ECF | P1: (1) Milwaukee Bucks vs (2) Toronto Raptors | MIL 1-0

[itsme23]

I’m not sure why people are upset about the Lopez comments. He’s having a great year and playing awesome.

But he simply is not an elite player, just having one of those amazing years. Ala Channing Frye, Andrew Bogut, JR Smith, Derrick Fisher etc.

Scrub going off. Good for him. He will get paid due to this series.

Defensively I actually think lopez is very good and underrated. Offensively yeah he's a scrub, scoring on gasol who looks 50 years old doesn't impress me. At this point in his career Gasol is a good paint defender but that's it, pretty much equal with 2000 Sabonis.

I agree regarding defensively. Lopez gave a lot on that end of which I didn’t expect. Offensively it was a lifts out performance that I do not believe should ever happen again. But unfortunately for Raps the rest of the Bucks should have better games.

As for Gasol he’s old as dirt but still a great defender. Just Lopez may be a bad matchup for him. Which is weird bc he shut down Vucicek and Embid.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

Defensively I actually think lopez is very good and underrated. Offensively yeah he's a scrub, scoring on gasol who looks 50 years old doesn't impress me. At this point in his career Gasol is a good paint defender but that's it, pretty much equal with 2000 Sabonis.

ANother ignorant hot take. He is one of the best big man 3pt shooters in the league this season.

THe ignorant hot takes are coming out of the woodwork here.

Reg season he was getting wide open 3's all day because Giannis attention but in the playoffs he is only 27% from three going into tonight's game with a 10 PER, 8 points 52% TS not even average offensive stats in the playoffs.

[benhillboy]

Van feet is now 1\16 on his last 16 threes Hahahha their coach might be the dumbest man alive. 4 points on 38% TS and he keeps playing him wow what a stooge coach. There's no reason he should of not been made a bench warmer and replaced with Lin by now.

I thought about playoff minutes when they acquired Lin, apparently the Raptors didn’t. Van Fleet gives you nothing consistently. Lin has his warts for sure but has always been one of the best PGs in the league at forcing his way to the line (.383 FT rate), vital in the postseason.

Kawhi is a beast but I feel his mediocre playmaking hurts him over the long run. A usage of 34% committing as many turnovers as assists isn’t ideal in the playoffs. A lot of that is Kyle being Kyle but what you gonna do.

I didn’t see the game but of course they lose after Lowry posts 30 and 8 rebounds. He just had to have 2 assists to 4 turnovers to kill his stat line while President Brogdon finished with a +18. There is no bad matchup for that dude. Big guard, quick guard. Starter, 6th man. 2nd quarter, crunch time, he’s always ready.

A usage of 34% averaging 31 ppg on 65% TS with a 30 PER is not ideal in the playoffs? That was his numbers going into tonight's game.

“Playmaking.” Anything less than 2:1 is not, most coaches will say so about a ball dominant player. I said he was a whole beast otherwise, no player is without flaw. He usually only passes when faced with an impenetrable wall, in direct contrast to the style he was groomed under in SA. He should know better going against Budenholzer, a master at disguising coverages and weak side actions. Doubly so with now with all the length at his disposal.

[rrayy]

Defensively I actually think lopez is very good and underrated. Offensively yeah he's a scrub, scoring on gasol who looks 50 years old doesn't impress me. At this point in his career Gasol is a good paint defender but that's it, pretty much equal with 2000 Sabonis.

ANother ignorant hot take. He is one of the best big man 3pt shooters in the league this season.

THe ignorant hot takes are coming out of the woodwork here.

Reg season he was getting wide open 3's all day because Giannis attention but in the playoffs he is only 27% from three going into tonight's game with a 10 PER, 8 points 52% TS not even average offensive stats in the playoffs.

They call that a shooting slump. All shooters have them.
Lopez is a former all star and was one of the most prolific big man 3pt shooters this year. Calling Lopez a scrub offensively tells me you have no clue about the game of basketball.

[Tron Carter]

He loves him for some reason. Even when we had Delon on the team, Delon would be glued to the bench while FVV got near-starter minutes. Nurse's obsession with FVV is why we traded Delon. It's infuriating to watch as a fan.

I thought Lin was injured?

Lin is fine. As is McCaw.

Nurse just hates them. And Lin did play poorly for us when he had a chance (albeit no worse than FVV). McCaw was solid for us ever since we acquired him, but he's gotten no playoff burn either.

Nurse just has some sort of fetish with undersized PGs.

do y’all think you’d be better off having not made the gasol deal?

[itsme23]

What’s Lopez career playoff stats?

[AntetokounmBros]

ANother ignorant hot take. He is one of the best big man 3pt shooters in the league this season.

THe ignorant hot takes are coming out of the woodwork here.

Reg season he was getting wide open 3's all day because Giannis attention but in the playoffs he is only 27% from three going into tonight's game with a 10 PER, 8 points 52% TS not even average offensive stats in the playoffs.

They call that a shooting slump. All shooters have them.
Lopez is a former all star and was one of the most prolific big man 3pt shooters this year. Calling Lopez a scrub offensively tells me you have no clue about the game of basketball.

He also set the 3 pt record for centers last season, then broke his old record this season. It's not like he just shot it well this regular season.

[freethedevil]

I’m not sure why people are upset about the Lopez comments. He’s having a great year and playing awesome.

But he simply is not an elite player, just having one of those amazing years. Ala Channing Frye, Andrew Bogut, JR Smith, Derrick Fisher etc.

Scrub going off. Good for him. He will get paid due to this series.

Equating lopez's game to be anywhere near as big an outlier as lowry is ridiculoys. Lowry went 7 of9 from 3, lopez went 4 out of 11. That 29 points didn't just come from lopez being hot or cold, they came from the raptors being forced to leave him open and lopez's own execution of the bucks system. The former, insane 3 point shooting can be reasonably expcted to regress to the mean without much adjustment. The latter reveals a fundemental matchup or system probelm for the raptors that they'll proabably need to adjust for to make go away. And if you adjust for lopez, there's a good chance you end up enabling another guy.

A sample size of one game doesn't reveal anything.

And Lowry shot 39% or better from 3 from 2015-2018 (the 3 seasons before this one). He also had several months this year where he shot over 40%.

He's historically been an elite 3pt shooter. This game is only a significant outlier if you take this season as the sole representation of his shooting ability.

you are aware that >70% 3 point shooting is miles better than 40% 3 point shooting? 4 out of 11 is completely reasonable for a good 3 point shooter.

[Raps in 4]

I thought Lin was injured?

Lin is fine. As is McCaw.

Nurse just hates them. And Lin did play poorly for us when he had a chance (albeit no worse than FVV). McCaw was solid for us ever since we acquired him, but he's gotten no playoff burn either.

Nurse just has some sort of fetish with undersized PGs.

do y’all think you’d be better off having not made the gasol deal?

No, because Nurse wouldn't play Delon in the playoffs. He didn't get many meaningful minutes in the regular season.

JV would get us more points than Gasol, but he'd also give up a lot more.

[LKN]

Read on Twitter

[AntetokounmBros]

What’s Lopez career playoff stats?

15.9 pts
6.7 reb
2.4 blks

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lopezbr01.html#all_playoffs_totals

Except a very different play style this year compared to 2013-2015.

[LKN]

Summary:

[itsme23]

Yea Raps should have won tonight. Let an important game get away which will cost them the series. The all star Brook Lopez had a great game.

Milwakee please max him. He is worth every penny.

[Raps in 4]

Equating lopez's game to be anywhere near as big an outlier as lowry is ridiculoys. Lowry went 7 of9 from 3, lopez went 4 out of 11. That 29 points didn't just come from lopez being hot or cold, they came from the raptors being forced to leave him open and lopez's own execution of the bucks system. The former, insane 3 point shooting can be reasonably expcted to regress to the mean without much adjustment. The latter reveals a fundemental matchup or system probelm for the raptors that they'll proabably need to adjust for to make go away. And if you adjust for lopez, there's a good chance you end up enabling another guy.

A sample size of one game doesn't reveal anything.

And Lowry shot 39% or better from 3 from 2015-2018 (the 3 seasons before this one). He also had several months this year where he shot over 40%.

He's historically been an elite 3pt shooter. This game is only a significant outlier if you take this season as the sole representation of his shooting ability.

you are aware that >70% 3 point shooting is miles better than 40% 3 point shooting?

No ****, but this type of outlier isn't that uncommon for a historically great 3pt shooter and 5-time all-star who finds their rhythm.

Lopez scoring 29 points is a pretty significant outlier. It's his highest scoring game of the year (including regular season). He isn't nearly the same calibre of player as Lowry.

[rilamann]

Most importantly, unless you've watched 90+ Bucks games this year it's very hard to explain how bad they looked today, and they still won. But if you've watched them you'd know straight away.

As someone who has also watched 90+ Bucks games this season, I can vouch that tonight was absolutely an off night for the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks really only played like the Bucks in the 4th quarter.

[itsme23]

What’s Lopez career playoff stats?

15.9 pts
6.7 reb
2.4 blks

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lopezbr01.html#all_playoffs_totals

Except a very different play style this year compared to 2013-2015.

I guess 15 and 6 is with including tonight’s game right?

[twoheadedboy]

I thought Lin was injured?

Lin is fine. As is McCaw.

Nurse just hates them. And Lin did play poorly for us when he had a chance (albeit no worse than FVV). McCaw was solid for us ever since we acquired him, but he's gotten no playoff burn either.

Nurse just has some sort of fetish with undersized PGs.

do y’all think you’d be better off having not made the gasol deal?

I doubt we make it past the Sixers without Gasol. I think our big mistake came in striking out in the buyout market outside of Lin, who isn't even in the rotation currently. We needed a backup 4 badly (OG plays better at SF) - someone like Markieff Morris would have made a huge difference here.

And yeah I'm done with FVV - he's just not a playoff player to me. McCaw was out for personal reasons this game, I believe.

[itsme23]

Most importantly, unless you've watched 90+ Bucks games this year it's very hard to explain how bad they looked today, and they still won. But if you've watched them you'd know straight away.

As someone who has also watched 90+ Bucks games this season, I can vouch that tonight was absolutely an off night for the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks really only played like the Bucks in the 4th quarter.

Or maybe Raps outplayed them until the fourth. Because god forbid someone outplayed the almighty bucks this year.

[AntetokounmBros]

What’s Lopez career playoff stats?

15.9 pts
6.7 reb
2.4 blks

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lopezbr01.html#all_playoffs_totals

Except a very different play style this year compared to 2013-2015.

I guess 15 and 6 is with including tonight’s game right?

Actually I think it's before tonight's game...only shows 9 playoff games this year and tonight was the 10th.

[Raps in 4]

Most importantly, unless you've watched 90+ Bucks games this year it's very hard to explain how bad they looked today, and they still won. But if you've watched them you'd know straight away.

As someone who has also watched 90+ Bucks games this season, I can vouch that tonight was absolutely an off night for the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks really only played like the Bucks in the 4th quarter.

And as someone who watched 90+ Raptors games this season, I can vouch that tonight was absolutely an off night for the Toronto Raptors. Every single player (except Lowry) shot well below their season averages, missing tons of open looks and making silly, unforced turnovers.

This narrative that only the Bucks played poorly is absurd.

Bucks fans keep pointing out they were a top-5 offensive and defensive team this year. Guess what? So were the Raptors. The Bucks weren't the only good team during the regular season.

Were they better than the Raptors this year? Sure. But the gap wasn't as large as you think, and this game was proof of that. It went down to the wire, with both teams playing poorly.