Time to put this season firmly in the rearview
The Bucks season ended meekly last night in Indianapolis with a 120-98 Game 6 loss to the Indiana Pacers, who will move on to face the New York Knicks in the second round. Damian Lillard returned for the Bucks and led all scorers with 28, but they remained without superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, who missed an entire series a year after missing two of five games. Obi Toppin and T.J. McConnell led the Pacers off their bench with 21 and 20, respectively.
Game Summary
My colleague Jackson did a pretty good job of summarizing the game in his rapid, so instead of doing the usual quarter-by-quarter synopsis, I’ll just share some overarching themes I noticed in each one.
In the first, the Bucks came out looking solid behind early Brook Lopez shotmaking, but it didn’t take long before the Pacers took a lead they wouldn’t surrender. Miscommunications on defense led to some wide-open Indiana looks while Milwaukee started going cold. Down nine entering the second, the defense improved a little but the iciness from the field persisted. The Bucks got it to three early in the quarter but then let it get away from them a bit, with the Pacers able to answer every time the Bucks threatened to make it closer than seven by pushing it back out into double-digits. Most frustratingly, every Buck miss inside turned into a Pacers make on the other end since the Pacers threw the ball upcourt after every miss, knowing they had numbers with at least one Buck still by the other rim. That made for a lot of four- and five-point swings that killed any chance of Milwaukee momentum.
Indiana kept up that pattern in the third, until closing the quarter on an 8-0 run that spelled doom for the Bucks and opened it to fifteen. T.J. McConnell remembered he was playing the Bucks and extended that run and advantage at the start of the final frame, with an early dagger three that made it an eighteen-point game. There was really no coming back from this early fourth-quarter run the Pacers—who built the advantage out to 24 at one point—embarked on, and whatever shooting the Bucks had found after the half was gone by the fourth. In all these ways, this resembled what happened in Game 4.
The battered Bucks now head into the offseason needing their three stars to recover from lower body injuries that hampered two of them so significantly that they missed games.
What Did We Learn?
I’m a big believer in Occam’s Razor, especially when it comes to how I think about basketball. The explanation for how this game and series went is simple, and there’s really nowhere else to start: the Bucks got zero minutes from Giannis, who averaged 42.2 and thirteen versus the Pacers this year, in this series. So many of Milwaukee’s problems in this game and their other losses would have been solved by his presence: defensive rebounding, scoring around the rim, putting enough points on the board, the list goes on. People will dissect other elements of why the Bucks lost and/or why this team came up short, but any discourse that doesn’t first acknowledge that they were without one of the best players on earth for the entirety of the series is missing the overarching point.
Three Byes?
I’m going to highlight three guys here who might have played their last games for the franchise yesterday evening. They are all under contract until next season, but their salaries (and in two cases, positive value) make them prime trade candidates and thus good ways to improve the roster for next season. I won’t be talking about Jae Crowder because he was the only active Buck who didn’t play last night, he’s a free agent, and he is cooked. I’ll touch on Malik Beasley and Patrick Beverley later.
Brook Lopez had a pretty good series.
He missed both his three-point attempts last night, but was 7/10 inside the arc and did a fine job of getting Milwaukee baskets when it really needed them. He missed three free throws but getting to the line nine times represented a season-high for him. With 20 points on the night, he finished the series at 17.7 PPG on .587/.435/.533 shooting. Defensively, he largely held firm when not pulled away from the basket by Myles Turner. Had Giannis been around, a lot of those Indy drivers who got to the rim with such ease all series would have been thwarted. Though some will complain, I don’t see his cons coming close to outweighing his pros in the context of the series.
Bobby Portis’ resurgent Game 5 didn’t carry over enough.
While his numbers look good (8/17 from the field, 20 points, fifteen boards, six of the offensive variety), he was in the danger zone a couple times with the refs. He picked up a technical in a brief scrum near midcourt after a timeout early in the third. Immediately after he what felt very much like a frustration foul on offense, then next time up the floor missed two putback attempts before finally making the third on a tip (touch around the rim was a major issue for him this series). A few minutes later came the riskiest thing he did by jawing with the fans after an and-1:
Bobby Portis Jr. is having fun with the fan’s pic.twitter.com/w7IPOXAq0n
— FastBreakPhenom (@FastBreakPhenom) May 3, 2024
I know he was embracing being the villain, but it felt like we were perilously close to another ejection the Bucks couldn’t afford. Portis was subbed out at the next dead ball and thankfully there were no more extracurriculars.
Pat Connaughton was again largely absent.
He had a couple ok games this series and a great Game 5, but in sixteen minutes gave the Bucks very little outside of one made three and five rebounds. Between him and Beasley combining for 2/10 from the floor, that’s sixteen and 23 minutes going to guys who weren’t providing much of anything on either end. Connaughton had a very nice series against Miami last spring (12 PPG, 47.8% from deep) that was lost to time, and I had some hope after Game 5 that Playoff Pat might be back. Alas, this wasn’t a good series for him and when put together with his regular season, it doesn’t look like he can be relied on for quality minutes anymore.
Bonus Bucks Bits
- Patrick Beverley had a bad game (3/11 shooting for 6 points) but it was what he did off the court which was far more egregious. First there was this:
altercation between pat bev and pacers fans behind the bench pic.twitter.com/dfQpqSBv33
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) May 3, 2024
Then this:
Patrick Beverly tells female reporter from ESPN that she cannot interview him since she doesn’t subscribe to his podcast. pic.twitter.com/sRFHiZJaSK
— Alex Golden (@AlexGoldenNBA) May 3, 2024
I don’t know what those fans said to him, but no matter how bad it was, you absolutely cannot throw a ball at fans. No excuse for this, and he will rightfully face a suspension next season for it. What he did in the locker room to an ESPN producer who is just doing their job is almost worse. I always assumed this self-promotion was just a bit, but he’s actually being serious. This is absolute clown behavior more befitting of a clout-chasing influencer than an NBA player who doesn’t need the subscribers. Beverley needs to apologize to several people if he wants to maintain respect around the league (update: he did apologize to the producer, which is good, it just shouldn’t have taken being called out by hundreds of people on line to do it).
- Dame finished with 28 points on 7/16 shooting (though just 4/12 from three), a very efficient night thanks to a perfect 10/10 at the charity stripe. Still, he appeared to not be at full strength after missing Games 4 and 5 with his nagging Achilles tendinitis, not driving the ball much (just one shot in the restricted area), and relegating him to a shooter. He was a game-time decision but felt well enough to go, and while he certainly played well, he did it on one healthy leg.
- Khris Middleton went just 6/15 from the field for fourteen points in 38 minutes, but don’t get it twisted: he’s the reason this was a series. Just a legendary performance from a guy who faced criticism from a section of the fanbase all year long who thought he was cooked. Those people have been roundly proven wrong.
- A.J. Green got a few minutes at the end of the first, but then didn’t appear until garbage time. That’s also the only time we saw Andre Jackson Jr. My only real criticism of Doc Rivers this game was sticking with Connaughton and Beasley so deep into the game when Ajax could have really helped. Thanasis and Chris Livingston played too.
- As mentioned, Jae Crowder did not. He hasn’t played since Game 4 as Doc rightfully identified he doesn’t have a future on this team given how much his defense and shooting has decayed.
- Bench scoring was a crazy 29-1 in favor of the Pacers at one point. No, that’s not a typo. The final margin was 50-10, and four of the Bucks’ points came in garbage time.
- Again, Indiana didn’t shoot very well from three at 13/40. Outside of Game 4, the Bucks weren’t too badly scorched from downtown despite leaving plenty of guys open. The problem was that the Bucks were a mere 7/27. That figure in terms of both percentage and attempts will hardly win you any games in the modern NBA.
- Surprisingly, the Bucks had an edge in second-chance points and offensive rebounds 15-7, but those advantages were far outweighed by the Pacers’ predictable success on the break. They outscored Milwaukee 21-6 in transition and amassed 22 points off Milwaukee’s twelve turnovers.
- Tyrese Haliburton is a demonstrative player, to say the least. Frontrunner? Some are talking. Personally, I like him as a player but I think he deserves this warning: for averaging just 16 PPG on .435/.296/.857 shooting this series, you’re crowing a lot. Opponents will notice this postseason and next year, including the ones in Milwaukee.
- Last, let’s leave on a positive note with Dame’s thoughts on the year. Pardon the added emphasis for the naysayers, but this sounds like a guy who DEFINITELY WANTS TO BE HERE:
Dame reflects on the season and shares his excitement for Year 2 in Milwaukee. pic.twitter.com/wxtwOcPYkM
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) May 3, 2024
Thank you for following along with us in what was a turbulent season. The Bucks will likely have a busy offseason of player movement ahead between a first-round pick next month and free agency soon after. We’ll be with it every step of the way.
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