving the rest of the defense time to setup.

So yes, if you calmly walk the ball into the halfcourt after MIL has setup their defense, you are walking right into their trap. I am contending that if we actually employed an SSOL approach to advance the ball upcourt as quickly as possible by having TJ, Mike James, or even Shamet bring up the ball:
1) we will have less resistance in the backcourt since they won’t be guarded by Tucker or Holiday;
2) we can actually look easy early offense;
3) we’re taking the job of bringing up the ball out of KD’s hands and allowing him to conserve energy to be used on offense by being a secondary ball handler after we cross half-court.

You might laugh at my suggestion but if you watch the tape, whenever Mike James brings up the ball, he tends to get into the paint very quickly an very easy. (I’m not pulling random suggestions out of thin air; I’m reacting to the things I’ve seen work and theorize work.) None of the aforementioned guys need to run the offense, they just need to bring up the ball ASAP to see if we can exploit any quick cuts, screens, or mismatches, and if they’re not there, then dump it off to KD or Harden to initiate something from the top of the key.

That's not what the coaching staff has asked for, that's what ends up happening. And then we adjust to their adjustments, and so on, it's a back and forth war with adjustments.

I disagree. If you’ve been a back and forth series of adjustments, give me a time stamp of a sequence of adjustments that have been made within a quarter by either team and I will gladly cede your point.

I’ve seen defensive master classes before. This isn’t one of them. I think you’re just rationalizing our ineffectiveness by assuming that if the coaching staff hasn’t figured out how to execute no one else can. Unless you can actually prove that via tape, that’s just based on a position of faith, not actual evidence.

We've been outmatched in this series since Kyrie went down. Before that, we were the clearly superior team.

Because Kyrie is the GOAT ball handler who cannot be deterred or stymied when the ball has been in his hands. (Also, if Harden were healthy, I do think our lack of pace initiating the offense wouldn’t be as poor as it is at the moment.)

One of the things that Kyrie has clearly worked on is his efficiency with the basketball. He used to be more of a ball stopper and while he still has a tendency to get tunnel vision sometimes, he has vastly improved his decision-making and understanding of how to dissect a defense.

You guys are acting like Bucks are some scrub team that we should be beating on the road as if we're still better than them. We are not better than them right now, and it's going to take a very special effort to beat them in game 7.

In my opinion, the Bucks are a good team who are also playing well below their potential. They are not as cerebral as they should be. Bud has no doubt made more adjustments than Nash, but even they fall victim to questionable decision-making. The Bucks should be destroying us while Harden is gimped.

I think you’re also falling victim to a mixture of post hoc & false dichotomy fallacies. Yes, we’ve lost 3 of the last 4 games against the Bucks and just barely won that one game. You are within your right to make the claim that we lost because solely because they are the better (I.e. more healthy and talented) team and that there is nothing we could do within our means to change the outcome.

I reject the premise. Even though a team’s talent level makes it easier to beat other teams, talent alone doesn’t win. The ability o execute, adapt, and overcome the challenges of the opposition ultimately determine who wins. Talent just gives you more and better tools to use to beat your opponent. But optimizing your use of said tools and using the efficiently plays a massive role in determining the total effectiveness of your team (I.e. your ability to win).

I am simply contending that because of our injuries, we have a much smaller margin of error with a gimped Harden and Kyrie for beating the Bucks. Therefore, we need to be very smart and efficient in order to win. I am arguing if we played a different way, we’d be faring much better than we are right now.

What we’re arguing is whether it is reasonable to assume that we can perform better than we’ve been performing.

We can only run one “simulation”: the one that plays out in real life. We could never be absolutely sure whether my or anyone else’s opinion on what should be done to perform better than we are currently doing unless those were actually tried. But since we can’t try them out in real life, we can offer our perspectives and argue/defend them on the forums. That’s what I’m doing.
I’m arguing that a different philosophical approach to our offense would yield better results than what the coaching staff is doing. You can feel free to believe me or not believe me, but it’s imperative that in order to test the merit of any our claims that we bring evidence to our claims to help persuade others that our opinion could very well be true.

On multiple occasions throughout this playoffs, I have called for things to happen, and when they’ve actually happen, we’ve done better or Steve Nash will mention what I’ve said in the post-game. Go look at my posts. I don’t care if I’m right or wrong, I just want my team to win and I provide analysis based on what I know and in my experience playing basketball. That’s all.

And tbh, I’ve probably defended Nash more than anyone else on here. I know he wanted the job but I think we ourselves a disservice by not going with the best option available. While I wanted Nash over retreads, I entrusted that Marks would be objective enough to separate friend from viable coaching candidate and choose the right person, or that Nash wasn’t ready to coach this team at this juncture.

[Hello Brooklyn]

I still cant believe this A-hole coach threw away game 3.

we could have won in 5 with tons of rest for harden and kyrie. instead, our season is over.

FU Marks as well for hiring him... not to mention passing over black and female candidates, including vaughn

Even if we won Game 3 this team is shot.

Were not beating the Sixers with this garbage team of KD and a bunch of scrubs.

[Hello Brooklyn]

This series ended the minute Kyrie hurt his ankle.

This team is not built around one star. Its a bunch of average role guys surrounded by 3 stars.

They only looked good because they were playing with elite talent. Do we really believe guys like Bruce Brown, Claxton, Jeff Green, Mike James were any good on their own?

Kyrie, KD, Harden were covering our weaknesses all season.

The only real disappointment has been the mental midget Joe Harris. An elite shooter has turned into Ben Simmons from 3.

The only reason we won Game 5 was because KD had the greatest playoff game of all time possibly. And even then we barely won.

KD, Hamstring Harden, Joe Ice Cold Harris, and a washed Blake Griffin are not winning ****.

Even if we survived this series were not beating the Sixers.

Harden is not even 35% of himself. And Kyrie is hurt. Even if we force Kyrie back he will not be able to give us much at all.

[Jay555]

This series ended the minute Kyrie hurt his ankle.

This team is not built around one star. Its a bunch of average role guys surrounded by 3 stars.

They only looked good because they were playing with elite talent. Do we really believe guys like Bruce Brown, Claxton, Jeff Green, Mike James were any good on their own?

Kyrie, KD, Harden were covering our weaknesses all season.

The only real disappointment has been the mental midget Joe Harris. An elite shooter has turned into Ben Simmons from 3.

The only reason we won Game 5 was because KD had the greatest playoff game of all time possibly. And even then we barely won.

KD, Hamstring Harden, Joe Ice Cold Harris, and a washed Blake Griffin are not winning ****.

Even if we survived this series were not beating the Sixers.

Harden is not even 35% of himself. And Kyrie is hurt. Even if we force Kyrie back he will not be able to give us much at all.

Agreed, but same as Bucks. No team is bulid around one star. If Middleton was injured, Jrue was hobbled like Harden, they would be blown out by us for 40 pts every game. The only thing they have over us is health and that's because Ginnais took Kyrie out..

Anyways, I think Harden should be more than 60% next game . You can tell he was trying to save his max effort for G7. He was afraid he might re injure in G6 by playing harder which leaves G7 unplayable. I would not be surprised if Harden started to attack the basket more in G7.

I do not think we can not beat the Sixers if we survive next game. Harden would only get better provided he did not re injure next game and the chances of Kyrie coming back in the conference final is pretty high. In fact, I would argue whoever wins this series will go on to win it all given how delepted the rest of the teams are due to injuries etc.

Next game would mean everything and we can do it. Let's go.

[TheNetsFan]

Nash is going to walk away unscathed because of the injury excuse. I’m going to cry if we blow the title next year because we were convinced that injuries were the only reason why we didn’t win this year.

Injuries are the only reason why we don't win this year...This series would be a sweep or gentleman sweep with a healthy Nets team, that **** is pretty obvious.

I think some of you seem to expect perfection from coaching staff, which simply doesn't exist. Every single team in the league has its fans bitching about coaching. Too many fans out there who think they know better and think that they understand the game better than all these head coaches, assistant coaches, and front offices out there. It's never that simple. I'm not saying Nash or this coaching staff hasn't made mistakes but the blame game is all too easy in hindsight. You literally complain about the same thing every time, our offensive schemes and sets, "why can't we run these plays every time, etc.". It's not that simple.

The Bucks defense is taking away our ability to run our offense at the pace we want, and they're blowing up our sets a lot. That type of disruption results in bad offensive possessions where it seems like there's little to no flow. That's not what the coaching staff has asked for, that's what ends up happening. And then we adjust to their adjustments, and so on, it's a back and forth war with adjustments. We've been outmatched in this series since Kyrie went down. Before that, we were the clearly superior team. You guys are acting like Bucks are some scrub team that we should be beating on the road as if we're still better than them. We are not better than them right now, and it's going to take a very special effort to beat them in game 7.

Bucks won 13 out of 13 in their last 13 home games so it's difficult to beat them. Their road games are not as good which is the same as us 7 out of 13. Meanwhile, we won 9 in a row in our last 9 home games. I like our chances in G7. Anything can happen tho.

Also not sure if it's a coincident or. We won all the playoff games (away and home) so far when TNT was the broadcaster and lost all when it was ABC or ESPN. Hope this trend continues..

https://ibb.co/hcMSJhD

I wasn't sure that it was 100% both ways, but it definitely felt like we never win on ESPN and ABC. I hate the ESPN broadcasts. Maybe I am affected by our performance.

[MrDollarBills]

Joe Harris the culprit for this loss for me. Just when you thought he was maybe going to start redeeming himself after hitting a 3, he fouls Middleton on an unnecessary 3, completely killing the team momentum. That moment turned out to be the game.

Joe has been bad but he's not the reason why we lost. This is an entire team loss from top to bottom.

When you guys do this ****, blaming one player. You lose me. It isn't just one guy. Our strategy offensively has been **** ed. We allowed probably 50 points in the paint. Come on.

Except you guys pin the blame on Nash all the time so it's a bit hypocritical to say that to me. Joe killed our momentum when we were on a nice 4th quarter run, in addition to being a massive negative the entire game. Yes, I'm going to blame him. In fact, he deserves the blame for our game 3 loss as well.

Joe has been terrible. The one who gives him the long leash is Nash.

Is Nash to blame for everything? No. Yesterday we saw guys miss open looks, and get beaten on 50/50 balls on the defensive end. Inexplicable defense at times leaving Middleton wide open. Harden made some horrific turnovers.

Two of our Big 3 is either injured or playing on one leg. That is what's killing us. A top heavy roster is going to be stretched thin in the event of something like that.

Nash isn't making things better though. Joe needs to be benched, and we need to execute better offensively. We have been giving Milwaukee a free pass because we refuse to hunt down the mismatches and force their hands. It's always one pass and ISO when we should be screening and forcing Lopez to either defend Durant and Harden or sit back and watch them shoot. Durant feasted in Game 5 because we had him punish the mismatch. Yet, in Game 6 Nash just goes away from that and Lopez had an easy night.

We win as a team, and lose as a team, and certain parts of this team aren't helping right now.

[Sharcm1]

If I hear one more time about the bucks defense I’m going to throw up. The nets missed wide open shots they made all season. Green was 7/8 from three last game and missed two wide open shots in the first quarter. Harris led the league in threes and missed open shot after open shot. If a player is getting those looks then it’s not the defense.

[HardenGoat]

Injury and the fear of losing Harden in a game 6 has been the biggest factor in being able to run our offense. Missing wide open 3s is also not on the coach and disrupts the flow of the game as well. Should the coach have pulled Harris? Absolutely. Guy has completely lost his shot. Claxton should get more minutes too. He is a better perimeter defender. Nash wanted Green for his shooting which was off this game. If Green had continued hitting his shots this game we probably would have won. If Green and Harris hit their shots we certainly would have won. Add Durant to that too including his turnovers. We are at home now and I really think Harden has a lot left. If he doesn’t suffer a setback we are going to win. But .. we need a role player to make at least their usual percentage from 3. The adjustment we need is pulling Harris if he continues to miss and commit dumb fouls on 3 point shooters.

[Jay555]

Injury and the fear of losing Harden in a game 6 has been the biggest factor in being able to run our offense. Missing wide open 3s is also not on the coach and disrupts the flow of the game as well. Should the coach have pulled Harris? Absolutely. Guy has completely lost his shot. Claxton should get more minutes too. He is a better perimeter defender. Nash wanted Green for his shooting which was off this game. If Green had continued hitting his shots this game we probably would have won. If Green and Harris hit their shots we certainly would have won. Add Durant to that too including his turnovers. We are at home now and I really think Harden has a lot left. If he doesn’t suffer a setback we are going to win. But .. we need a role player to make at least their usual percentage from 3. The adjustment we need is pulling Harris if he continues to miss and commit dumb fouls on 3 point shooters.

Yes, I also think Harden has a lot left. He will not be limited in G7. We could see a 70% Harden. I have this feeling Kyrie might come back too.

[MrDollarBills]

Middleton is the key player for the Bucks and in no way should Harris, Shamet, and Green be the main defenders. If Brown isn't the primary then KD needs to be on him. With how limited your offense is right now, Middleton going off is effectively game as Giannis is still getting good production regardless.

I am also surprised there hasn't been any use of Griffin/Claxton together as a combo which theoretically would offer better paint resistance and would let you play a bigger lineup with KD at the three.

Griffin isn’t agile enough to guard Middleton on the wing and Claxton wouldn’t have the stamina to guard Middleton the whole game. Plus, I’m sure Middleton would have someone set screens until they get a defender worse than Claxton on him before attacking.

In the off-season, Sean Marks could’ve gotten a couple agile, long defenders (who would’ve been much more capable of staying with and contesting the shots of guys like Middleton) for vet min contracts. Instead, we quadrupled-down on offense and let our 32 year old star coming off an Achilles tear be the primary defender for the team.

Middleton is the guy we are supposed to take away. I could care less if Giannis scores 50, if you prohibit the Bucks from benefitting off of the defensive attention he draws, they are screwed.

If Middleton is going to knock down contested threes off of switches, so be it. But there is no reason why we should be sagging off of him and giving him back to back wide open looks. If Giannis is on an island with someone, let the play run it's course and foul him if need be. The Nets play so soft at times it's mind numbing. Hack the guy to death.

The injuries have been death blows, but the strategy employed in these losses where Middleton torches us isn't exactly sublime. In all 3 games that we've won in this series, Middleton shot less than 37% from the field.

Someone should be in his face from opening tip to the final buzzer. How does Steve Nash justify not instructing the team to do this?

[Jay555]

Middleton is the key player for the Bucks and in no way should Harris, Shamet, and Green be the main defenders. If Brown isn't the primary then KD needs to be on him. With how limited your offense is right now, Middleton going off is effectively game as Giannis is still getting good production regardless.

I am also surprised there hasn't been any use of Griffin/Claxton together as a combo which theoretically would offer better paint resistance and would let you play a bigger lineup with KD at the three.

Griffin isn’t agile enough to guard Middleton on the wing and Claxton wouldn’t have the stamina to guard Middleton the whole game. Plus, I’m sure Middleton would have someone set screens until they get a defender worse than Claxton on him before attacking.

In the off-season, Sean Marks could’ve gotten a couple agile, long defenders (who would’ve been much more capable of staying with and contesting the shots of guys like Middleton) for vet min contracts. Instead, we quadrupled-down on offense and let our 32 year old star coming off an Achilles tear be the primary defender for the team.

Middleton is the guy we are supposed to take away. I could care less if Giannis scores 50, if you prohibit the Bucks from benefitting off of the defensive attention he draws, they are screwed.

If Middleton is going to knock down contested threes off of switches, so be it. But there is no reason why we should be sagging off of him and giving him back to back wide open looks. If Giannis is on an island with someone, let the play run it's course and foul him if need be. The Nets play so soft at times it's mind numbing. Hack the guy to death.

The injuries have been death blows, but the strategy employed in these losses where Middleton torches us isn't exactly sublime. In all 3 games that we've won in this series, Middleton shot less than 37% from the field.

Someone should be in his face from opening tip to the final buzzer. How does Steve Nash justify not instructing the team to do this?

Middleton shoots horribly on the road. We got this.

[Evalar]

I haven't given up but I do think Nash has to be prepared to make the big decisions in Game 7. We play best when we play as a team but we seem to have stopped doing that we are sticking with the same players and it's getting predictable. I understand his and the teams loyalty to Joe but at this point I think playing him so much is hurting him rather helping him. I'm not going to pretend I understand everything about plays in basketball but watching last night we seemed stale with no answers. Every man and his dog knows Harden is injured and has just played 46 mins but we didn't use Mike James who has bags of energy and could have changed the tempo for a bit. Shamet is sat twiddling his thumbs when he can score three's to get us going in sticky moments. I know all people can focus on from Game 3 is Browns mistake but he did also get us back in the game. I think sometimes it's about moments in games like Blake diving on the floor for a ball or Clax making those blocks on Giannis in one of the games. I fear Nash won't roll the dice at all in Game 7 and we will just be praying that Harden and KD do something to get us the win.

[HardenGoat]

Injury and the fear of losing Harden in a game 6 has been the biggest factor in being able to run our offense. Missing wide open 3s is also not on the coach and disrupts the flow of the game as well. Should the coach have pulled Harris? Absolutely. Guy has completely lost his shot. Claxton should get more minutes too. He is a better perimeter defender. Nash wanted Green for his shooting which was off this game. If Green had continued hitting his shots this game we probably would have won. If Green and Harris hit their shots we certainly would have won. Add Durant to that too including his turnovers. We are at home now and I really think Harden has a lot left. If he doesn’t suffer a setback we are going to win. But .. we need a role player to make at least their usual percentage from 3. The adjustment we need is pulling Harris if he continues to miss and commit dumb fouls on 3 point shooters.

Yes, I also think Harden has a lot left. He will not be limited in G7. We could see a 70% Harden. I have this feeling Kyrie might come back too.

I don't see Kyrie coming back but if he did it would be a big boost to our morale like Harden provided. The deal with Nash is he was picked by Durant and Irving and this looks like the most player run team we have ever seen. It wouldn't surprise me if it's the stars that want Harris out there despite his shortcomings so far. This game it looked like we held a lot back including playing Blake more minutes. Tomorrow I expect to see the full onslaught of effort from the entire team, Durant and Blake are going to go full tilt, and Harden is going to jump off that cliff and pray he has God protecting him. There is no way he is going to let us lose without being taken out by medical staff. It's going to get chippy and intense.

[Prokorov]

Nash is going to walk away unscathed because of the injury excuse. I’m going to cry if we blow the title next year because we were convinced that injuries were the only reason why we didn’t win this year.

Injuries are the only reason why we don't win this year...This series would be a sweep or gentleman sweep with a healthy Nets team, that **** is pretty obvious.

I think some of you seem to expect perfection from coaching staff, which simply doesn't exist. Every single team in the league has its fans bitching about coaching. Too many fans out there who think they know better and think that they understand the game better than all these head coaches, assistant coaches, and front offices out there. It's never that simple. I'm not saying Nash or this coaching staff hasn't made mistakes but the blame game is all too easy in hindsight. You literally complain about the same thing every time, our offensive schemes and sets, "why can't we run these plays every time, etc.". It's not that simple.

The Bucks defense is taking away our ability to run our offense at the pace we want, and they're blowing up our sets a lot. That type of disruption results in bad offensive possessions where it seems like there's little to no flow. That's not what the coaching staff has asked for, that's what ends up happening. And then we adjust to their adjustments, and so on, it's a back and forth war with adjustments. We've been outmatched in this series since Kyrie went down. Before that, we were the clearly superior team. You guys are acting like Bucks are some scrub team that we should be beating on the road as if we're still better than them. We are not better than them right now, and it's going to take a very special effort to beat them in game 7.

i dont expect anything near perfection from coaching. i just expect him to make the clear and obvious moves that the 8th grade gym teacher who coaches the 8-10 year old rec league can identify and make in his sleep.

You have to question of nash wants the job, but doesnt want to quit, so he is doing stupid crap to try and get fired. its that bad

[Prokorov]

Injury and the fear of losing Harden in a game 6 has been the biggest factor in being able to run our offense. Missing wide open 3s is also not on the coach and disrupts the flow of the game as well. Should the coach have pulled Harris? Absolutely. Guy has completely lost his shot. Claxton should get more minutes too. He is a better perimeter defender. Nash wanted Green for his shooting which was off this game. If Green had continued hitting his shots this game we probably would have won. If Green and Harris hit their shots we certainly would have won. Add Durant to that too including his turnovers. We are at home now and I really think Harden has a lot left. If he doesn’t suffer a setback we are going to win. But .. we need a role player to make at least their usual percentage from 3. The adjustment we need is pulling Harris if he continues to miss and commit dumb fouls on 3 point shooters.

Yes, I also think Harden has a lot left. He will not be limited in G7. We could see a 70% Harden. I have this feeling Kyrie might come back too.

I don't see Kyrie coming back but if he did it would be a big boost to our morale like Harden provided. The deal with Nash is he was picked by Durant and Irving and this looks like the most player run team we have ever seen. It wouldn't surprise me if it's the stars that want Harris out there despite his shortcomings so far. This game it looked like we held a lot back including playing Blake more minutes. Tomorrow I expect to see the full onslaught of effort from the entire team, Durant and Blake are going to go full tilt, and Harden is going to jump off that cliff and pray he has God protecting him. There is no way he is going to let us lose without being taken out by medical staff. It's going to get chippy and intense.

Kyrie was pretty anit-nash and wanted a black coach and was also apperantly pulling for becky hammond to be considered and at least get an interview. KD seemed in different

marks pushed for nash