Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways From Game 2 Loss To Toronto Raptors

Fixing the Rotations

There are some players on the Bucks that, while they are fine to play during the regular season, shouldn’t see minutes during these must-win games. Unfortunately, it’s still unclear if Jason Kidd has recognized this yet.

Kyle Lowry in the first quarter looked pretty quiet once again, with only four points. He wasn’t looking to aggressively get to the basket, and wasn’t taking many shots.

That changed when he saw Mirza Teletovic and Spencer Hawes in the second quarter. He took it straight at them, scored nine points — including five at the free throw line — and created a lot of offense with his aggressive drives.

Mirza has been cold for much of the season, and wasn’t an impact on offense at all on Tuesday. This makes it even harder to play him, because his defense is atrocious. He’s too slow and not athletic enough to keep up with most opponents.

Hawes also has a place on the team, but as a reserve big man. He shouldn’t be seeing minutes during the playoffs, as he can’t protect the rim at all. Additionally, the Bucks already had two big men who were very impactful this game, in Greg Monroe and Thon Maker. Playing Hawes removes them from the court.

Kidd might not have anyone else to play the backup forward minutes, but he didn’t even try to play the three guard sets that we saw on Saturday. Teletovic didn’t deserve 13 minutes last night, especially after how poorly he played in the second quarter.

If on Thursday, the Bucks replace Hawes with Maker, and play Teletovic less, they’ll probably find more success. No disrespect to those players, but you have to shorten rotations in the playoffs, and that’s gotta start somewhere.