The Milwaukee Bucks were up 101-89 with 6:09 left in Game 4. With Milwaukee being in control most of the game, this game was well in hand, but then Jimmy Butler happened.
Butler scored 21 points in the fourth quarter as he helped Miami outscore Milwaukee 30-13 after the 6:09 mark. Butler ended the game with a career-high 56 points on 19-of-28 shooting, in which he got it going early and never slowed down.
Milwaukee now finds itself in unfamiliar territory being down 3-1 in a playoff series and on the brink of elimination. The last time the Bucks were down 3-1 in a playoff series was the 2020 Orlando bubble series against the Miami Heat.
The last time Milwaukee was eliminated in the first round as a one-seed was never. Milwaukee has only been a one-seed six times in franchise history; this is unfamiliar territory if Miami takes care of business the next couple of games.
So with Milwaukee on the brink of elimination, what three adjustments do they need to make in Game 5 to save their season?
1- Don’t let Jimmy Butler beat you
The defensive strategy of Jimmy Butler in this series has been unacceptable.
Why Head Coach Mike Budenholzer doesn’t decide to trap or double-team him baffles me. Instead, Milwaukee continues to run the same defensive matchups on Butler where it’s Jrue Holiday or Khris Middleton guarding him. Don’t get me wrong, both are capable defenders, but why not switch Giannis Antetokounmpo onto him for a few possessions to throw a different look at him?
I would say Jae Crowder, but he hasn’t had a good series and has looked a step slow in his matchups with Butler.
In this series, Butler is averaging 36.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, and five assists; he’s also shooting 62 percent from the field and 52 percent from three.
Milwaukee defensively hasn’t presented Butler with a challenge nor have they taken away his ability to get in the paint and draw fouls.
What made Game 3 frustrating is that it was all Jimmy Butler the next highest scorer was Bam Adebayo with 15 points. For a team like Milwaukee with as much defensive talent as they have, and being the number one defensive-rated team in the regular season, letting one guy beat you is inexcusable and can’t happen in an important playoff game like this one.
In Game 5, I expect Milwaukee to pay more attention to Butler and make it tough on him because if they don’t, their season will end on Wednesday.
2- The 3-point defense has to be better
I know the stats say Miami 13-of-32 from three on Monday, but the eye test tells a different story.
Jimmy Butler (52.9 percent), Caleb Martin (46.7 percent), and Duncan Robinson (76.5 percent) are killing us from three. I didn’t include Gabe Vincent (47.6 percent) because you get the picture.
Milwaukee’s 3-point defense in this series has been terrible. So far in the playoffs, Milwaukee has allowed the worst 3-point percentage (47.6 percent) and field-goal percentage (54 percent), per NBA.com/stats.
This is no reason why Duncan Robinson should be shooting an astronomical 76 percent from three. It doesn’t matter that Robinson was out of Miami’s rotation this year, he’s still a deadly 3-point shooter, but Milwaukee has defended him as if he hasn’t played basketball before.
Caleb Martin has had a solid series shooting from three. He’s shot 46 percent from three in the first four games of this series after shooting 35 percent in the regular season. Martin went 2-of-3 in Monday’s game, but one of the two threes gave the Heat a 1-point lead at a crucial point in the game.
Milwaukee allowed 12 threes a game in the regular season, so it’s not anything surprising, but Miami runs simple dribble-handoffs, and Milwaukee is too slow to adjust. Couple that with Brook Lopez, who plays drop coverage, and you get a team that has averaged 15-made threes in four games.
If Milwaukee hopes to extend it to a Game 6, they have to run Miami off the 3-point line.
3- Give Goran Dragic some minutes
Since signing with the Bucks on March 4, Dragic has only played in eight games for the Bucks.
The signing of Dragic was meant to bolster our depth at backup point guard. Instead, he hasn’t played with Budenholzer opting to go with Jevon Carter, who played in 81 games in the regular season but hasn’t provided anything this postseason. If the postseason is about matchups and feel why doesn’t Budenholzer play Dragic for 15-20 minutes? If Milwaukee is going to advance, they are going to need a capable veteran backup point guard, and Dragic would provide that steadiness and consistency to help Milwaukee advance.
Asking Jrue Holiday to play 41 minutes isn’t ideal, as Holiday has only played one game this season over 40 plus minutes (43 minutes against Boston in overtime on February 14.) Milwaukee had a backup point guard to take the pressure off Holiday would help this team in the long run.
With the criticism last year of Milwaukee playing George Hill over Jevon Carter in the backup point guard spot, now they don’t have a guy to backup Holiday so he doesn’t have to log heavy minutes.
During the regular season, pundits talked about how great the depth in Milwaukee is, and yet with Budenholzer only playing three guys off the bench in Monday’s game, that depth that seemed so plentiful in the regular season is nonexistent in the playoffs.
It’ll be interesting to see if the Bucks make these adjustments for Wednesday’s matchup and live to see Game 5.