The Milwaukee Bucks again are in the postseason and are looking to claw their way to the NBA Finals. The Eastern Conference heavyweights find themselves fighting from behind for the third straight year. In 2019 it was against the Toronto Raptors, last year it was against the Miami Heat, and this year it is the Brooklyn Nets who hold a 2-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
After being embarrassed in games 1 and 2 at Barclays Center by a Nets team that does not have James Harden, the Bucks look to avoid being down 3-0 as Milwaukee needs to take game three and protect their home court. In this series, the Bucks have lived and died by the three-point shot, but mostly died as in Game 2 Milwaukee shot 8/27 which would be 29% from behind the arc. This is unusual for the Bucks team as in the regular season they were one of the top three-point shooting teams.
The players to look at coming into Game 3 are Brook Lopez and Giannis Antetokounmpo. According to Brew Hoop, “Going into this series, it looked like both a positive and negative outlook for Bucks big man Brook Lopez. The positive being that he has a huge height advantage over the entire Nets roster and the negative being him caught in no man’s land with Kevin Durant coming off screens and pulling up for mid-range jumpers. However, things got off to a positive start for Lopez in the first half of Game One with the Bucks repeatedly going to him in the post.”
Bucks need to protect home court
Brook finished with 19 points and did not hit a single three which could be a blessing in disguise. Many fans believe that the big man should be feasting inside against a small team. Things went awry after the first half of Game 1 when Milwaukee went away from him and opted to shoot contested jumpers. It was more of the same in Game 2, where the Bucks pretty much had no interest in exploiting any potential mismatches and Lopez was mostly held to the perimeter.
Another positive from Lopez this series has been how active he is on the offensive glass. He has created multiple second-chance shots for the Bucks, who certainly seem to need them.
It will be very important for the Bucks to feed Lopez the ball inside to take advantage of his height and ability to score and rebound in the paint. As for Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks need more consistency out of him from the field and the foul line. Antetokounmpo must take over this game on the defensive end as well.
Giannis may have the opportunity to get block after block as the only person who rivals his height is Kevin Durant. It seems safe to say if the bucks do not take both of these two games at home the series is over.