The Official Dwayne Wade <<<<<< you thread

When people say that they mean Depth wise, West goes about 10 deep of "good teams ".

Also the East has been absolutely trash most years so the standard isn't exactly a high bar to clear.

The top 3 East teams are clearly better than the top 3 West teams tho.

yea i know, i just wanted to point out the quality at the top of the West has dropped in recent years as it seems to be the case. It's all on Jazz now to make the West interesting this playoffs, if they can continue to shoot crazy from 3 like they have all season they stand a punchers shooters chance. Luka is great, but one would think his supporting cast isn't enough to make a West finals interesting vs LeBron and Lakers

apparently Jrue's +/- for the series so far is +88
ffs

the Randle playoff choking continues

El Gunner wrote:apparently Jrue's +/- for the series so far is +88
ffs

He's really good lol

The fact that Jrue/AD struggled the way they did is an indictment of New Orleans tbh

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Donte out for the playoffs, obviously it doesn't end their chances or anything but any rotational injury is gonna make their margin for error much smaller.

Would have been useful just to make Kyrie/Harden work and let Giannis rest on defence.

Donte doesn't change our offense at all but he's a more than capable defender, and he addresses a key issue in Bucks defense against the Nets - someone to put on Kyrie.

Now we're probably forced to go Jrue/Kyrie, Giannis/KD, and either Khris or PJ Tucker on Harden. The first two are fine, but obviously either Khris or PJ on Harden just isn't ideal. Harden can bully Khris, and he can blow by Tucker. Jrue is the ideal Harden defender, which he probably would have been with Donte on the court.

Other options are starting Connaughton and giving him Kyrie, but I don't like that. Too slow for Kyrie.

Donte is a capable role player and a starter and it's a big blow for us defensively, even if he's a minimal contributor offensively, unfortunately.

Dallas acquiring Porzingis on a 5-year max deal to waste away Luka's rookie contract (and then some) is such a shame.

CBarca wrote:

El Gunner wrote:apparently Jrue's +/- for the series so far is +88
ffs

He's really good lol

The fact that Jrue/AD struggled the way they did is an indictment of New Orleans tbh

The only two years both were healthy we ran into a Curry led dynasty lol.

I know people love to shit on us but can we stop ignoring all context and the fact we were perennially injured. Hell Jrue was out for like 18 months because of injuries and his wife having a brain tumor.

Also people love to forget this but AD quit on a team which had Jrue and Randle on it among others.

Also if you lose to the Nets, the Bucks will have only gotten past the 2nd round once in a weak conference in Giannis entire career.

What a disgrace of an organisation amiright

I love it when people talk about something they have no clue about with zero context.

so defensive
you make solid points though, i would say it's more an indictment on AD not being a number 1 guy more than anything else

Bucks have been one of the best teams in the league lol. Obviously we'd like to be more successful in the playoffs but our playoff trajectory is pretty typical, except for an atypical COVID year

Big difference being the overall #1 seed vs struggling to make the playoffs.

I'm not gonna argue you guys had injuries but there is no part of you that thinks any of that time was mismanaged or that NO could have done better with a 1-2 punch as good as Jrue/AD?

Swept lol

Miami were even up by 12 at one point. Losing by 19 with a min left

Tell me again how good Butler is, let's hear it.

Udonis Haslem is PISSED pic.twitter.com/IWatk4Pl4J

— NBA Central (@TheNBACentral) May 29, 2021

???

Art Morte wrote:Tell me again how good Butler is, let's hear it.

He scored less than Bryn Forbes during the series lol. I'm not sure Bryn played more than 15 mins in the first game too

Can’t wait to shit on the Nets once they’re swept too

Take the MIP back from Randle for the way he's shat the bed in playoffs lol.

Bucks-Heat: A Series Postmortem
A tale of two teams on completely divergent trajectories.

https://www.brewhoop.com/platform/amp/2021/5/30/22460229/bucks-heat-a-series-postmortem-milwaukee-miami-nba-playoffs

What exactly is culture worth? If the Milwaukee Bucks’ 4-0 series victory is any indication, not much.

The thing about any series against the Miami Heat is not that we’d be playing a team with awe-inspiring talent or a regular season track record of note. Instead, it would be about something larger than simply the players available for both sides. You see, in the course of the Bubble Debacle last year, these two teams had found their “narratives” solidified in league-wide perception.

Last postseason, Milwaukee went from sure-fire contender to laughingstock overnight, the target of ridicule and doubt from almost every corner. It wouldn’t matter if the Bucks went into the 2020-2021 season, whooped up on everyone yet again, and entered the playoffs with the East’s one seed for a third consecutive year. We would be seen as nonexistent as a post-season factor; good enough to be there, but dismissed as not mentally or strategically capable of going all the way.

Contrast that with the Miami Heat, a league darling since before their NBA Finals run in the Bubble. Somehow, someway, the Heat, a team that has been no better than a five seed in the past five seasons, accrued a reputation bordering on the mystical. For some reason, the collective consciousness decided that managing to win (at most) 44 games in five years was a sign that there was something special in Miami’s water. Pat Riley paid Dion Waiters $52 million and Tyler Johnson $50 million, thus earning our begrudging respect that He Still Had It. Their franchise legend left town to go to ring chase in Cleveland (via Chicago, of all places), a sign that loyalty doesn’t go quite as far in Miami. Then Jimmy Butler showed up screaming about how different he is than all the rest. The run to the Finals last year was the cherry on top that cemented the Heat as the team you just don’t want to face in the playoffs.

A week after the start of the post-season, and the Bucks have absolutely, catastrophically, definitively proven that the Heat myth was just that: a myth.

Oh, how can I count the ways?

Let’s start with Jimmy Butler, shall we? Undoubtedly a talented, All-NBA caliber player, the Bucks showed that he lacks the skillset to credibly be considered a superstar. Yes, he screams a lot. Yes, he talks a very big game. Yes, he’ll hurt you if you’re careless. Yet all Milwaukee needed to do was go under on his pick and rolls and watch him collapse from a modicum of pressure. There were the numerous passes thrown either completely out of bounds or so poorly as to result in the same thing: a giveaway. There were the decisions to try to drive, find Giannis standing in his way, and then mope back to the perimeter after wasting 10 seconds. There was the utter unwillingness to step up and take the responsibility for at least getting some shots up when Miami’s season was collapsing before their eyes. Instead, we got to watch Kendrick Nunn try to shoot the Heat back into things. Butler, just like every braggart, looks like a prophet when his talk is backed up by wins. Just like every braggart, when you publicize that you’re “stupidly locked in” and then get outplayed by the opponent’s bench guard, the whole rotten edifice of your persona collapses in on itself. It’s going to be a long offseason for that guy.

Then there’s Bam Adebayo. Nice guy, I’m sure, but one who is about to be paid roughly a billion dollars so that he can routinely decline doing anything helpful on an entire half of the floor. Nobody personified the indecision and confusion of the Miami Heat in the face of tense defense than Bam. So many Heat possessions were utterly wasted in his hands, Brook backed 30 feet off him daring Bam to take a shot, and Bam pivoting around desperately hoping a teammate would come and take the ball from his hands. Unfortunately for him, Milwaukee’s off-ball defense suffocated Miami and, for three and a half games, Adebayo was left to stand dumbfounded and incapable of summoning the courage to shoot an open look for 12 seconds at a go. Defensively, he’s a rare talent, yet like most humans he can’t adequately guard two players at once, so it was a long series of him watching Giannis and Brook alternate dunking. Miami’s next superstar, or something.

What about the rest of that squad of losers? Turns out there isn’t a lot of there there. The thing we learned about “Heat Culture” in this sweep is that “Heat Culture” is perfectly fine with doing away with any semblance of sportsmanship. “Heat Culture” is trying to cause a fight as your career slowly ebbs from your grasp so you can avoid taking your drubbing like an adult with a little bit of humility. “Heat Culture” is being so bitter that you were proven to be totally incapable of winning even a game that unnecessarily hard fouls and putting other players in dangerous position became acceptable. “Heat Culture” is being the worst kind of front-runner when things are going your way and the worst kind of sore loser when they don’t.

Milwaukee, on the other hand, proved themselves to be everything the doubters thought they weren’t. Calm under pressure, they methodically chipped away at any lead Miami held and ended each game with pomp and poise. Dangerous at any moment, they showed that they could unleash an avalanche of scoring from anywhere on the court that would leave you buried. Defensively sound, they regularly dialed up the intensity to smother the idea of an open look easily earned. Balanced in personnel, if one Milwaukee Buck struggled, another stepped forward, and then another, and then another, and then another; players new or old all leaving an indelible mark on each game. Well-coached, they adjusted quickly to a dangerous opposing gambit and kept their foot on the gas the entire series. You can’t go so far as to say that this team is a lock to make it past the Nets or the Sixers of the world, but this isn’t the same pushover of years past.

Whereas the Miami Heat had a “kick me” sign duct taped to their back, the Milwaukee Bucks put everyone on notice. You doubt them for a second this time around, you think yourself safe and sound, you sit confident that history will repeat itself, and they will come for your neck.

How’s that for culture?

That article went in hard - but fair - lmao x)

It's a good point about Adebayo that hasn't been talked about enough, generally speaking, not just on here. He's a max contract guy from next season on. That's a yikes from me.

dude you can go back just as recently as a few pages and you'll see me calling out Bam's contract (i even said it was a mistake when Miami gave him that contract at the time), as well as saying Butler - Bam is easily the worst star duo in the league. Think it was after game 2.

does AD have some kind of body degenerative disease?
anyway Phoenix needed that one to get back home court. They gotta come out with with big energy now to get game 5 and give themselves minimum two rolls at the dice.

Bam is still really young. He's got a lot of potential and has shown the ability to improve year over year. He's fucked us before when he's been aggressive and had his shot going, but these playoffs the Bucks basically begged him to shoot the midrange and he couldn't do it

It was nice, because there have been many games the last two years where we've begged him to do the same and he scores 25+ on mostly midranges.

He'll never be the scorer LMA is, but if he can get even a half decent midrange down (or any 3 pt ability at all?), he might be able to be a decent scorer with better defense than LMA and much better facilitating.

Dude is literally one large moving screen tho and it pisses me off how much he got away with it.

El Gunner wrote:does AD have some kind of body degenerative disease?
anyway Phoenix needed that one to get back home court. They gotta come out with with big energy now to get game 5 and give themselves minimum two rolls at the dice.

People calling the series over two quick. Suns got that big dick energy. Suns either win this or at least take it to game 7

El Gunner wrote:does AD have some kind of body degenerative disease?
anyway Phoenix needed that one to get back home court. They gotta come out with with big energy now to get game 5 and give themselves minimum two rolls at the dice.

Other than being a literal giant being too athletic for his own good?

Being tall is terrible for your body

I watched the first half before going to bed, the situation where AD got injured looked rather innocuous, though. Unlucky, I guess.

Bam's got age on his side, that is true. If he can improve his scoring, he'll be worth that max. We'll see.

El Gunner wrote:the Randle playoff choking continues

Im going to stick up for him a little.

He is being forced into shooting only jumpers. Everything he puts his head down to drive, they send another man to plug the lane behind the inital defender and the Knicks dont have enough shooting to make them pay.

They need to post him alot more, Thibs gotta get more creative with the offence.

Bam will be fine. He has come a long way already and showed dramatic improvements year on year.

When he came into the league he didnt show any of these passing skills and very little shot making skill. He has shown he can hit the jumper, he just needs to keep working and he will be fine.

Dont get the Bam or Butler talk at all, regardless of how bad a series they had. They are already stamped.

The problem is last year Dragic was ungaurdable in the bubble, Robinson and Hero was poor mans Klay and Steph and Crowder was the ultimate glue guy. This year, Dragic has looked his age, Robinson and more so Hero havent taken the step forward and Crowder has been replaced by old man Ariza who has finished 3 years ago.