Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 111-79 loss to Dallas Mavericks

Old defensive wounds reopened

Coming into this game, the Dallas Mavericks had the 27th ranked offense in the league, and were struggling greatly. The Mavs were also coming off of a hard-fought game against the Timberwolves the night before. Even with all of that, the Bucks managed to have a 119 defensive rating on the night.

The main culprit that allowed Dallas to build a substantial lead was the three ball. The Mavs shot an even 50 percent from deep, connecting on 19 of their 38 attempts. A lot of these threes came from Rick Carlisle and the Mavericks exploiting Jason Kidd’s defensive rotations, which gave Dallas plenty of open shot opportunities.

If open threes were not bad enough, the Bucks were allowing shots at the rim that could have been prevented with full defensive engagement.

Milwaukee showed in the previous four games that their defensive scheme can work to some degree if full effort is being given, but that was not the case on Saturday. The lack of energy on closeouts and rotations was agonizing to watch, and it allowed the lowly Dallas Mavericks to embarrass the Bucks.