After a lull on Friday night, the Bucks lost their second game of the year to the second, less talented team, falling to the Nets 115-102 at Barclays Center. Cam Thomas led all scorers with 32 for Brooklyn, followed by Denis Schröder with 29. Giannis Antetokounmpo led Milwaukee with 22. Our full game recap can be found here, and you can listen to a six-minute audio recap on the Bucks+ podcast “Bucks In” Six Minutes below.

What have we learned?

This team has struggled in the second half early in the season. As on Friday, when Milwaukee took a lead into halftime, it was very close at halftime, although both teams had major problems on offense. Overall, though, I thought the Bucks played pretty solid defense despite icy shooting. However, they only managed to take the lead twice in the third period, and every basket that resulted in a single possession was followed by a mistake on the other side. I looked up some numbers afterwards and, as expected, not a pretty picture:

That's a terrible defensive rating with a corresponding poor eye test. Below you will find some videos for this purpose.

But overall I don't think defense is the team's biggest problem at the moment as we've seen them put in some very good performances in the first half. The offensive rating in the second half stinks, and it's not like it was much better in the first half after they were only able to put up 45 points. I'm not the only one who observes this, but the offense can easily falter if the first one or two moves go nowhere. There is very little ball movement or off-ball cutting. Too much standing and iso. One hopes this improves when Khris Middleton returns. Last year, the offense looked much more dynamic when he was on the field, and he is a key liaison to any lineup; He is usually able to get good looks from teammates when, at first glance, a possession might not yield anything. He can't come back soon enough.

Three dollar Bombs

Giannis' numbers mask some issues with his game.

Aside from free throw shooting (which was better last night at 8/11), you might think that Giannis is off to a typically strong start this year when you look at his three-game averages: 28.3 PPG on 66.7% shooting with 12 .3 RPG and 6.3 APG. He also previously had some success in the midrange before reaching a quarter between 15 and 18 feet in this case. However, these attempts are emblematic of the trend over the last two games of him simply…trying to do too much. Whether it's tunnel-vision drives into a defensive wall like we saw on Friday, or overtaking teammates who look much better, his numbers seem pretty paltry in the last two contests. He was the only starter worse than -9 after going -12 against the Bulls. Rarely has the team been so outplayed when Giannis was on the field after becoming an MVP candidate, let alone against weaker competition. That has a lot to do with the fact that he showed surprisingly little effort in defense and on the boards this weekend.

Bobby Portis was a sieve.

We can give him his flowers for another double-double at sixteen and ten, but boy did he look clueless at times in pick-and-roll coverage. Unfortunately, that's nothing really new from him. Even more worrying is the following:

Shades of Malik Beasley from last year. There's no excuse to back off like that, and it just so happened to be the last time the Bucks held the lead. As I mentioned earlier, D made a mistake like this every time they had a chance to tie or build a lead, and that wasn't Portis' only faux pas. It seemed like Brooklyn had Portis in their sights on defense, and that could continue. A plus/minus in a single game can be a tricky statistic, but his team-worst -21 is fitting.

Dame helped, but not enough.

I put Lillard last here for a reason. Although he didn't shoot well (5/13 from the floor, just 1/7 from distance), he was efficient thanks to his 11 goals to the line with 21. That's good! But like the others, the effort in defense and on the boards was poor. He couldn't outbox anyone and was massaged on screens by a 6'5″ Thomas. He doesn't necessarily have to be Jrue Holiday out there and he looked a lot more engaged defensively on Friday, so where was that last night? Did Giannis and him save all their energy for SEGABABA tonight? That's the only reason I can think of for their blasé play in Brooklyn, but you have to take care of business against weaker teams like you did on Wednesday.

Bonus Bucks Bits

• That speaks for itself and goes well with the video above:

• Morgan discussed the disparities between turnover (18-12 against Milwaukee) and offensive rebounding (12-7 against Brooklyn) in rapid chess, although the Bucks somewhat ironed out the board issue as the game progressed. They grabbed six offensive rebounds in the first quarter against Brooklyn, which led to 10 second-chance points, but it was six and 11 in the final three quarters. The Bucks have been overloaded on offense in all three games this season, and the double damage came disproportionately in the first frame.
• The 21-7 advantage Brooklyn had in second-chance points is also a concern. This year, the Bucks have been beaten in this regard in every game, but in the other two games the margins were in the single digits.
• Schröder has had some big games against the Bucks in his career (15.3 PPG on .448/.400/.922 shooting in 30 meetings) and has tormented them with every opponent that uses him, and now he has his first as a Net. He's off to a blistering start to the 2024-25 season, posting 20.7 PPG and hitting 55.6% of his triples, going 5/8 on Sunday.
• Pat Connaughton hit Schröder in the face for a loose ball, a common foul that was upgraded to a flagrant foul after review. Although he has never received this reputation over the years for taking so many hands and even feet to the face… our former leader put it well:

• The three new role players (Gary Trent Jr., Taurean Prince and Delon Wright) have all made a good impression so far, although last night was the weakest performance for each of them, with a combined twelve points and not much else on the stat sheet.
• Brook Lopez came into the game last night with a dismal 2/12 mark from behind the arc in his first two appearances. He got three out of five last night, so maybe he's found his stroke. They attacked him from deep a few times, especially early on, and perhaps they should have tried again in the 26 minutes when Nic Claxton didn't play (Dorian Finney-Smith was their nominal five in the starting line-up) .
• Claxton is the only proven name on the Nets bench. and he was excellent. Otherwise, we saw failed lottery pick Ziaire Williams and someone named Jalen Wilson (I probably didn't watch enough college competition in 2023) beat players like Connaughton and AJ Green.
• Andre Johnson scored his first career points in the final minutes after lining up with Tyler Smith, MarJon Beauchamp and Andre Jackson Jr.
• The latter is in order after a single-car accident in Milwaukee yesterday morning.
• Beauchamp threw down a dunk in garbage time and then let out one of those guttural, satisfied squeals that made me think, “Read the room.” Then…he missed a dunk short on his next touchdown. Yes, he came up short on his dunk attempt and missed. His fourth-year option is due Thursday.

Next

Things don’t get any easier for the Bucks; In fact, it becomes much more difficult. They will face the defending champion Celtics in Boston tonight at 6:30 pm Central on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin.

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