Weekly Rewatch: Bucks-Nets Game 2
Confusion in the Bucks defense, Kevin Durant God mode, and more.
Game 2 of the Bucks-Nets Eastern Conference Semi-finals did not go as I expected. There seemed to be a lot of low hanging fruit for the Bucks to grab and correct from game 1: not getting drawn into the isolation game on offense and maintaining their usual defensive discipline. Neither happened and the Nets lead ballooned to nearly 50 points at one point. Things were entirely academic by the fourth quarter, but here is some of what I noticed before that.
Quarter 1: Milwaukee’s offense in mud
I will get to the breakdowns in Milwaukee’s defense below, but there is a lot of merit to Seth Partnow’s argument that the Bucks did not lose because of their defense. One of the questions I had going into game 2 was how the Nets would guard Milwaukee’s on-ball screens, particularly those set for Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton. In the early going, Brooklyn’s guards chased the Bucks ball-handers over, with the roll man’s defender in a soft drop. Watch what Jrue Holiday as the ballhandler does in both instances below.
The Bucks need Holiday (and Middleton) to slow down a bit in those instances and straddle the line between looking for their shots and playmaking. They have erred too much towards the former thus far in the series and the Nets know what is coming. Kevin Durant has been able to close out from a drop position with ease and the predictability gives Kyrie Irving license to poke the ball away in the second clip.
Both Holiday and Middleton are shooting under 40% on pull-up 2s in the playoffs per NBA advanced stats; something needs to change.
This is just part of the broader malaise afflicting the Bucks offense, whereby they haven’t been able to put the Nets defense in rotation at all. The offense has bogged down in iso-ball seemingly intentionally, or because they have been unable to generate effective secondary actions when the isos go nowhere. When a Middleton mismatch on Kyrie Irving leads nowhere, Giannis Antetokounmpo cuts to receive the ball near the nail and the play ends with a Giannis fadeaway.
Giannis is shooting 35% on those short mid-rangers this season per Cleaning the Glass; that is not a good outcome. Credit the Nets defense there: Durant steps up early and Bruce Brown’s stunt is textbook. Still, why isn’t Giannis looking for Bryn Forbes lifting and open on the wing (46.3% on catch and shoot 3s this season)? Couldn’t Holiday or Middleton be cutting middle when their defenders’ heads are turned? Maybe some Holiday/Middleton flare action even?
The Bucks could just look at the other end of the floor to see what it looks like for an offense to put a defense in rotation. Kevin Durant leveraged the threat of his pull-up game to suck in help defenders, generating the sort of swing-swing passing that leads to open looks.
Brooklyn was helped in no small part by a Milwaukee defense in disarray. Too often, two Bucks defenders would tag the same player, or scramble out on rotations far too late. Khris Middleton should be zoning up between Kyrie Irving and Joe Harris above, instead of tag-teaming Nic Claxton with Bobby Portis.
Quarter 2: The Bucks D goes kaput
The play below is enticing in so far as it shows what the Bucks offense could be. Jrue Holiday and Giannis run an empty side pick and roll, with Giannis screening for Holiday. Crucially, Holiday probes and takes his time, giving Giannis time to roll and keeping Blake Griffin honest, opening up the lane for an easy layup.
Khris Middleton scored off another Giannis-as-screener play in the third, showing the patience in getting to the rim that the Bucks need.
Plays like those were sadly few and far between. And even though the Nets “only” scored 29 points in the second quarter, what stood out the complete breakdown of the Bucks defense. Help responsibilities were confused and as in game 1, this opened up cuts for Nets players.
Pat Connaughton is in decent help position early as the weak side low man, so why is Giannis helping off of Blake Griffin? I don’t know if it was repeated breakdowns like this one, but Coach Budenholzer went to a zone fairly early and…it did not end well. Some of that was due to the supernova shooting of Kevin Durant.
Nobody in the 2020-21 playoffs has had a higher percentage of their 3s contested than Durant. And nobody has made a higher percentage of their 3s.
Durant’s shooting aside, the Nets also deployed patented zone buster Bruce Brown to good effect. Whether on the short roll, or flashing middle to receive passes from the wing, Brown has given the Nets an effective outlet against zones all season long. He was helped in this game some by continued confusion from the Bucks defense.
Bobby Portis is late closing out on Brown there because he seems unsure of whether Jrue Holiday (the weak side low man in the zone) will actually cover any cutters from the corner.
Brown is shooting 48% on short mid-rangers this season per Cleaning the Glass, in the 80th percentile of guards. Affording him time and space there is trouble.
It’s hard to blame Portis for his uncertainty too much given the way the Bucks were botching rotations all game long. They get lucky here with an unforced error from the Nets, but both Middleton and Holiday seem entirely unsure of where they need to be.
Quarter 3: The Bryn Forbes taketh away and KD God Mode
A play early in the third quarter epitomized this game for me. This is a signature play that the Nets run when defenses drop their big men, especially out of ATOs. It forces multiple defenders to make quick decisions on if and how to switch.
With Brook Lopez in a drop, one has to wonder why PJ Tucker chooses not to switch onto Joe Harris and instead come to the level of Bruce Brown’s screen. Perhaps it is miscommunication (a reasonable assumption given how the Bucks defense had gone up to that point.) More realistic is that Tucker and the Bucks had been burned by Durant stepping into one too many pull-up jumpers. And therein lies the problem for the Bucks in this game and possibly the series: it may be possible to survive either botched defensive coverages, or hot shooting from the Nets, but not both. And Kevin Durant looked just like the player he was pre-Achilles rupture in this game. The sweet stroke aside, how is one supposed to guard this play?
Once Durant starts leveraging the threat of his pull-up to make plays for his teammates, there are very few good options left for a defense. If Brook Lopez plays up, Bruce Brown has an open runway to the basket with no weak side help. Should Jrue Holiday fail to dig in at the nail, Durant is likely nailing an open mid-range jumper. Maybe Giannis should be taking Kyrie Irving as soon as Durant puts Tucker behind him, but that opens up the cut for Blake Griffin. There really are no good answers and perhaps the best one is to give up the catch and shoot 3 to Kyrie…who has shot 43% on those looks this season.
Durant’s handle is arguably a little less tight than in seasons past; he is turning the ball over on a career-high 14+% of his possessions this season per Cleaning the Glass. Nevertheless, he is still capable of pantsing an entire defense.
PJ Tucker has looked incapable of slowing down Durant in the two games so far (no disrespect, is anybody up to that task?) Perhaps the answer for the Bucks is to juice their offense instead and play Bryn Forbes some more. Unfortunately, Forbes might give up more on the defensive end than he adds in scoring. The Bucks copped plenty of snark for putting Forbes in a drop in game 1. They tried having Forbes hedge and recover more often in game 2. Here is what it looked like when it worked (Kyrie Irving makes the contested long 2, but you live with that if you’re the Bucks):
Unfortunately that was more the exception than the norm. Shortly after that possession, he opted to take the scenic route recovering back onto Landry Shamet.
Nic Claxton’s screen there is almost apologetic for how unnecessary it seems. Shamet rendered Forbes unplayable with similar plays in the third quarter, exploiting Forbes’ aversion to following the Euclidean distance on recoveries.
Going into the series, a number of pundits cackled over the Bryn Forbes-Landry Shamet match-up as being the Spiderman pointing meme. Having watched a fair amount of the Nets, I find that more than a little disrespectful of Shamet. This doesn’t happen with him:
The Bucks may ultimately punt on the vagaries of shooting variance catching up with the Nets and plow forward with Forbes anyway. Perhaps it’s worth it to juice an offense that seems to have lost its way. Those defensive possessions would have me queasy though.
Miscellany
The much-maligned Nets defense has brought the heat in the two games of the series so far. They have been helped by Milwaukee’s offense, but credit the Nets for their active hands and clogging up interior lanes. They forced turnovers on 19% of Milwaukee’s possessions in game 2 per Cleaning the Glass (Charlotte had the best season-long mark at 16.7% per CTG). The Nets may be small, but in Nic Claxton and Kevin Durant, they have rangy interior defenders.
On the other side, as much as Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant have scored in any which way individually, the Nets have been cognizant of keeping the ball moving and putting the Bucks in scramble mode. Sprinkle in smart cuts and the Nets offense has produced some real moments of zen.
So much of what ailed the Bucks in game 2 seems eminently fixable. I was surprised to see the lack of execution in game 2, but Milwaukee is too good of a team for this to be the story of the series. I’m excited to see what game 3 brings.