ITS THE OFFS BABY THE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS

and one that doesn't exactly flatter bud...

Giannis defended Jimmy for 13 total touches in this series, per tracking data. That amounts to about 7.6 defensive touches per 100 possessions.

In the '21 sweep, (healthy) Giannis defended Jimmy for 147 touches, including the first possession of Game 1, or 60.7 per 100.

— Couper Moorhead (@CoupNBA) April 27, 2023

effectively shooting 58% on jumpers across 5 games in a playoff series vs the 1 seed w/ a usage rate thru the roof is completely bonkers

yeah its haleys commit variance

i think there is an onus on giannis as well, not every possession in a game like that is gonna be a called play. he got to the rim a ton and played his game. but he also missed a lot of shots in the paint that weren't lay ups & every time you can get him to do that you exhale as an opposing fan.

― J0rdan S., Thursday, April 27, 2023 12:28 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

feels like giannis does what hes comfortable with and hasnt really grown as a player in a while, when he was injured in the finals and was forced to play more of a big man game to great success i was like thats it thats where future giannis should be headed, instead he worked more on his perimeter game to no avail

jimmy heaters are as fun as anyones, unique player

feels like giannis does what hes comfortable with and hasnt really grown as a player in a while, when he was injured in the finals and was forced to play more of a big man game to great success i was like thats it thats where future giannis should be headed, instead he worked more on his perimeter game to no avail

― lag∞n, Thursday, April 27, 2023 12:31 PM (three minutes ago)

he's so physically dominant that i have fewer concerns about the evolution of his game than others. i still think if he's healthy for 5 more playoffs over the next 7 years he'll get at least one more title just by being a different level of athlete than anyone else in the league, and i'd prob take the over on 1. sometimes that's really just the most important thing in basketbal.

but i also think your points about what part of his game he's emphasized are well founded. he should never shoot a three in a playoff game & should prob rarely if ever be shooting jumpers period. i think to some degree the bucks prob overemphasized regular season skill maximization (distance shooting) and underemphasized playoff skill maximization (having ways to consistently get buckets when every score is at a premium)

idk i feel like if you dont improve and evolve as a player your success is just going to follow your athletic/injury trend line which is going to be going down for most of your career, giannis could stay totally physically robust through his early 30s but he could also slow down a bit like how we saw with the back injury in this series and in that case if his game doesnt adapt hell be exactly as effective as his body allows

like imagine if young lebron never added to his game

for sure, he's more susceptible to his body breaking down than some other stars. i also don't think it's true that his game just hasn't evolved. but i think we can safely say at this point he's never going to be a good shooter & should figure out ways to score more creatively from around the basket in the half court

I think Giannis's game has definitely evolved. you're right that he's not ever gonna be a good shooter but his touch at the basket has gotten a lot better and he's way more aware of where his teammates are than he was 3-4 years ago. during the Kidd years you could just put 4 guys on him in the paint and he wouldn't know what to do. I do think though he tries really hard to have a "complete" game the way Lebron does instead of following his destiny as the new Shaq

big question is where the Bucks go from here. they are the oldest team in the league and I don't think they really have any good picks so they're kind of stuck. Middleton is starting to miss a lot of time due to injury and isn't really dominating when he's in. Jrue is gonna be 35 and just never shoots well in the playoffs. Brook is 37. idk I think the best route is to swap out Bud for a serious coach and see if he can figure something out.

brook is 37?! wau.

he tries really hard to have a "complete" game the way Lebron does instead of following his destiny as the new Shaq

^^^

tbf to giannis he has a lot more lebron in his game than the average dominant big and it's not really on him that that's the way he's been used, it's also bud and the schemes. but ultimately his most successful future lies in emulating shaq as you say

brooks had a crazy career type of guy who couldve easily been out of the league five years ago but is still a really good player

it's so wild that he was a 20ppg scorer with sus D for the whole nets stage of his career

he was a good defender back then at least by the numbers maybe people just didnt believe it but he was always up there as far as rim protection

how lame was it that the heat/bucks was on at the same time as kings/dubs. seems like theres been some horrible nba scheduling this offs?

i was liking it cause when a commercial came on id just switch to the other game then wait for a commercial in that one and switch back

i think they get traffic jams in the first round and have no choice but to have some overlapping games but i can’t imagine the league loved having the no 1 overall seed be eliminated on nba tv at 12:30 am ET

seems like they did it that way to stagger the lakers/grizz and dubs/kings games cause those are the popular teams

heat and bucks dont really have big profiles even tho obvs that was the game for true heads

brook just turned 35 ftr

still wrapping my head around this btw, seems like the bucks need to do something aggressive but not sure i know what it is

yeah they dont have a ton of options

even the coach, like are they really going to find someone better? they have great seasons under him and you never hear about any drama.

bud is a great 82 games coach, not so much 16

yeah I messed that up, Brook is indeed 35. either way that + his back injury means he probably doesn't have much time left

point is they really need to find another guy like that, some kind of diamond in the rough who slots in really well with who the Bucks have currently, ironically the one team that seems really good at doing that is...Miami

they shd trade middleton for trae young it would be a blast

lets do this

right, Bud's big problem is he doesn't really know how to respond to other coaches gameplanning for him, which is not such a big deal during the regular season but it's a huge deal in a 7-game series. he's got that Bart Simpson thing going on..."good old rock...nothing beats rock"

nurse seems like the right guy hes mr adjustments

lol yikes

"Honestly, we were all questioning it...Spo came into the huddle and he was like 'they didn't call a timeout, what are they doing?'" – Max Strus on what it felt like as the Heat realized Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer wasn't going to call a timeout at the end of regulation. pic.twitter.com/8UTH7UbUrm

— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) April 27, 2023

he also beat the Bucks in 6 during the ECF despite having a substantially worse team on paper

i think you could make a pretty easy argument for keeping the 4 bucks guys together for two more seasons, finding a new coach & redoing the margins of the roster. but of course khris & brook are FAs and they're both gonna want longer deals. tying giannis' future to that would be a bit terrifying

i wonder if they could sign & trade either khris or brook to bring in a different third star or key rotation piece. the issue i think is that brook's skillset is very rare and middleton is the perfect archetype of player you'd want to put w/ holiday & giannis. how would you move either guy and get someone that was better or even just younger?

they could just roll with giannis at center might be good

the bucks GM is another one who ppl incl bucks fans were really criticizing heavily, basically saying the guy might be incompetent. and then they won the title and nobody ever talked about him being good or bad ever again, he was just an invisible person. but now he'll really be put to the test bcuz they're at a crossroads and don't have a lot of assets

unless something unexpected comes up do feel like they kind of have to roll with middleton and holiday tho, which maybe puts an expiration date on the giannis bucks era unless hes willing to play out the end of his prime on mediocre to bad teams

the one bucks move that seemed really odd to me at the time was trading injured donte for nothing

he would’ve played major minutes for them in this series

yeah and he was their guy they couldve resigned him for cheap since he was injured instead they just dumped him

holiday could prob be moved for value but not as much value as they gave up for him so that seems like a tough ask for a GM. they’re prob in the bird rights trap w/ middleton. it’s a bit of a pickle

if they’re like “look middleton is the best fit here we’re just gonna hope he’s better” i’d understand it but it would kinda feel like a white flag. i can’t get over how bad he was on defense. w/ butler & jrue i feel like you just tip your cap to jimmy. but middleton felt actively bad, butler was treating him like a tall guy they pulled off the street. he offered no resistance on the wing or in the post, was singlehandedly responsible for like five and 1s across the last two games. it was a complete horror show for him on that end & that’s the part where i’m like, whoa this is alarming. bcuz his offense was generally good enough i think

yeah he looked awful out there on d which has not been the case in the past

[bud nodding while reading this]

Jimmy Butler’s shooting %’s against different Bucks defenders:

Jrue Holiday- 57%
Giannis Antetokounmpo- 86%
Khris Middleton- 50%
Brook Lopez- 63%
Wes Matthews- 50%
Bobby Portis- 86%
Jae Crowder- 67%
Grayson Allen- 57%
Ingles/Connaughton- 50%

Dude was giving EVERYONE buckets

— Brady Hawk (@BradyHawk305) April 27, 2023

the donte thing was just financial right? and then ironically they went deep into the tax anyway for this team which is older and has less upside w/its role players

Middleton hasn’t been 100% since the title, maybe getting an off season to heal up and do some conditioning would help

idk why they did it but im sure if they were ducking the tax or whatever they couldve figured something else out xp

lol that tweet jimmy was doing it

They’ve made a lot of baffling decisions. Offering an extension to Bledsoe when it was clear the guy sucked in the playoffs was pretty bad, especially since it prevented them from being able to sign Brogdon. Also weird they didn’t even make an offer to PJ Tucker who was clearly instrumental in their title run.

the donte thing was just financial right? and then ironically they went deep into the tax anyway for this team which is older and has less upside w/its role players

― call all destroyer, Thursday, April 27, 2023 2:27 PM (four minutes ago)

not googling this but if i remember correctly they had concerns about his health & didn't want to give him his next big deal. but i think they traded him when they still had him on a cheap option year. also that trade was initially connected to the aborted illegal trade for bogdanovic, so originally it was like, we're letting donte go but we're getting a better replacement at his position. but when that trade got nixed they still dumped donte anyway. in the bucks defense the kings also walked away from donte & he had to settle for a 1 year deal to rebuild his value. but the whole donte/bojan debacle is the root of the bucks fans' dislike of horst

prevented them from being able to sign Brogdon. Also weird they didn’t even make an offer to PJ Tucker who was clearly instrumental in their title run.

― frogbs, Thursday, April 27, 2023 2:33 PM (fifty-seven seconds ago)

they bet against brogdon's health but did trade him for a first. ppl still do have those concerns about brogdon but they were wrong about that in the end.

agreed on tucker especially bcuz he went to the heat the next year & had a career year. but then the heat turned around and shorted him too so it's not like the bucks were out of their minds

i think they get traffic jams in the first round and have no choice but to have some overlapping games but i can’t imagine the league loved having the no 1 overall seed be eliminated on nba tv at 12:30 am ET

― J0rdan S., Thursday, April 27, 2023 1:31 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

they probably dont expect game 5 of the 1 vs 8 series to be a big deal when they do the scheduling, and they'd be right 99% of the time