Official Game Thread: Bucks at Hawks -- ECF GAME 3

[kg01]

1 minute ago, Diesel said:

I think a lot of that was Trae being hurt.   Honestly, when Trae was hurt... We went to more ball movement and taking advantage of our  size advantages (at times).   I mean Gallo was smoking Holliday or whoever they had on him until they started doubling Gallo.  Then the refs stopped calling the obvious hacks on Gallo.   I think when Trae came back... he took a few too many heat checks.  When he saw that he didn't have it and every step hurts... I think he should have sat.  Hard to say in the heat of battle but I would rather preserve him and let the others bring us in. 

 

Even if he didn't sit, they should've just used him as a decoy.  It looked like he saw the team fading and was trying to will them to victory or w/e.  But he clearly didn't have a consistent burst needed to do that.

[Diesel]

One interesting thing...

I was encouraged by how many times Trae got WIDE OPEN Looks with lots of time to shoot it.   I counted at least 3 times that he was wide open simply by losing his man.   If Trae is not injured, we can beat this team. 

 

[hawkman]

41 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Still not saying that's why we lost.  We didn't respond well to their run late, in particular.

But the consistent ref-related mistakes make it harder to swallow the notion that the loss was "all" about our execution.

I'm biased, but I feel like these "consistent ref-related mistakes" always seem to favor Milwaukee and always kill the Hawks' momentum during runs. There's a rhythm to the game during runs that only gets interrupted when the Hawks have it going or have a double digit lead. When Milwaukee is on a run, everything that can go their way, does go their way. It's frustrating to watch. But once again, I'm biased and I know being a fan often skews reality. 

[Diesel]

1 minute ago, kg01 said:

Even if he didn't sit, they should've just used him as a decoy.  It looked like he saw the team fading and was trying to will them to victory or w/e.  But he clearly didn't have a consistent burst needed to do that.

Yep.  I hate when Trae starts playing Hero ball... even when the shot goes in.  I look at parts of this game and say... if we buckled down and played straight up, we can beat this team.  I mean with Collins and Gallo taking advantage of Tucker/Holliday/Portis on the switches that they were getting.... We should have ate off of that for a while.. until they did something to stop it.   But right in the midst of a good run of that... even when Milwaukee would go down and match our score... Bogi would come down and shoot a long three or Trae.  If you feel it .. then yeah.. take the shot but if you think that you need to do it to push us farther...  Consider going back to the matchup advantage.

When we started the game off, we played the way that we needed to play to beat these guys... Defense leads to offense...   Then  Inside out focus.  We just have to guard from getting too three point happy. 

 

[Thomas]

9 minutes ago, hawkman said:

I'm biased, but I feel like these "consistent ref-related mistakes" always seem to favor Milwaukee and always kill the Hawks' momentum during runs. There's a rhythm to the game during runs that only gets interrupted when the Hawks have it going or have a double digit lead. When Milwaukee is on a run, everything that can go their way, does go their way. It's frustrating to watch. But once again, I'm biased and I know being a fan often skews reality. 

So am wondering what Silver really thinks of the ref taking Trae out like that. Believe it is not the same thing that we will hear at a presser. Just plain bullshit. Refs have been the most consistent low light of the NBA as long as I have watched the playoffs. 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Thomas

[kg01]

5 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Yep.  I hate when Trae starts playing Hero ball... even when the shot goes in.  I look at parts of this game and say... if we buckled down and played straight up, we can beat this team.  I mean with Collins and Gallo taking advantage of Tucker/Holliday/Portis on the switches that they were getting.... We should have ate off of that for a while.. until they did something to stop it.   But right in the midst of a good run of that... even when Milwaukee would go down and match our score... Bogi would come down and shoot a long three or Trae.  If you feel it .. then yeah.. take the shot but if you think that you need to do it to push us farther...  Consider going back to the matchup advantage.

When we started the game off, we played the way that we needed to play to beat these guys... Defense leads to offense...   Then  Inside out focus.  We just have to guard from getting too three point happy. 

 

You make a good point in saying Gallo/Jollins had mismatches we needed to exploit.  Sadly, Jollins was taken out of the flow of the game due to fouls(sic).

I remember literally thinking during the 4th, "Man Trae, trust your guys.  You might've gotten them here but they can carry you in this game." 

And I'm not terribly mad at him playing hero-ball but, last night when he was clearly hobbled, too many heat-checks.  And, on another note, there should've been absolutely no more posing after shots after game 2.  You take the good with the bad but watch film, my dude.  It's a point of emphasis for them to leak out after you shoot.

[Diesel]

3 minutes ago, Thomas said:

So am wondering what Silver really thinks of the ref taking Ttae out like that. Believe it is not the same thing that we will hear at a presser. Just plain bullshit. Refs have been the most consistent low light of the NBA as long as I have watched the playoffs. 

Well, Silver can't be proud of the work that his crew did in this game (aside from hurting a possible star for the finals).  About the refs... they missed lots of calls... ESPECIALLY possession calls.   Now we got the benefit of one of those possession calls but Milwaukee got about 5 of those bad boys.  That's basically a defensive stop that we're talking about.   Damn near +20 alone.

But about the Star in the finals.   If Silver is interested in the storyline and ratings.. He wants a Trae vs. CP3 finals.   Even Though Giannis is a 2 time MVP.. Giannis doesn't have the personality to carry a finals.  Neither does any other Buck.  But Trae....  He's the new Villain.  Fans would suck Trae vs. CP3 up like Hi C at McDonalds.  Plus there's pictures of Trae being at a CP3 camp.   I think when we knocked out Philly, we became who Silver wants to see in the finals... those disrespectful media whores in Atlanta... Trae and Collins.

 

[Diesel]

1 minute ago, kg01 said:

You make a good point in saying Gallo/Jollins had mismatches we needed to exploit.  Sadly, Jollins was taken out of the flow of the game due to fouls(sic).

I remember literally thinking during the 4th, "Man Trae, trust your guys.  You might've gotten them here but they can carry you in this game." 

And I'm not terribly mad at him playing hero-ball but, last night when he was clearly hobbled, too many heat-checks.  And, on another note, there should've been absolutely no more posing after shots after game 2.  You take the good with the bad but watch film, my dude.  It's a point of emphasis for them to leak out after you shoot.

Well, last night they only got one leak out.   For the most part, Trae hit many of his threes.  But I agree... no posing.  I liked the job we did on Holliday.   I like what we did to Giannis with OO and even a few plays with Gallo.  They needed a Kobe Bryant moment from Middleton to win this game....  That may not happen again.   We can beat them... If Trae is healthy. 

 

[kg01]

Just now, Diesel said:

Well, last night they only got one leak out.   For the most part, Trae hit many of his threes.  But I agree... no posing.  I liked the job we did on Holliday.   I like what we did to Giannis with OO and even a few plays with Gallo.  They needed a Kobe Bryant moment from Middleton to win this game....  That may not happen again.   We can beat them... If Trae is healthy. 

 

Yeah, I don't get folks completely falling off the ledge here.  There are some correctable things we can do to reclaim this series.

And, who knows, if we show we can win the league might allow the refs to actually make calls for us.

[hawkman]

18 minutes ago, Thomas said:

So am wondering what Silver really thinks of the ref taking Trae out like that. Believe it is not the same thing that we will hear at a presser. Just plain bullshit. Refs have been the most consistent low light of the NBA as long as I have watched the playoffs. 

He's probably not too happy since that will cost the NBA $$$ if Trae can't play in Game 4. Of course, I don't believe that was intentional at all. But it happened at the worst possible moment in the game and amplified all of the bad calls/non calls I saw throughout the game. I feel like him being visibly hobbled when he came back really sucked the life out of the Hawks. 

[marco102]

11 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Yeah, I don't get folks completely falling off the ledge here.  There are some correctable things we can do to reclaim this series.

And, who knows, if we show we can win the league might allow the refs to actually make calls for us.

I think for me, personally, I'm on the ledge, but not quite falling off. Trae's injury has me shook.   That's the difference between my belief in this series and the Philly series.

This game is reminiscent of game two versus the 76ers where that guy went nuclear from the 3rd to the 4th to win the series for them.  If Trae can come back and be himself, I'm much more hopeful the Hawks can pull it off. 

[macdaddy]

Injuries have been a big problem all year and so many teams affected.   But the one thing i know is that with a healthy Bogi and Trae, not to mention Hunter, we are better than the Bucks.  

[agentorange90]

31 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Injuries have been a big problem all year and so many teams affected.   But the one thing i know is that with a healthy Bogi and Trae, not to mention Hunter, we are better than the Bucks.  

The Bucks have so much depth.  They have so many guys that can step in and score and shoot 3's.  With Bogi and Trae hampered with injuries our main scoring alternatives have been Galinari and Collins; both are not consistent. 

[Sothron]

If we were healthy I think we're up 3-0. That being said, we are not. Nate needs to make some changes. Bogi needs to not play or only play true backup minutes. Cam needs to play. OO needs to play. I'd rather see Snell come on the court to give us more size than watching Bogi on his bad knee miss constantly.

[bleachkit]

41 minutes ago, marco102 said:

I think for me, personally, I'm on the ledge, but not quite falling off. Trae's injury has me shook.   That's the difference between my belief in this series and the Philly series.

This game is reminiscent of game two versus the 76ers where that guy went nuclear from the 3rd to the 4th to win the series for them.  If Trae can come back and be himself, I'm much more hopeful the Hawks can pull it off. 

In the 76ers series we we're also the beneficiaries of some epic collapses, or incredible comebacks, depending on you look at it. Milwaukee appears more poised in crunch time. Game 4 is a must win, no two way about it. 

[AHF]

59 minutes ago, kg01 said:

Yeah, I don't get folks completely falling off the ledge here.  There are some correctable things we can do to reclaim this series.

And, who knows, if we show we can win the league might allow the refs to actually make calls for us.

The one thing that I believe would make this series unwinnable is if Trae can't recover in time.  If he can't play or plays like he did last night after being injured, we are done and there is no change in strategy or rotation that can let us win, imo.  If Trae can get back to near full strength, then I fully agree that there are adjustments that can be made that could have swung last night's game and could swing future games.

[hylndr11]

Having hunter changes everything in this series , damn shame , 

[agentorange90]

It ain't over til it's over but I will be surprised if the Bucks don't win the NBA championship.  They look unstoppable the last 2 games.  With Trae slowed down Hawks need someone else to take over and I'm not sure who that could be at this point. 

[kg01]

8 minutes ago, Sothron said:

If we were healthy I think we're up 3-0. That being said, we are not. Nate needs to make some changes. Bogi needs to not play or only play true backup minutes. Cam needs to play. OO needs to play. I'd rather see Snell come on the court to give us more size than watching Bogi on his bad knee miss constantly.

I'd rather see Solo than Snell.  At least he might fall into someone and have an impact like that statue/ref did last night.

[bleachkit]

9 minutes ago, AHF said:

The one thing that I believe would make this series unwinnable is if Trae can't recover in time.  If he can't play or plays like he did last night after being injured, we are done and there is no change in strategy or rotation that can let us win, imo.  If Trae can get back to near full strength, then I fully agree that there are adjustments that can be made that could have swung last night's game and could swing future games.

I have some adjustments. Play Cam Reddish instead of Solo. Play OO 30 minutes. Get more touches for JC.