I think it is over.
Game 1 is over.
Giannis played about as bad as he can possibly play. He's been able to cook us normally. Gonna be hard to get him to keep playing that bad. Maybe he got use to playing trash Detroit defense and needs to adjust.
Giannis did not play "about as bad as he can possibly play". He scored 4 less than he's been averaging this post-season run, which has mainly been games against a weak Detroit team where the points have come easy. He shot worse than usual, but he also hit 3x the amount of threes he normally would. His foul shooting has been bad all postseason.
He's coming up against an elite defensive coach who has had days to figure out what amounts to a plan to stop Giannis, and Al + Baynes executed it perfectly. Giannis shot 2-10 when defended by those two. He didn't play excellently, but I'm not sure you're giving Stevens and our players enough credit. I'm not sure what Giannis can do to get back into the 25-35 point range. Hit more threes??
Sure, he might hit a few more of those contested layups, but I don't think the difference between him being somewhat shut down vs him scoring 30 is what made us victorious by 22.
I think it's more the fact that he sets the tone for Milwaukee's offense by the way he scores but we took that away from him. We were definitely a big part of him playing probably his worst game in months, if not this whole year. He got 22 points, but 9 of them were on open 3s that were given to him to stop him scoring in the paint, and 5 from the stripe. The only 4 shots he made from inside the arc were:
- post up of Hayward on transition
- iso on Baynes
- dunk on Theis due to a miscommunication
- dunk when Brown tried to save the ball and threw it to him under the basket
Those 8 points in the paint are the lowest PITP he's had all season I believe. Same for the 4-16 shooting within the arc.
The way that the Celtics defended Giannis took away most of his transition opportunities, which are what Milwaukee has lived on this year. Transition opportunities not just for him but for others. Milwaukee scored 27 ppg in transition possessions (21%) during the regular season and 29 ppg (23%), both No.1 in the league. They made sure there were bodies in front of him at the top of the key every time.
And in the halfcourt Al was meeting him at the top of the key as well and constantly directing him towards where the help defense was going to come from. It forced Giannis to hang on to the ball too long, or try to make a contested play with 2 players contesting him (e.g. the shots that JT and Al blocked).
Because he was getting stifled he tried to play a bit too much hero ball instead of trying to find the open man, which might have been something LeBum would have done if guarded like this (his usage rate was 32%, everyone else on the Bucks starting unit had 14-18). Because of it Milwaukee was largely forced into a half court offense where the pace suited us.
Budenholzer will make adjustments for Game 2 which Brad and Co will have to predict and plan for. They may turn Antetokounmpo into more of a facilitator to pass out of those double teams earlier. In that case Brad will have succeeded in taking the ball out of his hands. Bucks may also decide to switch more, instead of have their big men drop in coverage in PnR which left Al wide open for pops at the 3 pt line at least 3 times tonight. We shot 54% tonight, if we don't shoot as well in Game 2 then the Bucks will have more transition opportunities instead of having to walk it up the floor each time, which might free up Giannis, if not for himself then to do transition kickouts to shooters. It's going to be like a chess match.
