Giannis - 2X MVP - FMVP - DPOY - Offseason discussion

[Milbucks96]

It took Bud 2 years to learn how to play against the wall instead of giving the ball to Giannis and Khris at the top of the key and ask them to beat 3-4 players without movement of the ball/players while our "PG" was sitting at the corner alone and simply unplayable.

It took Bud 2 and a half games to realize that it's really bad using Brook Lopez with drop coverage against a team that uses KD as their center. I'm not even sure he realized it first because Tucker and the players seemed to take over the game by themselves midway the 3rd game. Who would have thought that small ball Giannis was the answer against small ball KD?

Even despite the Nets series and the obvious "click" on our players minds Bud had to throw the first game of the ECF by having Brook watching Trey Young shoot wide open floaters and 3s for 3 quarters straight.
The same thing happened in the first two games against the Suns when CP3 and Booker looked like they were having their easiest series yet.

Bud should be commented for actually adjusting his tactic this past season but him starting each series with the way its known not to work unless the oppossing team can't shoot the ball it's a major concern. He is just too stubborn.

It took two years for Giannis to actually play like himself in a series against a good team. It took two years for Giannis to hit his free throws in a game to put a team away (game 3 ecf). It took two years for giannis to accept playing off ball more. See? Criticizing Bud and having concerns is fine… just like criticizing Giannis and having concerns about his game is fine still as it was when people was complaining about guys rightfully criticizing Giannis.

Which goes back to my original post that it’s people on here that would **** on and disrespect a HoF coach, the guy that turned this team from a 6th/7th seed team with a mvp talent to a team that just has to suit up to win most of its regular season and post season games. And then turn around and throw a tantrum when anybody says Giannis played like garbage and call it “disrespectful and hurtful”.

And for the last time, the bucks beat the nets because of the damn drop coverage. Buds not perfect, I’m not here to defend his every move and mistake which some of you guys can learn from, it’s plenty concerns and knocks on him thats been discussed in post above me and other places here. But if anybody’s still complaining about the drop defense or offensive plays when it’s plenty evidence that Bud is not only a good coach, but probably one of the best in the league, then idk what to say anymore.

Bud and Giannis both deserve praise when we win and blame when we lose. We not here today without either Throw Khris in there too somewhere.

[greekbuck34]

So its 24-25 years old Giannis from european basketball culture of "listening to your coach first and then your instict/ego" who took all these decisions and not the coach of the "let it fly" and "play random" philosophy.
Its Giannis who actually listened to "don't shoot the ball" from J.Kidd who actually decided randomly to "let it fly" or go ISO against a wall of 3 defenders.

It's definitely not Bud despite the critisim of actual gms, coaches and veteran ex and current players.

Milbuck forget it bro. I'm done with this.

[Milbucks96]

Giannis is great, Bud is great, they both deserve lots of praise and lots of blame. They both have deserved to be called trash or dumbass or any name in the book for the past 2 and a half playoffs and add in Khris for some of the praise and blame too. They both helped turned this franchise around and win and they both will be here for a while and both are headed to the hof one day. The end.

[CharityStripe34]

Just like Gianni has grown and matured, so did Bud. Holiday confirmed that Bud went to the players to get their input on how to defend Brooklyn. Interestingly enough, there were times when they "adjusted" way too much and at weird times. I think its a testamemt to the talent on the team that they were able to respond after being down three straight series in a row.

Gonna be super fascinating to see Freak play more like a PF/C and confident in getting to his spots without having to bring up the ball. He totally trusts Jrue as the PG now, so he can focus on beating opposing team defense before they set up "the wall." Im pumped for next season and I think the "Big Three" are going to make a mini-leap as a unit, honestly.

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[GoldenAntlers]

Just like Gianni has grown and matured, so did Bud. Holiday confirmed that Bud went to the players to get their input on how to defend Brooklyn. Interestingly enough, there were times when they "adjusted" way too much and at weird times. I think its a testamemt to the talent on the team that they were able to respond after being down three straight series in a row.

Gonna be super fascinating to see Freak play more like a PF/C and confident in getting to his spots without having to bring up the ball. He totally trusts Jrue as the PG now, so he can focus on beating opposing team defense before they set up "the wall." Im pumped for next season and I think the "Big Three" are going to make a mini-leap as a unit, honestly.

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Yup. I feel like the Bucks won't take the regular season super serious again, yet still end with the 1 or 2 seed based on internal team improvement alone.

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[AussieBuck]

FYI for those of you like me that can't read but want to dive into the Giannis book, it is now on audible.

You don't read? Is someone going to read this post to you?

[RiotPunch]

The bucks just had a historic playoff defense for the second time in three years and had the best defense in the league twice, and one of those years it was literally one of the best defenses ever… Are people really still talking about drop coverage when every team with a traditional big man plays drop coverage?!

The team has had elite defenses in every series basically, it has never been a problem lol. It’s always been the offense. We just won the championship because we were able to keep Brook on the floor and just bully teams. You know why? Drop coverage!!!

You know why we started down 0-2 to the nets and the suns? Because they had **** home court. The nets beat us badly not because of the defense, it was because they were clearly a better team lol. The suns won the first two games because of Giannis being hurt and unsustainable shooting, But we won four games in a row because we won the possession battle and shot quality battle, do you know how we did that? Staying big with Brook and using the drop coverage and forcing them into bad shots while shutting off the rim.

The bucks won the ring while shooting 30 percent from 3, 70 percent from the line all playoffs and people still think our coach doesn’t deserve any credit we literally closed out the ecf with Giannis in street clothes and you got people suggesting Bud was carried by the team. But I guess I can’t expect much when this board was wondering who had the coaching advantage out of the last four teams

The naivety of going into that Hawks series without altering a damn thing was comical though. Condemning the drop is a blanket excuse, but not altering it out of stubbornness is condemnable. Trae makes his living on floaters, it took Bud way too long to not have Brook drop so deep. Took him too long against PHX as well, although Paul was just scorching coming into that series. I agree, though, that we have to continue to play variations of the drop with Brook, and that Brook is still pretty damn good.

Regarding the offense, The Lowe Post with Bud made me nervous moving forward-- the man would really rather trust the instincts of the players on a team with low-BBIQ than hammer home some offensive sets to put them in positions to succeed. I'm happy we won a championship, but that mentality, given this group, doesn't make me overly confident in a repeat.

The "this team has low BB IQ" takes are pretty worn out and outdated.

That's fair, phrased that poorly, I really meant among other contenders. This team has above average BBIQ league-wide. Giannis improved greatly throughout the playoffs as a decision maker, and Khris is above average to good. Jrue is mostly fine, but has made a number of frustrating decisions. I just think this group might benefit from a more hands-on approach from Bud to get them and the ball moving more. Going the instinctual route takes a lot off their collective plate mentally, but also makes for stagnant iso offense, which I'm really only confident in Khris in that scenario. Not having an elite decision-maker like LeBron, Jokic, Harden, etc lowers our BBIQ bar by default, and necessitates more offensive sets, IMO.

[emunney]

The evil that men do lives after them, the good oft interred with their bones - So let it be with anyone who's ever had a bad take.

Some of the takes On Here have a half-life of 20,000 years.

[BigO]

It took Bud 2 years to learn how to play against the wall instead of giving the ball to Giannis and Khris at the top of the key and ask them to beat 3-4 players without movement of the ball/players while our "PG" was sitting at the corner alone and simply unplayable.

It took Bud 2 and a half games to realize that it's really bad using Brook Lopez with drop coverage against a team that uses KD as their center. I'm not even sure he realized it first because Tucker and the players seemed to take over the game by themselves midway the 3rd game. Who would have thought that small ball Giannis was the answer against small ball KD?

Even despite the Nets series and the obvious "click" on our players minds Bud had to throw the first game of the ECF by having Brook watching Trey Young shoot wide open floaters and 3s for 3 quarters straight.
The same thing happened in the first two games against the Suns when CP3 and Booker looked like they were having their easiest series yet.

Bud should be commented for actually adjusting his tactic this past season but him starting each series with the way its known not to work unless the oppossing team can't shoot the ball it's a major concern. He is just too stubborn.

It took two years for Giannis to actually play like himself in a series against a good team. It took two years for Giannis to hit his free throws in a game to put a team away (game 3 ecf). It took two years for giannis to accept playing off ball more. See? Criticizing Bud and having concerns is fine… just like criticizing Giannis and having concerns about his game is fine still as it was when people was complaining about guys rightfully criticizing Giannis.

Which goes back to my original post that it’s people on here that would **** on and disrespect a HoF coach, the guy that turned this team from a 6th/7th seed team with a mvp talent to a team that just has to suit up to win most of its regular season and post season games. And then turn around and throw a tantrum when anybody says Giannis played like garbage and call it “disrespectful and hurtful”.

And for the last time, the bucks beat the nets because of the damn drop coverage. Buds not perfect, I’m not here to defend his every move and mistake which some of you guys can learn from, it’s plenty concerns and knocks on him thats been discussed in post above me and other places here. But if anybody’s still complaining about the drop defense or offensive plays when it’s plenty evidence that Bud is not only a good coach, but probably one of the best in the league, then idk what to say anymore.

Bud and Giannis both deserve praise when we win and blame when we lose. We not here today without either Throw Khris in there too somewhere.

We can agree to disagree on how good of a coach Bud is, but stating the Bucks beat the Nets because of drop coverage is about as ahistorical as one can get. The Bucks won that series and every other one because they abandoned the drop coverage, mainly because the players demanded it.
The drop coverage works when the guy coming off the screen can't shoot a high percentage of two pointers (or three pointers when the screen is well above the 3 point line). So it tends to work much better against average to bad teams. Thank God the Bucks abandoned it for most of the playoffs, except the examples shared by Greek Buck.

In any case, Bud will be back and we can continue to debate ad nauseum his limited schematic repertoire. I'm fine with it. They can't take away the championship, as much as Nets fans want to.

[ShootingtheJ]

It took Bud 2 years to learn how to play against the wall instead of giving the ball to Giannis and Khris at the top of the key and ask them to beat 3-4 players without movement of the ball/players while our "PG" was sitting at the corner alone and simply unplayable.

It took Bud 2 and a half games to realize that it's really bad using Brook Lopez with drop coverage against a team that uses KD as their center. I'm not even sure he realized it first because Tucker and the players seemed to take over the game by themselves midway the 3rd game. Who would have thought that small ball Giannis was the answer against small ball KD?

Even despite the Nets series and the obvious "click" on our players minds Bud had to throw the first game of the ECF by having Brook watching Trey Young shoot wide open floaters and 3s for 3 quarters straight.
The same thing happened in the first two games against the Suns when CP3 and Booker looked like they were having their easiest series yet.

Bud should be commented for actually adjusting his tactic this past season but him starting each series with the way its known not to work unless the oppossing team can't shoot the ball it's a major concern. He is just too stubborn.

It took two years for Giannis to actually play like himself in a series against a good team. It took two years for Giannis to hit his free throws in a game to put a team away (game 3 ecf). It took two years for giannis to accept playing off ball more. See? Criticizing Bud and having concerns is fine… just like criticizing Giannis and having concerns about his game is fine still as it was when people was complaining about guys rightfully criticizing Giannis.

Which goes back to my original post that it’s people on here that would **** on and disrespect a HoF coach, the guy that turned this team from a 6th/7th seed team with a mvp talent to a team that just has to suit up to win most of its regular season and post season games. And then turn around and throw a tantrum when anybody says Giannis played like garbage and call it “disrespectful and hurtful”.

And for the last time, the bucks beat the nets because of the damn drop coverage. Buds not perfect, I’m not here to defend his every move and mistake which some of you guys can learn from, it’s plenty concerns and knocks on him thats been discussed in post above me and other places here. But if anybody’s still complaining about the drop defense or offensive plays when it’s plenty evidence that Bud is not only a good coach, but probably one of the best in the league, then idk what to say anymore.

Bud and Giannis both deserve praise when we win and blame when we lose. We not here today without either Throw Khris in there too somewhere.

We can agree to disagree on how good of a coach Bud is, but stating the Bucks beat the Nets because of drop coverage is about as ahistorical as one can get. The Bucks won that series and every other one because they abandoned the drop coverage, mainly because the players demanded it.
The drop coverage works when the guy coming off the screen can't shoot a high percentage of two pointers (or three pointers when the screen is well above the 3 point line). So it tends to work much better against average to bad teams. Thank God the Bucks abandoned it for most of the playoffs, except the examples shared by Greek Buck.

In any case, Bud will be back and we can continue to debate ad nauseum his limited schematic repertoire. I'm fine with it. They can't take away the championship, as much as Nets fans want to.

Limited scheme repertoire? They were easily the most scheme diverse team in the playoffs. Now that doesn't get you anything if they can't execute, but they did that too.

The Suns made the Finals playing exclusive drop coverage, acting like the Bucks are the only team playing that way is pretty disingenuous.

[Pachinko_]

FYI for those of you like me that can't read but want to dive into the Giannis book, it is now on audible.

You don't read? Is someone going to read this post to you?

We are on audible. Samuel Jackson does my voice.
You are Dan Castellaneta.

[brettski]

The bucks just had a historic playoff defense for the second time in three years and had the best defense in the league twice, and one of those years it was literally one of the best defenses ever… Are people really still talking about drop coverage when every team with a traditional big man plays drop coverage?!

The team has had elite defenses in every series basically, it has never been a problem lol. It’s always been the offense. We just won the championship because we were able to keep Brook on the floor and just bully teams. You know why? Drop coverage!!!

You know why we started down 0-2 to the nets and the suns? Because they had **** home court. The nets beat us badly not because of the defense, it was because they were clearly a better team lol. The suns won the first two games because of Giannis being hurt and unsustainable shooting, But we won four games in a row because we won the possession battle and shot quality battle, do you know how we did that? Staying big with Brook and using the drop coverage and forcing them into bad shots while shutting off the rim.

The bucks won the ring while shooting 30 percent from 3, 70 percent from the line all playoffs and people still think our coach doesn’t deserve any credit we literally closed out the ecf with Giannis in street clothes and you got people suggesting Bud was carried by the team. But I guess I can’t expect much when this board was wondering who had the coaching advantage out of the last four teams

The naivety of going into that Hawks series without altering a damn thing was comical though. Condemning the drop is a blanket excuse, but not altering it out of stubbornness is condemnable. Trae makes his living on floaters, it took Bud way too long to not have Brook drop so deep. Took him too long against PHX as well, although Paul was just scorching coming into that series. I agree, though, that we have to continue to play variations of the drop with Brook, and that Brook is still pretty damn good.

Regarding the offense, The Lowe Post with Bud made me nervous moving forward-- the man would really rather trust the instincts of the players on a team with low-BBIQ than hammer home some offensive sets to put them in positions to succeed. I'm happy we won a championship, but that mentality, given this group, doesn't make me overly confident in a repeat.

The "this team has low BB IQ" takes are pretty worn out and outdated.

There were plenty of reports that the players had to go to the coach and push for changes in our defensive schemes. If that is necessary then there are problems with the coaching. I agree, I listened to the Lowe Post too and I was a bit concerned about some of Bud's attitudes around coaching and not changing things.

[Sigra]

For years many people thought that we need to add shooters to help Giannis beat the wall. Well, that was wrong. We just won championship with terrible 3 point shooting and Giannis had no problem with walls. Why? Because Giannis finally decided to play inside. Thats all that he need to do to beat the wall. For some reason he didn't want to do that against Raptors in 2019 ECF and in 2020 playoffs. If he did we would now celebrate our 3rd title in the row most likely.

Yes, Giannis played stupid before he started to play intelligent. Maybe he was too young and immature but whatever was reason for playing stupid people who said that he played stupid were right. He did play stupid.

Then we had miracle and he transformed from Westbrook to Duncan. In terms of intelligence. I never saw transformation like that in my life. From stupid kid who tried to be what he is not to super focused and super intelligent big man who played perfect basketball. Completely different player. I still dont understand how is that possible. He was stupid. Legit stupid. Slow thinking bad decision making. Entire world expected Bucks to fail in playoffs because everybody thought that he is athletic freak but stupid and bad decision maker. Entire world expected Westbrook kind of career. And then he started to play intelligent and focused literally on Duncan level.

To be honest, I am kind of upset now that I see that he can play intelligent like Duncan. I mean, if he can then why he played stupid so much? I would say he was young and immature before but he just transformed in the middle of playoffs. Like he turned on the light. Incredible indeed.

[Nightfall]

Monty Williams: I didn’t know Giannis Antetokounmpo was leading me into Bucks’ locker room

https://nba.nbcsports.com/2021/08/23/monty-williams-i-didnt-know-giannis-antetokounmpo-was-leading-me-into-bucks-locker-room/

[Ruzious]

Monty Williams: I didn’t know Giannis Antetokounmpo was leading me into Bucks’ locker room

https://nba.nbcsports.com/2021/08/23/monty-williams-i-didnt-know-giannis-antetokounmpo-was-leading-me-into-bucks-locker-room/

To me, that's what sports is all about. Williams certainly shouldn't have to apologize or give an explanation for what he did.

[emunney]

Monty Williams: I didn’t know Giannis Antetokounmpo was leading me into Bucks’ locker room

https://nba.nbcsports.com/2021/08/23/monty-williams-i-didnt-know-giannis-antetokounmpo-was-leading-me-into-bucks-locker-room/

To me, that's what sports is all about. Williams certainly shouldn't have to apologize or give an explanation for what he did.

I had no idea he was even getting criticized for it. I guess this is just the "look at me" mentality of sports pundits like Amin Elhassan, trying to attract attention away from the Bucks' championship and a gracious act by the opposing head coach.

[ShootingtheJ]

The naivety of going into that Hawks series without altering a damn thing was comical though. Condemning the drop is a blanket excuse, but not altering it out of stubbornness is condemnable. Trae makes his living on floaters, it took Bud way too long to not have Brook drop so deep. Took him too long against PHX as well, although Paul was just scorching coming into that series. I agree, though, that we have to continue to play variations of the drop with Brook, and that Brook is still pretty damn good.

Regarding the offense, The Lowe Post with Bud made me nervous moving forward-- the man would really rather trust the instincts of the players on a team with low-BBIQ than hammer home some offensive sets to put them in positions to succeed. I'm happy we won a championship, but that mentality, given this group, doesn't make me overly confident in a repeat.

The "this team has low BB IQ" takes are pretty worn out and outdated.

There were plenty of reports that the players had to go to the coach and push for changes in our defensive schemes. If that is necessary then there are problems with the coaching. I agree, I listened to the Lowe Post too and I was a bit concerned about some of Bud's attitudes around coaching and not changing things.

Lol, do you think Buds is the only coach who takes input from players? Lebron doesn't even acknowledge that he has a coach.

[ReasonablySober]

Giannis the owner is pleased with a big fly.

[GoldenAntlers]

Had a dream last night I was out in a crowd and then behind me Giannis appeared with the trophy. I kept trying to unlock my phone, but the password wasn't registering. Finally got it unlocked for a selfie with Giannis and the trophy, but he was gone once it was working. My friend was very disappointed.

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[Pachinko_]

Giannis the owner is pleased with a big fly.

Other than USA, which countries do good baseball players mostly come from? I see all those people from different races, is it really an international sport?