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Speaker 1: to Hoops Tonight, presented by Vandel here at the volume.
Speaker 1: Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys have
Speaker 1: had a great week so far. Continuing with our power
Speaker 1: rankings today with number three the Milwaukee Bucks, the team
Speaker 1: that has the best player in the world in my opinion,
Speaker 1: and Janice Antenna Combo and the champions from that we're
Speaker 1: taken down by injuries last year. Very dangerous basketball team
Speaker 1: that's very interesting and we're gonna get into the weeds
Speaker 1: with them today. You guys know the drill. Before we
Speaker 1: get started, subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you
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Speaker 1: let's move on to the Milwaukee Bucks. So last year
Speaker 1: they went fifteen and one, excuse me, fifty one and
Speaker 1: thirty one. They lost in the second round in seven
Speaker 1: games to the Boston Celtics without Chris Middleton obviously, and
Speaker 1: that was one hell of a barn burner of a series.
Speaker 1: They actually went up three two at one point, winning
Speaker 1: a huge game on the Road in Game five in Boston.
Speaker 1: In the regular season, they were third in offense and defense.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, brook Lopez only played in thirteen regular season games.
Speaker 1: That's the big thing that most Bucks fans point to
Speaker 1: as it pertains to their defense. I do think it
Speaker 1: goes a little deeper than that. There's too much talent
Speaker 1: on that roster to not be able to get more
Speaker 1: stops even without brook Lopez, but that's certainly played a
Speaker 1: little bit of a role. Janice was my m v
Speaker 1: P last year. I would have given it to him
Speaker 1: over Nikola yokich I thought he was a better all
Speaker 1: around basketball player last year. I think there's just fatigued
Speaker 1: with the honest and there's just a lot of hype
Speaker 1: behind yokich I like yokich I believe in everything he does,
Speaker 1: but the movement with him is getting a little bit
Speaker 1: out of control. The same goes for Joel Embiid. Those
Speaker 1: guys are very good. There are better players. I thought
Speaker 1: Janice played better last year too. He would have been
Speaker 1: my m v P if I had a vote. Um
Speaker 1: I also thought that the Eastern Conference was a lot
Speaker 1: tougher than the Western Conference last year, and too often
Speaker 1: we cling to records, and we'll say like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: you know, Yokich managed to you know, pull off almost
Speaker 1: fifty wins with that group or whatever it is, And
Speaker 1: too often we forget that, like the day in, day
Speaker 1: out schedule, when you play, you know, the vast majority
Speaker 1: of your games against your own conference, it's just easier
Speaker 1: to put up better advanced metrics. It's easy year to
Speaker 1: put up wins. Then when the conference is tougher. It
Speaker 1: actually reminds me a lot of Lebron in twenty I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, the Bucks finished a couple of games ahead
Speaker 1: of them and the standings, and everyone clung to that,
Speaker 1: and everyone clung to the advanced metrics. But in that season,
Speaker 1: the bottom of the Eastern Conference was absolute trash and
Speaker 1: you were just stacking up wins, and the Bucks were
Speaker 1: like nearly undefeated against those teams and beat them all
Speaker 1: by a million points every time, and it just inflated
Speaker 1: the heck out of their advanced metrics, and it it
Speaker 1: inflated Janice's MVP case that year, and I actually thought
Speaker 1: Lebron deserved it in It's kind of a similar thing
Speaker 1: for me with Joannice this year. I thought Janice did
Speaker 1: more in a tougher conference, missing his back line partner
Speaker 1: in in In Brook Lopez, and put together a really
Speaker 1: damn good season. I would have had him as the
Speaker 1: m v P. I think he's the best player in
Speaker 1: the world right now. As well. His performance in that
Speaker 1: uh in that Boston Celtics series was ridiculous. It was
Speaker 1: inefficient by his standards, but so was everyone when they
Speaker 1: faced Boston except for Steph Curry. And with Steph Curry,
Speaker 1: they ran a coverage that Steph's elite skill specifically targeted,
Speaker 1: and so it was. And don't get me wrong, I'm
Speaker 1: doing this whole thing because obviously, as you guys can guess,
Speaker 1: Number two and number one are two teams that played
Speaker 1: in the NBA Finals last year, the Celtics and the Warriors,
Speaker 1: not in that order, in some order. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: reveal it right now, but in that series I have
Speaker 1: for these two videos coming up in the next two days,
Speaker 1: I'm completely rewatching the NBA Finals just to learn a
Speaker 1: lot more about what those teams did schematically and just
Speaker 1: to rehash that series for this over the course of
Speaker 1: these next two videos. And I cannot tell you how
Speaker 1: much Ema Udoka got out coached in that series. It's
Speaker 1: difficult for me to even explain to you at this point.
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to put all of that together, but
Speaker 1: like it was jarring the gap in in schematic competency
Speaker 1: between Steve Kerr and in Email Udoka, and it was
Speaker 1: a huge part of why Boston lost that series. And
Speaker 1: it's a huge part of why Steph was so good
Speaker 1: in that series compared to some of the other stars
Speaker 1: around the league and how they played against that Boston
Speaker 1: Celtics defense. That's a credit to Steph for the record.
Speaker 1: That's not a shot at Steph. But I don't blame
Speaker 1: Janice for his inefficiency. K D had inefficiency issues. Um
Speaker 1: Literally every Jimmy Butler had three games in a row
Speaker 1: where he had like fourteen points or less in the
Speaker 1: Conference finals. Every star struggled a bid against that Celtics defense.
Speaker 1: But Janice was extraordinarily impressive in that series. On both
Speaker 1: ends of the floor. He flashed levels of high end
Speaker 1: playmaking that I didn't think he was capable of. As
Speaker 1: I've always said, Janice and his ability to pass the
Speaker 1: basketball was always what mattered the most to me in
Speaker 1: his development, way more than shot making. Because the reality
Speaker 1: is you can't stop him from getting to the rim.
Speaker 1: The only way you can stop him from getting to
Speaker 1: the rim is by crowding him. And it's actually easier
Speaker 1: for him to beat that by passing the basketball than
Speaker 1: it is by him shooting over the top, especially with
Speaker 1: how far he still has to come as a shop
Speaker 1: maker outside of the paint. He's still incredibly inconsistent and that,
Speaker 1: and he is a very long way to go in
Speaker 1: that department. But if he passes the basketball this well,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't even matter. But what you saw in
Speaker 1: that series is that he's physically completely impossible to stop
Speaker 1: at this point. And even when you saw Grant Williams
Speaker 1: and Al Horford have some success against him early in
Speaker 1: the series, by the end of the series he was
Speaker 1: going through them like tissue paper too, even in big moments.
Speaker 1: And so uh that that Celtics series, even in a
Speaker 1: losing effort, solidified Nice to me as the best player
Speaker 1: in the world right now. Um I again, we talked
Speaker 1: about this yesterday and the Warriors media day thing. I
Speaker 1: think for bragging rights purposes, it's cool to call Steph
Speaker 1: the best player in the world, but I think even
Speaker 1: Warriors fans would acknowledge that what Janice can do on
Speaker 1: both ends of the floor right now is just at
Speaker 1: another level than really anybody else in the league. This offseason,
Speaker 1: they made two first round first round draft pick in
Speaker 1: the second round draft pick. I'm not going to talk
Speaker 1: about them today. One. I don't think they're gonna play
Speaker 1: much in the rotation too. I don't know a ton
Speaker 1: about them, and I'm not a big believer in coming
Speaker 1: on here and just talking when I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. So I'm gonna reserve my opinions on
Speaker 1: those two guys until I watched them play more NBA basketball.
Speaker 1: They resigned Bobby Portis, Wesley Matthews, Sirgebaka, and Javon Carter.
Speaker 1: They signed Joe Ingles, who actually really liked as long
Speaker 1: as he can get his health back. He does really
Speaker 1: well defending big wings because he's got good uh he's
Speaker 1: got a good frame, he slides his feet well, and
Speaker 1: he's really good at anticipating changes in direction. He's a
Speaker 1: very smart defensive player. He does struggle to contain quicker players,
Speaker 1: but in the in this scheme, with how much size
Speaker 1: they have on the back line, it's a little less
Speaker 1: important He's a very good spot up player, which is
Speaker 1: important because that's the very specific weakness in this Buck's
Speaker 1: roster right now. He shoots the ball really well and
Speaker 1: he attacks closeouts well, especially as a passer. So I
Speaker 1: thought it was a really smart pick up for Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: and I think it's gonna make them better. They did
Speaker 1: lose Donte DiVincenzo to the Warriors, but he was hurt
Speaker 1: last year. He uh, they're essentially running things back though
Speaker 1: they want a chip essentially with this group in and
Speaker 1: they nearly beat the Celtics without their second best player,
Speaker 1: there was no reason for them to do any sort
Speaker 1: of massive shake up. Looking at the depth chart at
Speaker 1: the guard position, Drew Holiday, George Hill, Javon Carter. On
Speaker 1: the wings, they have Jana Sntenna Kombo, Chris Middleton, Grayson Allen,
Speaker 1: Joe Ingles, Pat Conaton, and Wesley Matthews. In the bigs,
Speaker 1: Brook Lopez, Bobby Portera, Surgebaka and then Janice and for
Speaker 1: all intents and purposes, is a big as well. You
Speaker 1: guys know the drill. The way we're gonna do this
Speaker 1: is we're gonna dive into what they do on the
Speaker 1: offensive end of the floor, dive into what they do
Speaker 1: on the defensive end of the floor. Then we'll talk
Speaker 1: about what their best case scenario is, their worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: and their biggest X factor. So on offense, I wanted
Speaker 1: to start with their transition attack because, as you know,
Speaker 1: typically it's an ancillary thing for most teams. Most teams
Speaker 1: in the league run when it's convenient, they see an opportunity,
Speaker 1: they'll push the ball at the floor um. In general,
Speaker 1: the pace of the game kind of takes that field
Speaker 1: around the league for all thirty teams. But this is
Speaker 1: a team that consistently pushes the break. This is a
Speaker 1: team that struggles to score in the half court because
Speaker 1: they don't have great creation, especially in a situation like
Speaker 1: what happened last year when Chris Middleton goes down the
Speaker 1: you know, Drew Holiday can be somewhat inconsistent as a score.
Speaker 1: Janice is better in transition and better in the right
Speaker 1: like he struggles a little bit when things are really
Speaker 1: crowded in front of him in the half court, and
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton could be inconsistent from time to time. So
Speaker 1: pushing and transition is just smart for this team. They
Speaker 1: were third in frequency last year and excuse me. They
Speaker 1: scored one point one four points per possession on transition plays. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is mostly Janice pushing the break. When Janice gets
Speaker 1: ahead of steam in transition, teams have to build a
Speaker 1: wall and when they do, it opens up shooting opportunities.
Speaker 1: And then in addition to that, it creates an initial
Speaker 1: advantage that allows them to flow into their motion offense.
Speaker 1: So before we go any further on that concept, I
Speaker 1: thought was really interesting. Darvin ham Um in his first
Speaker 1: day at training camp, this was going around on social
Speaker 1: media yesterday. He drew some boxes on the court, or
Speaker 1: had the staff tape some boxes on the court, two
Speaker 1: in the deep corners and then one that extended basically
Speaker 1: the dunker spot underneath the basket. And apparently Darvin Hamm's
Speaker 1: reasoning there and this is something apparently he picked up
Speaker 1: from Mike Budenholzer and there's some other coaches that do
Speaker 1: it around the league. But essentially they want to dissuade
Speaker 1: or take away from team's ability to build the wall,
Speaker 1: and the best way to do that is to sprint
Speaker 1: to the corners so that you have spray out options
Speaker 1: or to force transition defenders to take out to take
Speaker 1: off to the to the corners, and then in the
Speaker 1: dunker spot. Obviously, if you run to the wall, that's
Speaker 1: a guy you can drop the ball off too. And
Speaker 1: essentially he's preaching if we sprint to these three spots
Speaker 1: on every transition possession, it makes them impossible. It makes
Speaker 1: it impossible for them to build the wall, and that
Speaker 1: opens up Lebron James and transition. That was Darvin Hamm's reasoning,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of essentially the concept of of of
Speaker 1: what Milwaukee tries to do to beat the wall. They
Speaker 1: push the ball in transition and they look for those
Speaker 1: kickout passes to three point shooters. And again, this is
Speaker 1: a team that does well when there is an advantage,
Speaker 1: but from time to time they can struggle to generate
Speaker 1: an advantage. One of the easiest ways to do that
Speaker 1: is just to have Janice barrel down the floor. Even
Speaker 1: if they do stop you, you typically someone's gonna have
Speaker 1: a kickout pass with a little bit of an advantage.
Speaker 1: And as long as they can attack that close out
Speaker 1: and extend the advantage and start that rotation process where
Speaker 1: the balls being driven and kicked around the floor, that's
Speaker 1: where you can get good shots early in the shot clock.
Speaker 1: Their primary motion offense, they run a lot of sets.
Speaker 1: They run stuff out of horns, they run stuff with
Speaker 1: one one guy in the high post and four corners.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of a lot of like cross screening
Speaker 1: Lopez and Janice to try to get different screen defenders
Speaker 1: onto Janna so that he can set ball screens and
Speaker 1: things like that. They do some Janice Middleton stuff. Their
Speaker 1: general motion offense is pistol, and the foundational concept of
Speaker 1: pistol is basically a dribble handoff that flows into a
Speaker 1: ball screen, and that interchange makes it difficult to guard
Speaker 1: the pick and roll. So, you know, my last year
Speaker 1: in college when I played Arizona Christian, we were a
Speaker 1: pick and roll offense. And that conference that I was
Speaker 1: in had all sorts of amazing guards, like all American
Speaker 1: incredible guards. The guard play in that conference was ridiculous,
Speaker 1: and so most teams ran a ton of pick and
Speaker 1: roll and so the vast majority of our practices, like
Speaker 1: a good forty minutes a day, we were literally just
Speaker 1: set up and run pick and roll. Coverage is trying
Speaker 1: to guard two on two so that we could learn
Speaker 1: the different spots on the floor of what our pick
Speaker 1: and roll coverages would be and I obviously for the
Speaker 1: most part, was defending on the ball. And when you're
Speaker 1: on the ball defending in ball screens, it's so important
Speaker 1: to get set up. So for instance, if we're on
Speaker 1: the side of the floor and we're running ice, an
Speaker 1: ice coverage dictates that I have to force the ball
Speaker 1: handler to reject the screen. So if the ball handlers
Speaker 1: on the wing and the bigs coming to set a screen,
Speaker 1: that he wants to come off that ball screen towards
Speaker 1: the middle of the floor right, so I literally will
Speaker 1: get up and take away his left hand to force
Speaker 1: him back towards the right, and then my big man
Speaker 1: is waiting for him, essentially in a drop coverage around
Speaker 1: the block. There are different ways to attack that pull
Speaker 1: up jump shooting from the guard position always helps, and
Speaker 1: then it's a pick and pop is always the best
Speaker 1: way to attack it as the screener. But my point
Speaker 1: is is as the ball defender, I have to get
Speaker 1: pre positioned to send the guy the way I want
Speaker 1: him to go right, and a typical drop coverage, I
Speaker 1: have to prepare myself to fight fight over the top
Speaker 1: of the screen, so I'm hugging up to the ball handler.
Speaker 1: I'm getting my steps right to take these lunging steps
Speaker 1: to get around. I'm getting low and set so that
Speaker 1: I can initiate contact with the screeners so I don't
Speaker 1: get caught on it. Right, There's all these different things
Speaker 1: I gotta do well. There's an interchange before the interchange
Speaker 1: that takes away my ability to get set. So if
Speaker 1: I'm guarding Drew Holiday or h and I'm in the
Speaker 1: corner and Chris Middleton has the ball at the top
Speaker 1: of the key and he does a dribble handoff into Drew.
Speaker 1: By the time Drew has the basketball, I'm already out
Speaker 1: of position and he's flowing into a ball screen with
Speaker 1: Janice And so because of that, it takes away team's
Speaker 1: ability to set up their pick and roll coverage. It's
Speaker 1: a basic interchange, and that concept is the foundational concept
Speaker 1: of the pistol offense. A dribble handoff that flows into
Speaker 1: a ball screen. And they run a ton of this
Speaker 1: down in Milwaukee. They also run a lot of what
Speaker 1: I called double pick and roll. This is essentially where
Speaker 1: uh this used to be run all the time in
Speaker 1: the NBA when we used to have two bigs consistently,
Speaker 1: not as much anymore. It's also really heavily used at
Speaker 1: the lower levels of hoops, like in high school and
Speaker 1: in college um because a lot of teams lean on
Speaker 1: size there just because the ball handling is not as
Speaker 1: good at the lower levels. But basically all that is
Speaker 1: is you have Brook, Lopez and Jannas set simultaneous ball
Speaker 1: screen spaced out by maybe five ft, and as Drew
Speaker 1: comes down, one of the big men will roll to
Speaker 1: the basket and the other will replace to the top
Speaker 1: of the key. A lot of teams will mix that
Speaker 1: up to try to confuse you. For Milwaukee, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of Janice rolling to the rim and Lopez bouncing
Speaker 1: out because he's a little bit more consistent as a
Speaker 1: three point shooter. But essentially it's designed to confuse you,
Speaker 1: and the vast majority of teams, both of their screen
Speaker 1: defenders will end up dropping back and or one of
Speaker 1: them will have to help on the ball handler and
Speaker 1: the other will drop back. So almost always the big
Speaker 1: man is wide open at the top of the key,
Speaker 1: and if he's got a good look, he can shoot it.
Speaker 1: If the defenders closing out at him, he can swing it,
Speaker 1: or that can flow into a drible handoff. It's a
Speaker 1: basic way to get the ball to the top of
Speaker 1: the key wide open that can flow into your next action.
Speaker 1: One of the other one of the other most common
Speaker 1: ways that that the Bucks initiate their offense is transition
Speaker 1: post ups. So all three of Chris, Drew, and Joannice
Speaker 1: are good back to the basket players in different ways.
Speaker 1: Like Drew can bully most of the smaller guards in
Speaker 1: the league. Chris Middleton, his specialty is literally to shoot
Speaker 1: over the top of defenders that are smaller than him.
Speaker 1: And then Janice obviously is just a freak of nature physically,
Speaker 1: so a lot of times what they'll do is when
Speaker 1: they get a stop, whoever has that ball will just
Speaker 1: run up the floor and turn their back to the
Speaker 1: basket at about the three point line and back down
Speaker 1: to the block, and then inevitably one ends up happening
Speaker 1: is the defense kind of collapses on them, and that's
Speaker 1: how they get their initial advantage to start their drive
Speaker 1: and kick. Almost every team in the league has a
Speaker 1: foundational concept to generate the initial advantage from there, it's
Speaker 1: about playing basketball, and playing basketball means extending the advantage
Speaker 1: until somebody gets a wide open three, or somebody cuts
Speaker 1: to the basket, gets wide up and lamp, or someone
Speaker 1: is able to drive to the basket. That shell action, though,
Speaker 1: is done a bunch of different ways. Some teams, like
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Nets, do it through a ton of high
Speaker 1: pick and roll. Some teams like the the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Lakers and the Milwaukee Bucks do it through a ton
Speaker 1: of post ups. Some teams like the Miami Heat and
Speaker 1: the Golden State Warriors do it through a ton of sets.
Speaker 1: But the point is is all of it is designed
Speaker 1: to generate that initial advantage so that everyone else can
Speaker 1: work on extending the advantage and get a good look
Speaker 1: out of it. For the Bucks, one of their most
Speaker 1: common ways to do that is their transition post ups
Speaker 1: UM isolation, so they were the fourth most frequent isolation
Speaker 1: team in the league, seventh most efficient. They have three
Speaker 1: walking mismatches. Like we talked about earlier, Drew Holiday is
Speaker 1: too big for most guards, Chris specializes in shooting over
Speaker 1: the top of smaller defenders, and Janice is probably the
Speaker 1: biggest mismatching all of basketball. When I was watching the
Speaker 1: footage from the Celtics Bucks series earlier, when we were
Speaker 1: doing UM, the player rankings and I was covering Nice.
Speaker 1: The one of the funniest things in that series was
Speaker 1: how when Janice managed to get Tatum or Brown on
Speaker 1: a switch, he literally ripped through them like tissue paper.
Speaker 1: And these are the best perimeter defenders in the league,
Speaker 1: some of the best perimeter defenders in all of basketball
Speaker 1: on the wing and a specific archetype of perimeter defender
Speaker 1: that is considered by most gms to be the most
Speaker 1: valuable defensive position in all of basketball, and he was
Speaker 1: ripping through them like tissue paper. He's too fast for bigs.
Speaker 1: So really, the only type of player that has any
Speaker 1: hope of guarding a Janice is the super strong, bulky,
Speaker 1: low center of gravity forwards. And that's why you saw
Speaker 1: guys like Grant Williams do okay. Al Horford did okay too.
Speaker 1: He's kind of a unique archetype. If I was building
Speaker 1: a defender in a lab to guard Janice, it would
Speaker 1: be a Lebron James or Draymond Green, someone who's undersized
Speaker 1: to play the big but is as big and strong
Speaker 1: as most of the biggs in the league. I think
Speaker 1: it would be awesome for the league if we got
Speaker 1: a Bucks Warriors Finals this year, and it would be
Speaker 1: an incredible matchup to watch Draymond Green try to guard
Speaker 1: you honest for an entire series. As basketball fans, we
Speaker 1: should all be wishing for something like that at some
Speaker 1: point in the future, because I think it'd be really
Speaker 1: fun to watch. Isolation teams that rely on shot making
Speaker 1: can be really inconsistent. So when you hear fourth most ISOs,
Speaker 1: there's an initial kind of recoil over. You're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that sounds stagnant, sounds like they don't move the ball much.
Speaker 1: That sounds silly, right, But their isolation is different. It
Speaker 1: relies on bullyball. It's a lot of physical uh trying
Speaker 1: to uh like for enforce your physicality on the opponent.
Speaker 1: Rather than the Kevin Durant Kyrie Irving, we're taking crazy
Speaker 1: off the dribble jump shots. Like in isolation, teams that
Speaker 1: rely on shot making can be inconsistent. Isolation teams that
Speaker 1: rely on bullyball can make you feel utterly helpless. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of like the Bucks Lakers dynamic, where it's like,
Speaker 1: sometimes the offense can look uh stagnant. Sometimes it can
Speaker 1: look like things are crowded in the paint, and then
Speaker 1: there's not enough movement. But then it's like a lot
Speaker 1: of Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Johannae Antenna, Cumbo, Drew Holiday,
Speaker 1: and Chris Middleton just bullying you to get whatever they want.
Speaker 1: And that's why it works. All three of those guys
Speaker 1: give you about one point per possession in ISO, which
Speaker 1: is above average. That's why they are successful as an
Speaker 1: isolation team. M They were eight in pick and roll
Speaker 1: ball handler efficiency seventh and rollman official efficiency, so they're
Speaker 1: good pick and roll team. Part of that is, like
Speaker 1: I was talking about the pistol sets running interchanges before
Speaker 1: they flow into pick and roll to make it hard
Speaker 1: for them to guard. That's something I'd love to see
Speaker 1: the Lakers do more of because too often they're just
Speaker 1: too brute force and there's not enough Uh, there's not
Speaker 1: enough motion flowing into what they like to do. Uh. Janice, Chris,
Speaker 1: and Drew are all in the seventi percentile or better
Speaker 1: as pick and roll ball handlers. Janice was seventh in
Speaker 1: pick and roll efficiency as a rollman among those who
Speaker 1: registered at least one D role possessions. Bigging that stood
Speaker 1: out to me on tape this year was just how
Speaker 1: well he's passing out of the short role. Obviously, Janice
Speaker 1: catches the ball in the short roll, he's getting dunks
Speaker 1: and fouls all the time, but he's also passing really
Speaker 1: well out of that role. Right now, they ran the
Speaker 1: third most post ups in the entire NBA. Janice was
Speaker 1: really efficient here, Drew and Chris less so. But the
Speaker 1: big thing here is less them scoring out of the
Speaker 1: post for Drew and Chris, and more than just initiating
Speaker 1: the offense. Like I talked about, to start possessions to
Speaker 1: get that initial rotation, that initial advantage that they can
Speaker 1: expand um spotting up. There were ninth inefficiency and spot
Speaker 1: up possessions during the regular season, but I thought this
Speaker 1: was a big part of what got them beat in
Speaker 1: the Celtics series they Boston. By the end of the series,
Speaker 1: when they realized they couldn't stop him in single coverage,
Speaker 1: We're sending the kitchen sink towards Joannice. You know it'd
Speaker 1: be Grant Williams on him, but you'd have two guys
Speaker 1: in both driving lanes just waiting for him to put
Speaker 1: the ball on the floor, and the Bucks were just
Speaker 1: incapable of capitalizing on that attention. Sent towards Johannice. In
Speaker 1: that series, the Bucks were thirty three on catching shoot threes,
Speaker 1: thirty six percent on wide open threes. That's when the
Speaker 1: defenders at least six ft away. That's just not good
Speaker 1: enough to win a playoff series when you've got a
Speaker 1: superstar that teams are going to be throwing the kitchen
Speaker 1: sync at. A couple of things are gonna help a
Speaker 1: lot here. One Joe Joe Ingles getting into the rotation.
Speaker 1: I just think he's a much better spot up player
Speaker 1: than most of the guys they have on the roster.
Speaker 1: And then to Chris Middleton. Like obviously we think of
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton as this excellent shot creator, a guy that
Speaker 1: fills Janice's specific weakness as a guy who can knock
Speaker 1: down shots over the top of the defense, but it's
Speaker 1: also an off ball thing. It's also when Janice has
Speaker 1: the ball, Chris Middleton is just a deadly spot up player.
Speaker 1: So by putting Chris Middleton back into a spot up
Speaker 1: roll back in there to help with spot up possessions,
Speaker 1: and by having Joe Ingles is a better option. If
Speaker 1: Grayson Allen or Pat Contatton are just not playing well
Speaker 1: on any particular night. I just think it gets I
Speaker 1: think it just increases their options there. So that's what
Speaker 1: got them beat last year. But I do think that
Speaker 1: that gets a dress us to when they're healthy and
Speaker 1: um and with the Joe Angle signing, Chris Middleton's loss
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, him getting hurt took away just enough
Speaker 1: of that spot up threat and just enough of that
Speaker 1: on ball creation and shot making to allow Boston to
Speaker 1: swarm me on us and fatigue him. That's why he
Speaker 1: looks so tired in Game seven. Limit his efficiency, and
Speaker 1: the guys off the ball weren't able to make enough
Speaker 1: shots and that's what costs in the series. But what's
Speaker 1: crazy is they still were right there, you know, with
Speaker 1: a chance to win late in Game six, and they
Speaker 1: just happened to lose that series, uh, you know, by
Speaker 1: a late flurry from Jayson Tatum to win Game six
Speaker 1: and then they ran out of gas in Game seven.
Speaker 1: When healthy, this is an offense that is built for
Speaker 1: the playoffs, that relies on bullyball with smart role players,
Speaker 1: and it allows them to capitalize on the attention that
Speaker 1: sent towards the honest it will not be nearly as
Speaker 1: easy to knock them out this this year, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't easy last year. That's why they're such a dangerous team.
Speaker 1: Moving to the defensive end of the floor. So there's
Speaker 1: some metrics from last year first, before we go any further.
Speaker 1: Their fourteenth in defensive writing obviously not good, but they
Speaker 1: had a lot of good stats. They were third best
Speaker 1: overall in the league at defending the paint. They were
Speaker 1: the best transition defense in the league according to Cleaning
Speaker 1: the Glass on a per possession basis, and they were
Speaker 1: the second best defensive rebounding team, and they were the
Speaker 1: best at not fouling. They led the league and free
Speaker 1: throw attempts allowed per one possessions. So that's a lot
Speaker 1: of good stats that speak very highly of Mike Budenholzer
Speaker 1: and the attention to detail that this team has on
Speaker 1: the defensive end of the floor. But they were dead
Speaker 1: last and defending the three point line. They gave up
Speaker 1: more than twenty wide open threes per game, which was
Speaker 1: worst in the league. And they didn't force any turnovers.
Speaker 1: They were sent seven and opponent's turnovers per one possessions.
Speaker 1: And the reason why here is this is a classic
Speaker 1: over helped team. When you're watching film and I watched
Speaker 1: a bunch of film on them yesterday. They on any
Speaker 1: possession that anybody has the basketball, the other four players
Speaker 1: almost always have a foot in the paint. There By design,
Speaker 1: they're trying to dare you to shoot at the expense
Speaker 1: of making everything impossible in the painted area, which is
Speaker 1: why they were such a bad matchup for that Chicago
Speaker 1: Bulls team that looked utterly helpless against them. And in general,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's kind of an interesting playoff. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting playoff strategy because role players do
Speaker 1: typically get nervous in the playoffs, and role players shooting
Speaker 1: is one of the first things that tends to go
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, and and so I get it from
Speaker 1: a strategy standpoint, But the risk there is that what
Speaker 1: if they make shots and what ended up happening in
Speaker 1: game six in game seven of the Conference semifinals against
Speaker 1: Boston is Boston shot from three and made thirty nine
Speaker 1: threes in game six in game seven and you lost.
Speaker 1: So as a strategy, it can burn you, and it
Speaker 1: did in this particular case. But then again, if I'm
Speaker 1: Mike Budenholzer, I'm saying, Okay, yeah, that's all great. But
Speaker 1: if I have Chris Middleton, we're probably winning that series
Speaker 1: in five or six games. UM. I think the other
Speaker 1: thing too that kind of hurts them guarding the three
Speaker 1: point line is they're a little bit slow footed in general. Um.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they have these lineups with like Drew Holiday and
Speaker 1: Wesley Matthews, who, even though you know Drew's a great athlete,
Speaker 1: they're shorter and so their strides are shorter, and so
Speaker 1: they don't cover ground as quickly. And then obviously you've
Speaker 1: got brook Lopez who's a little bit lumbering. So if
Speaker 1: you get Brooklyn, or if you get Milwaukee in rotation,
Speaker 1: they can be a little bit slow to close out
Speaker 1: UM two shooters as well. This is a vintage defense.
Speaker 1: They play gigantic lineups with tons of size and strength.
Speaker 1: They do the least switching of any team I've seen
Speaker 1: on this list so far. Most of the teams are
Speaker 1: switching one through four and then just running drop coverages
Speaker 1: from the center position. Some of the more modern thinking
Speaker 1: teams are switching everything. You watch the Milwaukee Bucks game,
Speaker 1: and it's Drue Holiday fighting through off ball screens. It's
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton fighting through off ball screens. They will switch
Speaker 1: when they need too. But there's a whole lot of
Speaker 1: just we're playing old fashioned basketball. Stick your man, and
Speaker 1: we're not going to We're not going to make things
Speaker 1: easier on you by switching. You've got your responsibility and
Speaker 1: you stay with that guy. They run drop coverage with
Speaker 1: crazy help from the weak side corner. They love to
Speaker 1: set it up where you know, Brooke is navigating the
Speaker 1: ball screen as the screen defender, and then Janice is
Speaker 1: just abandoning. You know, whether it's Patrick Williams in the
Speaker 1: in the Bulls series or whoever the hell it is,
Speaker 1: Robert Williams, wherever the hell it is he's guarding in
Speaker 1: the Celtics series, he'll just abandon that guy as soon
Speaker 1: as the screen action starts and he's waiting under the basket.
Speaker 1: It's a very, very vintage defense. They're super physical on
Speaker 1: the perimeter. Wesley Matthews, Pat Connaton and Drew Holiday are
Speaker 1: both all all three of them are stout guards that
Speaker 1: play defense with their hands, and that's allowed in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: It's a great way to contain on the perimeter, and
Speaker 1: they rebound super well because they're huge, and they completely
Speaker 1: shut down the paint at the other expense of letting
Speaker 1: you shoot threes and hoping you'll miss. But it's it's
Speaker 1: a very vintage defense, and you know, we can nit
Speaker 1: pick it all we want, and god knows, I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of that over the course of the last
Speaker 1: six months. But the results are there. They were right
Speaker 1: there anyway, even without Chris Middleton, and they won the
Speaker 1: title the year before. So what's the best case scenario
Speaker 1: with this team? Obviously, they win the title one healthy.
Speaker 1: They haven't lost a playoff series since the Bubble. Janice
Speaker 1: is the best player in the world and will likely
Speaker 1: be the best player in any potential playoff series that
Speaker 1: he plays. That actually ends up playing a bigger role
Speaker 1: than most people think. And then, even for teams like
Speaker 1: the Celtics, Warriors, and Clippers, even if you managed to
Speaker 1: beat this Bucks team, they're going down in six or
Speaker 1: seven games. This is not a team that anybody's gonna
Speaker 1: knock out in four or five. They are too physical,
Speaker 1: they're too big, they're too talented. They're gonna be royal
Speaker 1: pain in the ass for everybody. I think they're the
Speaker 1: third most likely team to win the title. Worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: even if they lose a star They're still gonna make
Speaker 1: it to the second round at least as we saw UM,
Speaker 1: except for Janice if he goes down, But I mean
Speaker 1: he that dude's invincible. I literally watched his knee invert
Speaker 1: in conference finals and he was just ready to go
Speaker 1: and killed everybody in the in the NBA finals, So
Speaker 1: I mean one of the it feels like the safest
Speaker 1: bet in sports that Milwaukee is gonna make it to
Speaker 1: the second round, come hell or high water next year.
Speaker 1: So they have a pretty decent Uh, they have a
Speaker 1: pretty good worst case scenario. Biggest X factor for this
Speaker 1: team I think is Joe Ingles. He was a really
Speaker 1: solid role player before this injury. Um is competent, like
Speaker 1: his competent spot up play specifically address as a weakness
Speaker 1: on this roster, and so I like the fit there.
Speaker 1: He also gives them more aggregate size. That they play
Speaker 1: a lot of undersized wings, guys like Wes Matthews, guys
Speaker 1: like Pat Connatson, guys like Grayson Allen. Sliding in someone
Speaker 1: that's a little bit taller there will will kind of
Speaker 1: open things up for them UM in terms of aggregate size,
Speaker 1: especially when Janice plays center and Buddenholzer Lean's really heavily
Speaker 1: into Brook Lopez at center. If you looked at the
Speaker 1: on off numbers from the Celtics series, they were much
Speaker 1: much better with the honest at center in that series.
Speaker 1: He just refused to go to it. But again that's
Speaker 1: his vintage approach to the game. But if they ever
Speaker 1: do start to go to Honest at the center, more
Speaker 1: ingles gives them more aggregate size to be able to
Speaker 1: functionally run those lineups. The bottom line is is if
Speaker 1: he can get back to what he was or even
Speaker 1: close and take away some of the weaker minutes that
Speaker 1: they were given to guys like Grace and Allen, it
Speaker 1: fills a hole in the roster, it makes them better,
Speaker 1: and so I think I think he's the biggest X
Speaker 1: factor for this particular team if he can get back
Speaker 1: to what he was in his prime years in Utah.
Speaker 1: Al Right, guys, that is all I have for today.
Speaker 1: Starting tomorrow, we're going through number two and number one,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be covering a ton of the NBA Finals.
Speaker 1: This last year, I'm rewatching. That's my job for the
Speaker 1: rest of the day. I'm gonna keep rewatching the two
Speaker 1: thousand two NBA Finals as always, I sincerely appreciate your
Speaker 1: guys a support and I'll see tomorrow and the volume