Damian Lillard STRUGGLING, how Bucks & Giannis fix issues | Hoops Tonight

Damian Lillard STRUGGLING, how Bucks & Giannis fix issues | Hoops Tonight

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So you guys don’t miss any of our content over the course of this season all right let’s talk some basketball all right bucks rockets and then we’re out of here for the day so the big thing that stood out to me early on in this game was the

Difference and ball pressure between the two teams so we’ve I’m not going to talk about uh Milwaukee’s perimeter defense uh defense in this particular video just because we’ve done that like three times in the last two weeks and I don’t want to beat a dead horse but I wanted to

Show you guys the jux the position of this and I clipped a bunch of clips that demonstrate this you can find them in my Twitter feed _ jlt I did it I think on Saturday or Sunday morning I think I did it on Sunday morning

Um but early on in the game Houston was PL applying aggressive and physical ball pressure on Damen Lillard a lot of Jan Tate and Fred Van vet uh being like physical with him physical switches to or like when he’s going into his screen like Jon Tate’s like grabbing Dame and

Almost like physically like throwing him to Fred Van who like grabs and catches him they’re just being handsy with him there was a play where Jabari Smith got switched onto him and he’s swiping at the basketball and like pushing out at him on 35 like 30 feet from the basket

And again I want to continue to draw a line between shot result and process rather than shot result in luck and and this is a consistent theme that you we’ve talked about on this show and I don’t want to harp it for for too long cuz we did it earlier today in the

Lakers video but I’m a big believer that that’s a big part of what leads a guy like Damon to having a bad shooting night I wanted to shout out Alber shenon he didn’t have a great shooting night against the bucks he was seven for 21 from the field but he still had 21

Points and 11 rebounds he had just super aggressive and confident in the post like Brook Lopez has given him issues finishing around the rim which is why shooting percentage was down but he was going right at him he’s going right at Giannis in the post and giving him

Buckets I want to shout out shenon in the big picture cuz in his last eight games 27 points eight rebounds and five assists on 55% from the field he’s the best player on that team uh one of the better offensive engine bigs that we have in the league

Right now which is becoming a very valuable thing with the way the NBA defenses are run like so many NBA defenses are geared around the ball handler and chasing in the screen Defender being in a position to deal with the ball handler that having that guy be an offensive threat is just such

A huge value and you’re seeing Shen goon be in the next in in a long line of guys who have thrived in that way Jabari Smith Jr I thought he was incredible on defense in this game he had a bunch uh of good possessions on Dame he was

Doubling Giannis and rotating out of it he was cleaning up the defensive glass there’s this possession where he’s guarding Bobby poris at the top of the key and he digs down and hard doubles Giannis Giannis makes the kickout pass Jabari is such a great athlete he actually gets back out

From a hard double to Giannis and chases Bobby poris off the line forces him into a pull-up 15-footer at the foul line misses Jabari Smith comes flying back in from out by the three-point line grabs the defensive rebound dribbles down the floor and hits a pullup three in

Giannis’s face this was a guy who couldn’t dribble when he came out uh uh of the draft and he is just continually massively improving on a month by by month basis I’m super super excited about how good Jabari Smith Jr can be and what a good partner to to

Have alongside and shenon in that uh in that front Court the rockets by the way are now eighth in the standings and they are fifth in defensive rating for the entire season the Bucks they’ve lost four out of seven 25th in defense over that span giving up 120 points per 100

Uh possessions couple of major issues we’ve talked about the uh point of attack defense so I don’t want to do it again here but that defense is being um causing problems I want to turn the attention to the offense today with Milwaukee just because we’ve talked so much about about Milwaukee’s defense

Already this game thing is starting to get weird we had this three- game stretch in mid December where he was hot right because we had the first 22 games of the Season he was pretty mediocre 22 games 25 points per game 42% from the field

35% from three not bad get Dan gets to the foul line a lot too which bumps up his true shooting percentage and efficiency which is I mean is which I mean is a compliment like get it I I may hate the way the game is officiated but

That doesn’t mean it’s not good for basketball team like a guy that can get to the foul line a lot Dame gets to the foul line a lot so it actually increases his impact there in a lot of ways um but after that 22 games I remember I was

Telling you guys like eventually Dame’s going to get his rhythm and this is going to look better well he went three games in a row where he averaged um 37 points per game 57% from the field and 53% from three 96% from the line and it’s like okay Dame is back right well

Nine games since then 22 points per game 39% from the field and 28% from three so outside of that three- game stretch he just hasn’t been very good uh by his standards and that’s we’re now 34 games of Dame into the season and the weird

Thing is I don’t think it’s his legs I think it’s Rhythm he had the other day had a nasty left-handed dunk driving down the lane like Dame looks like his legs are there I I think he just looks a little hesitant to be aggressive uh with

The way that that lineup is put together like the Bucks are weird in the sense that like I think specifically Brook Lopez and Chris Middleton have a little bit of an outsized opinion of how how big their role should be like yanis is playing at an MVP level you need him

Doing all his wrecking ball Giannis stuff but like Dame is the guy you got to get going and like I’d like to see Chris and Brook play more like in the flow of the offense and less initiating possessions like there there was a possession there uh in the Rockets game

Where it was like middle of the shot clock and Brooke is like taking a spinning one leg fade away like 15 ft from the basket I’m like what are we even doing here and like Brook’s a great basketball player and I’m not trying to undercut him but like it made more sense

For Brooke and and Chris and Drew to be aggressive when you didn’t have a Dame you have a Dame now you you traded for Dame don’t trade for Dame and then don’t let Dame do what Dame does to give you an idea he uh hasn’t taken Dame has not

Taken 20 shots in a game since Christmas he’s done it only eight times in 34 games this year he did it 35 times in 58 games last year so just in general how often the ball is in his hands as an opportunity to uh uh initiate

Possessions is at a is at a much lower level this year and I do think that he’s struggling to adjust to that and and one of those things too like um if we can get to the point where where Dame is basically running like a heliocentric your turn my turn thing

With Giannis I think it’s going to end up leading to more more opportunities for Brooke and for Chris Middleton anyway and that we have data with Brooke in particular that shows that he’s just better when he takes shots in the flow Brook Lopez unguarded catch and shoot

Jump shots 38% 1.1 points per possession that’s great any other type of off the dribble or guarded jump shot 35 for 118 that’s below 30% and he’s also taking almost three and a half contested or pullup jump shots per game so like what if instead of that Brooke never took a contested

Shot except for at the end of a shot clock situation and you just gave Dame the opportunity to take two more pull-up threes and pick and roll like that could be the thing that helps get him into Rhythm especially early in games and because the gist of the

Problem is this you made a trade that sapped you of your best and most versatile perimeter Defender and brought back a superstar offensive player but that offensive player hasn’t played nearly as well as he’s capable of so now you’re bad at defense and you’re good at offense but not good enough to

Make up for it right like over this last seven game stretch where they’re three and four they’re seventh in offense and scoring 120 points per 100 possessions really good but not good enough if you’re going to be that bad on defense and that’s the thing cuz like I don’t

Think the Bucks are going to be able to make a significant upgrade in their point of attack defense I think they’ll be able to make a upgrade I think they’ll be able to make some sort of minor upgrade that sends Malik Beasley to the bench and puts a better perimeter Defender at the

Two but there it’s only going to be a mediocre upgrade so I think it’s vitally important that this team reaches their offensive ceiling and the only way they’re going to do that is if they get Dame back to where he closer to where he was last year with the level Giannis is

Playing at this year if you can combine that with Dame from last year you could you could do some really special things in this playoff run but they’ve got to figure out that Balance

Jason Timpf reacts to the continued defensive struggles from Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard, and the Milwaukee Bucks. It is evident that they have missed Jrue Holiday on the defensive end of the floor all year, and if they don’t figure out their defense, Milwaukee will have no shot at winning an NBA championship.

Timeline:
00:00 – Bucks-Rockets Reaction
03:39 – Lillard’s issue in Bucks offense

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