Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 127-120 loss to LA Clippers
By William Wang
Sinking ship on defense
Although the Bucks had an answer for Giannis’ absence, they did not have a successful answer to stopping DeAndre Jordan and the Clippers. Jordan shot 8-of-11 from the field in the first half for 17 points, with every single bucket coming with futile resistance in the restricted area.
Jordan was an unstoppable force on rim-runs, alley-oops, and put-backs with none of the Bucks’ centers able to affect him. His success came due to a combination of poor point-of-attack defense by the Bucks’ guards and wings and a failure to deny him deep position in the paint by the Bucks’ centers.
In the second half, the Bucks responded with additional help, holding Jordan to just one made basket, but the damage had already been done. Furthermore, in putting an extra body on the Clippers’ center, often dropping Parker onto him, the Bucks opened up space behind the arc for the Clippers to launch from deep.
The Clippers hit 9-of-15 three-pointers in the second half, many of them on open looks. Bucks’ players neglected to make even the initial rotations onto shooters, let alone the follow-up secondary rotations.
Strong aggressive defensive play in the closing minutes was not enough to keep Milwaukee from recording an atrocious 122.4 defensive rating. They exhibited an all-around poor performance at all levels of defense outside of forcing 21 turnovers.