What changed the season was when they stopped switching Capela so much (and harden getting hot which I think is correlated because it gives him hope they can win so he goes harder). They have now gone back to the Capela switch smh
Here is exactly what I would have done . 1) nene would not have gotten killed on the boards . 2) our main problems were... a) turnovers b) missed opportunities around the basket Both leading to MIL transition opportunities. MIL changed their defense a bit in the second half , sticking to shooters more and dropping the big making harden have to take a floater or pass it off to Clint and Clint has to make a move for a bucket (no oops) Nene fixes that problem because he can catch the ball from 5-10 feet away and make a good play. Clint can too sometimes , but he didn't have it tonight . Furthermore you can post up Nene and give harden a break , or nene can run pick and pop . MIL adapted to make some of the options our linear attack gives us less effective . Nene gives us versatility. I'm no Jeff bzdelik but I can't think of any reason MIL would have burned Nene so badly on defense that the previous statements I made wouldn't at least be neutral . 3) Ennis is a problem . He's hard to manage correctly too , I empathize with MDA here . I thought he played well in the first half ; but Ennis is super undisciplined and when we were just getting destroyed in the 3rd he was one of the main culprits . Gotta have a shorter leash with him . He wasn't on the defensive rope and that killed us too . 4) let's come to Clark and knight . Clark had a perfectly solid first half playing your .... I guess, backup C minutes ... that's ok if you wanna play small I can respect it (even if I disagree ) ..... but then he doesn't play at all in the second half . Knight similarly plays fine and then gets less minutes in the second half . If memory serves me correctly , with about half the 3rd Q done we were up like 70-63 . That's after weathering a bucks run to start the half . I felt like we had stabilized at that point . But instead of putting Clark in and knight in around the 7-8 minute mark , he alters the rotation .... not putting knight in until the 10 minute mark and not playing Clark at all . During this stretch we get ****ed up . Like a 22-2 run . Our guys are gassed , turning it over, getting beat down the court , not playing on a string in the halfcourt (Ennis ) , and generally just missing shots on offense . As a result of this run and not playing knight and Clark the same amount of minutes (as in the first half ) . Harden has to play the entire fourth . And every one of House , PJ , green , Clint , and rivers has to try to pick up juuuust a bit more slack on the minutes front. In particular Clint . Clint who is not having a good night . You went away from something that was effective and taxed your players more in a game where you now have to dig yourself out of a hole .... it's not a good recipe . In the end our guys made a run but it was too late and they ran out of gas . In my opinion we had stabilized and could have played knight and Clark the same way we did in the first . Even if they only played neutral (not net negative or positive ) you are still in a better situation because you are saving guys some juice . That's just rotation wise . I don't even think he called a timeout when MIL was slaughtering us . It's one thing for MIL to change their defense and for players not to be prepared ... that's ok . The coach has to call TO and instruct guys what to do in the new situation . In my opinion MDA just coached really really poorly tonight . I think those mistakes are obvious
Yes but also this game Brogdon was getting layups since Lopez is stationed at the 3pt line. Lopez is probably the biggest difference maker for that team compared to last year. That and their coaches are actually competent.
Pretty obvious we were just outcoached tonight, including “defensive guru” jeff b. Anyone that watched the game and doesn’t agree is just in denial and doesn’t ever wanna criticize the team
They only wanna criticize Morey for not having a roster full of superstars . Every team has mediocre players ... and guess what ? Sometimes you have to play them . MDA doesn't believe this and it's his biggest blind spot
I already said Clint was the problem But harden could have bailed us out and he didn’t that’s why we lost. Of course the real reason we lost is because we played a bad basketball game I don’t know how we didn’t lose by 20 that shows hardens greatness. But he wasn’t perfect either he scored and shot well but his D was pretty bad tonight and it’s been good for a while but I don’t care so much about that I just think he forced stuff that he didn’t need to do he could have played slower at some points in the half court and got guys easier looks a lot of his TOs imo were a result of him playing to fast and didn’t know if he wanted to shoot the layup over the bigger man or pass and it resulted in some costly TOs. That strategy was interesting but I don’t think it will really work on him he still scored 42 and shot over 50% until the end when we was shooting crazy threes to get us tied up. But we needed more than 6 assist tonight we needed 10. Forcing harden right doesn’t work the Espn guys have it to much props because we’ve never seen a team commit that hard to something all game like that. He got to the rim at will but Clint didn’t convert. If harden is still playing like this when cp3 comes back we’re winning the chip because it cp3 is the guy that catches the ball with all the attention harden is getting we’re going to get the easiest shots in the league.
I already said Clint was the problem But harden could have bailed us out and he didn’t that’s why we lost. Of course the real reason we lost is because we played a bad basketball game I don’t know how we didn’t lose by 20 that shows hardens greatness. But he wasn’t perfect either he scored and shot well but his D was pretty bad tonight and it’s been good for a while but I don’t care so much about that I just think he forced stuff that he didn’t need to do he could have played slower at some points in the half court and got guys easier looks a lot of his TOs imo were a result of him playing to fast and didn’t know if he wanted to shoot the layup over the bigger man or pass and it resulted in some costly TOs. That strategy was interesting but I don’t think it will really work on him he still scored 42 and shot over 50% until the end when we was shooting crazy threes to get us tied up. But we needed more than 6 assist tonight we needed 10. Forcing harden right doesn’t work the Espn guys have it to much props because we’ve never seen a team commit that hard to something all game like that. He got to the rim at will but Clint didn’t convert. If harden is still playing like this when cp3 comes back we’re winning the chip because it cp3 is the guy that catches the ball with all the attention harden is getting we’re going to get the easiest shots in the league.
Harden's MVP campaign should've improved from this game after what he did to an elite defensive team but it probably won't.
@heypartner any reason why we didn't try some high pick&roll with Lopez? You think we just didn't have the chance?
Harden and Capela were +2 together. Harden was net zero without Capela. Capela was -9 without Harden.
Man, if we just had Hassan Whiteside. And being -9 without Harden also means without CP3 and without EGO. Yes? So, -9 with backup backups and a new PG (Rivers) and the detritus of Knight.
Hate to say it but this is where Ryno would have paid dividends. He’s valuable in the regular season for precisely this reason... that’s a very good question...
So Nene has no injury and MDA just benched him? Smh. MDA still wanted play small lineup against Bucks?? What a genius MDA is. Sign.
1.Yes he would have, unless you think he's a better or even close to as good a rebounder as Clint, he is not and Bucks are top two in rebounding percentage. 2.Turnovers were a problem but Harden was making sloppy passes and Clint couldnt finish either. I really dont think Nene wins us this game, I honestly do not. James has a better connection with Clint than Nene. Honestly, Im really wondering how much Nene would have contributed. If you are relying on his postups or mid range to turn things around for us then we already lost. I love Nene and he may helped, but he doesnt win us this game. 3. Ennis....yea needs work. 4. That had more to do with Harden sitting out than it did with anything else. What has Brandon Knight showed you that he could properly hold it down while James/Austin are out...what? He makes a 3 here and there? Gary, yea Gary needs to play more. But I dont know why you think just because of he made one 3 pointer, he was suddenly gonna keep us aloat in the second half, did you see that wide open look he got, he got it for a reason. Im want him to play more but when he has gotten time, he has put up some stinkers like reaaaally bad games. I want Gary to play but again I think you are really over exaggerating how much impact he would have made. We got messed up cause James went out and the guys coulndt hold it together at least I attribute it mostly to that. That run completely blew open after he sat. What do you mean, you mean offensively? We got open looks, Harden was doing just fine? Like forcing him right was there whole game plan, it worked okay, but honestly we had not trouble scoring on them. The main problem was the defense and know is one is calling out Bzdelick(which is fine I know he knows what hes doing). Yea, the time out thing needs work. I think he's just a big confidence guy that likes to show faith in his players, but he really needs to call better timeouts.
The Bucks are 29-11. They have the best differential in the league...by a lot. I know fans hate to ever give credit to another team, particularly one that has been trash for a while, but that is a really good ballclub. With Gordon and Paul out they are better than us. They had a good game plan for Harden, and everything Capella put up was very well contested.
Does no good if Lopez doesn’t come out high. They played a crazy, severe ICE drop. Didn’t look like Lopez was going to come out. In that coverage, Capela goes to the short corner sometimes for Harden ISO, pinning Lopez at rim, or will back pick Harden’s man for a snake dribble attack. Defense counters with help in the lane, resulting in 48 threes. Capela seemed to get flustered with all the blocks, and Bucks length got some great TOs to power their transition. Anyhoot, a severe drop defense is not something we haven’t seen before; the severe force right inviting the drive was cute, like a Venus Fly Trap. And I’m convinced one of the reasons Harden has worked so hard on improving step-back three is to have an extra option against a defense like this.
