Once again, the Milwaukee Bucks have fallen down into a 1-0 hole to start off their NBA Finals series with the Phoenix Suns.
Milwaukee’s 118-105 loss to the Suns in Game 1 was a tough opening salve to take in Tuesday night, especially as they were chasing the game for the majority of the night.
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With plenty of things to ruminate and film to pore over, the Bucks have a number of key areas to improve and fix going into Game 2 as we’ll get into shortly.
So without further ado, let’s break down the areas that the Milwaukee Bucks can improve coming out of their Game 1 loss and with less than 32 hours away from their Game 2 against the Phoenix Suns.
Milwaukee Bucks guard Jrue Holiday has to ramp up aggression after Game 1 loss
It was far from a banner night for Bucks guard Jrue Holiday in playing his first NBA Finals game. Holiday finished with 10 points on 14 shots (0-for-4 from three), along with nine assists and seven boards and three turnovers in nearly 40 minutes of run.
Despite the return of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Holiday saw a similar amount of touches as he did towards the end of the Bucks’ Conference Finals series with the Atlanta Hawks. Per NBA.com/stats, Holiday had 78 touches in Game 1, second to only Khris Middleton on the night.
However, Holiday didn’t show any of the paint attacking or penetration we had come to expect from him at the end of the Hawks series. While having drove 11 times over Game 1, Holiday passed on 45.5 percent of his drives and was just 1-for-2 within the restricted area for the night.
When the Bucks are at their best, it’s not only because of Holiday playing up to his standard of play, but setting the tone and driving down the lane repeatedly to fuel the Bucks’ paint attack (Milwaukee finished with 42 points in the paint, by the way).
While the Bucks have to find their groove again with having their three best players on the floor and taking up most of ball handling responsibilities, Holiday would be best served by forcing the issue and driving the Bucks’ offense in the only way he knows how.
Milwaukee Bucks have to trust Brook Lopez more after Game 1 loss
Brook Lopez may not have been on the floor all that much for Game 1, but he certainly was present for when the Bucks were their lowest, especially during the third quarter.
The Bucks’ strategy of switching everything defensively for the largely switching everything when Lopez was on the floor left Lopez on an island guarding against the Sun’s premier shot creators and maestros, Devin Booker and Chris Paul. Milwaukee has become more comfortable in those spots this year and their playoff run, yet there was a skittishness that surfaced in seeing this repeatedly happen.
So much so that it led to this defensive possession where Lopez switches out on Booker and an overhelping Jrue Holiday comes to crowd the paint as Booker starts getting a head of steam. Holiday’s questionable decision to help left the Bucks burned by Paul hitting one of his four triples on the night.
Those possessions weren’t contained to Lopez on the night for the Bucks as Bobby Portis had to live with guarding the likes of Paul and Booker one-on-one in space to similar hardships.
However, the death by a million mid-rangers and ISOs certainly affected Lopez’s usage and overall minutes load for the night. After the Bucks went to their drop coverage to start out to the second half to plenty of misfortune, Lopez was eventually pulled at the 4:42 mark of the third quarter and didn’t end up seeing a return to the court.
All of this came after Lopez finished with 17 points on 7-for-14 shooting (3-for-5 from three, 0-for-2 from the free throw line), six boards and a block in over 22-and-a-half minutes. By the way, Lopez’s 22-and-a-half minutes were the second-fewest minutes he’s played over the course of the Bucks’ playoff run.
Despite being a -17 in his limited minutes, Lopez buoyed the Bucks’ slumping offense while living with what he could when defending the likes of Paul and Booker in space repeatedly. Again, it wasn’t pretty by any means, but the Bucks simply won’t win this series when Lopez plays as limited of a role as he did in Game 1, even for the small ball success the Bucks had.
The Milwaukee Bucks must improve transition defense after Game 1 loss
While the Bucks’ defense has gotten plenty of examinations in the aftermath of their Game 1 loss, there’s a number of areas that do seem correctable.
Among the biggest is being more locked in when getting back in transitioning and defending a Suns team that doesn’t look to push the pace as Paul-led teams do. To that point, the Suns played their second-fastest game of their playoff run Tuesday night as Game 1 had a pace of 101.5 possessions.
That pace suited the Suns very well and it helped them score a playoff-high 20 fast break points, which also doubles as the highest amount of fast break points the Bucks have allowed this postseason.
The following three by Cam Johnson that was set up off a baseline drive by Devin Booker against a scrambling Bucks defense was certainly quite the snapshot of the lack of connectivity the Bucks had in getting back on defense. The fact that it came after a make from the Bucks and a transition score from Bobby Portis made it that much tough to stomach.
Per Inpredictable, the Suns scored 1.06 points per possession after a Bucks made field goal.
Considering that, along with the Bucks’ fouling troubles that led to 24 free throws for the Suns, there is certainly things that Milwaukee can do to improve in this area. Better communication and better discipline, the kind of which we’ve come to expect from the Bucks over the Bud era, is absolutely key going into Game 2.
We’ll just have to see whether Bucks can improve upon these areas and more going into Game 2 and can ultimately take a game in Phoenix will go a long way in evening up this series. Thursday night awaits.