ITS THE OFFS BABY THE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS

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

i forgot that the bucks made an illegal trade. seems like making an illegal trade might be a sign of a bad gm (well, two bad gms)

picking bledsoe over brogdon is very bad judgement

i think that was a diff GM (the orlando guys?) in fairness

So if you're keeping score, in summer of 2019, Durant joined Nets, Kawhi joined Clippers, Jimmy joined Heat... Since then, Miami has won 6 playoff series; Kawhi (unfortunately, hurt a lot) and Paul George have won 3; Durant won 1 before forcing way out.

— Barry Jackson (@flasportsbuzz) April 27, 2023

oh damn yeah totally forgot about the bogdan thing

picking bledsoe over brogdon is very bad judgement

― lag∞n, Thursday, April 27, 2023 1:51 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this one felt pretty obvious at the time, too

brogdon is such a solid guy and bledsoe as we all know is a coward

i’ll stop posting crazy stat tweets soon but

The Miami Heat performed better this series when Giannis was on the floor than when he was on the bench.

Bam made more jump shots in the fourth quarter and OT than the entire Bucks' team.

That and more from @tomhaberstroh, with his top 13 (!) stats from Heat/Bucks. pic.twitter.com/o9MHook6i6

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

something else about the bucks that i keep forgetting is the principal owner sold his stake to.... the family that owns the cleveland browns! what could possibly go wrong

spo coached the perfect series (for the heat...)

lotsa scoring going on in this game.

celtics having rim protection issues ig

Box score says the Celtics have some assists - watching the 2nd quarter not sure I saw much passing just a lot of one on one drives.

theyve been playing this way the entire series and tbf theyve been scoring cause atl is so weak on d but its not the best way to play

and they had great ball movement all year

for the most part

and now john collins is bombing 3s cmon

if celtics lose this i will post bald trae young

celtics have to win so we dont turn into knicks fans