See when they play like this, they can beat anyone. Now it's easy to play like this when you're making shots, and they shot 40% from 3 tonight. When people are making shots the ball moves around more, people are more energized, and they give more effort defensively to cover for each other. The issue is when we miss shots, then it all cascades from there, where the ball stops moving as much and players stop moving as much, it becomes more iso ball because they want to make sure they get a bucket, and when they start missing they are slow to get back in transition and get killed, then it becomes a vicious cycle.
The talent is clearly there to be competitive, even if we don't shoot as well as we did tonight on other nights. But they really have to make sure they stick to their gameplan and trust each other even when they are missing shots, and not let it affect their defense. In the first half they were hanging in there even though they were shooting terribly they didn't let it affect their defense, and in the 2nd half they got better and gave themselves a chance to win. As a said in the first half:
First quarter, bucks shoot 57% from the field 43% from 3pt. C’s were 39% from the field and 27% from 3pt. This sounds familiar... 
And we've already dug an 11 point hole for ourselves 
This could get out of control quickly. They CANNOT let their offense affect their defense again. If they keep defending we will always have a chance if our shooting improves in the 2nd half
They won't always consistently shoot the ball well but they can always have consistent effort and application of their defensive scheme whether they are making or missing shots. They CANNOT let poor offense affect their defense, and they didn't tonight so the Bucks never built a huge lead. So when they started hitting shots in the 2nd half they came away with a solid win.
Topic: Bucks (18-10) at Celtics (13-14) Game #28 12/13/21 (Read 38146 times)