Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways From Loss To Los Angeles Lakers

Let Them Shoot Threes

The Bucks allowed one of the worst four or five teams in the NBA to score 47 points in a quarter. As they did all night, three-pointers made up a significant portion of that point total for Los Angeles. The Lakers made four-of-five threes in the first quarter, and drained 15 of their 30 attempted threes on the evening.

I like Jon McGlocklin as much as anybody. He’s a fantastic presence on the broadcast, and his back-and-forth with Michael Redd was a ton of fun on Friday. His constant cries that there’s nothing the Bucks can do about Los Angeles’ three-point shooting were not fun.

Here’s a suggestion–maybe guarding the shooters would help! Sometimes the Lakers did make contested threes, yes. Often, though, they had a lot of space to get shots off in. The Bucks defense seemingly gives up on shooters who are more than barely beyond the arc, as though they’re too far away to shoot.

Turns out, they are not too far away. Deep, open threes are becoming more and more common in the NBA, and the Lakers took advantage of Milwaukee daring them to shoot them. The Bucks defense fails to fight through screens, when it even remembers to guard three-point shooters at all, and that can lead to blowouts like this one.