Dantoni made it too difficult. With the way the defender is behind James hes obviously letting james drive the entire game. You take Capela out and go small with House @ the 4. I realize Brook and Giannis will have a field day on the offensive glass, but there's no help from the center if hes guarding Tucker on the corner. In summary they are a nightmare match up for us though...Giannis at the 5 is as mobile as they come and they definitely can go small with us without brook and outboard us. But why the hell is Tucker all the way out on giannis on every play. I mean the bucks are driving harden to his right the entire game and yet we are guarding giannis from the 3 pt line as if he can shoot??? use the Draymond defense with him Dantoni!
The Bucks were giving Harden a straight path to the basket. He was taking it and putting in floaters with ease. Then he started driving to the basket and kicking it out to teammates for wide open looks. Unfortunately they kept missing. I think he should have just continued going to the hoop every time and downing those floaters until the Bucks had to make a change.
It wasn't a great defense if you consider the law of averages. It worked great that day, but we beat ourselves that day. If we played a 7 game series with that defense we'd end up on top simply by making open shots. It's also about the same defense San Antonio played against us a few years back (essentially the series that motivated Harden to work on that little floater).
Especially with Lopez going off on us from 3 the way he did. Anything to get him out of the game would be a benefit, and even better if it gave Harden some room to work underneath. As for the offensive glass, Harden rarely misses those floaters.
Even though no one could hit an open shot, I think MDA has been having the guys run a vanilla offense to throw teams off when it comes to playoff strategy as well as work House in while getting certain guys some rest. I'm not worried about the bucks
Part of the reason the 3s were missed is because of rythm and comfort. Players like Tucker, Gordon, etc. are working off just muscle memory. So if anything is off even a smidgen, it could impact it. Don't get me wrong, these guys have the ability to go cold. But when 3 high volume 3 point shooter guys are going 2-22, there's something to be said for just overall rhythm. If I think of easy solutions, I think of the main difference offensively, and that was that the Rockets ran very few PnR with Harden. Which wasn't horrible. As others have noted, Harden got to the basket at ease and hit open guys. But it all happened in a slightly different way. If I was going to think of one simple change, I'd say, who cares if they are shading Harden right. Still run a PnR with Capela. This means that Harden still needs to get to the middle of the floor (relatively easy), and Capela still needs to come out and set a pick on a defender that doesn't really need to be picked, but you do it anyway. Cause now Brook Lopez is forced to either pick up Harden and shade him like Bledsoe, etc. did... OR Harden blows by Lopez and now you are forcing the BUcks to switch more classically like defenses are forced to against us, where their big is trailing. Seems like at least try that.
The Bucks didn't even have that good of a defensive plan. They were prepared to let Harden have the lane and rely on him missing the layup or his teammates missing the open look. It's a very big gamble, and it won't work in the long run. I'm pretty certain our 3pt % went from 45% in the first half to 31% by the end of the game. If we shoot around the same 3pt % as the Bucks did, we win the game.
Bucks have a better coach. I think Morey will trade for a top tier power forward in summer to shut down Giannis and add a good shooter.
