On this episode of the Heat Check Alert Alert, Will Will Will, we gotta talk about the Milwaukee Bucks.
They know it's only four games into the season, but they may be in.
Trouble because damn they're looking like they might just be the most disappointing team.
I'm gonna break down what's going wrong, as well.
As maybe some good things happening in Cleveland, Palo going nuclear, and some news from around the league, including a retirement from Kyle Kuzma, Anthony my Man. Drop that mother the fucking beat that should be.
Rihanna, by the way, we have to pump up start the episode.
Previous episode where I interviewed Professor David Berry on the finances of the w Let's just say the reaction from the trolls has been aggressive. A lot of people like it, some people not so much. It brought out a lot of idiots online who were just parroting the exact same thing that I told them not to pair it, and then they just came back with the same thing that I said, you're just doing.
Like, oh, just keeps making money. You're dumb, Tristan, No, you're actually the dumb one.
Anyway, If you're at all interested in women's basketball or women's sports in general.
Give it a listen.
The video is up on YouTube. What did I say, YouTube's coming back?
It is coming.
I really do believe that this is going to change the conversation of the way that people who are open minded see the WNBA and see even women's basketball as a whole.
On to today's podcast.
Woo.
Bucks, folks.
I'm willing to say it now, just four games into the season, have you ever just like seen a dish and you're like, I don't even need to taste that dish. I know I don't want that, Like send it back. I don't even I had a cookie the other day and I I just put it on my teeth and was like, nope, that's not it.
My tongue just touched it. Pause.
We're just like a quick second, no, that that right there, Like see the dish, don't want the dish. I already know, like that chicken's gray, that's the Milwaukee Bucks for.
Me right now.
I see the recipe. I don't need to see the recipe. I see the dish and I know I don't want any part of it. I know we're four games in the season. The signs do not.
Look great, so you get the duve.
They get the duve opening night against the Sixers, right, no Paul George, no mb'd. And since then they've lost three in a row to the Chicago Bulls, the Brooklyn Nets, and then obviously they were always gonna lose to the Celtics. The average margin of loss is nearly twelve points per game. These games weren't particularly close, and the game that they lost to the Celtics was only nine points, so the
other losses were actually more disgusting. The team is now though, back to the dish that I don't want to eat. The team is now nineteen and twenty three under chef Doc Rivers. They're two and four in the playoffs. I don't know if I want that chef cooking my meals. Twenty one and twenty seven. Record is forty four percent win percentage. Remember the last head coach that they had, first time head coach Adrian Griffin, got fired after he went thirty and thirteen.
Seventy percent winning percentage. Tough, very tough.
What's happening in Milwaukee is, like I'm telling you, a little like a kitchen fire that's about to burn down the whole fucking block unless smart people in charge say, hey, can't put water on a grease fire. It's the kitchen analogy today, here's the problem coaching aka cooking in the kitchen. Doc Rivers is literally not making any useful adjustments either because he doesn't have the horses to do it. Middleton is out what's new?
But like the.
Transition defense against the Celtics was beyond awful, beyond rubber chicken. Brook Lopez was consistently out of position and transition and when it happens as much as it did, that is a coaching issue. Giannis was jogging back on defense lackademically, way too often. The Celtics massacred the Bucks on the fast break pretty much all game long.
You wonder if it's then you've got the roster issues.
Why why is Torrian Prince the leader in minutes played disgusting for any team.
That's how you know Darvin.
Hamm is send an assistant coach for this team. Is because Torrean Prince is up in there just chucking boy, just in there, just like deciding he's gonna get his cardio tonight.
The starting five, we.
Don't know which is the most effective, Which is a very Darvin Ham thing as well, Like remember that when he decided on the Lakers that he was just gonna switch up the rotations and the starting five a million bajillion times, and everybody's like, we know what the starting five should be. I don't even know if we know what the starting five should be for the Bucks. We know that there's great players on the team, but Doc rarely has the offensive brilliance to put them in.
The spots to be successful.
So again, maybe we have the ingredients. Maybe the chicken on the plate is U is like free range organic, but it's overcooked boy, or it's undercooked, it's not season well, or it's way two season.
I don't know what's going on.
Docs are allowing way too much gambling. On defense, they are getting smoked like Korean barbecue.
Just terrible.
The Bucks currently have the twenty sixth ranked team in defensive rating. This was their thing under Budenholzer. Under Budenolezer, the Bucks were consistently a top ten defense. And if the only reason now that they're not a top ten defense isn't coaching, then we have to start saying some real words about Damian Lillard.
Because the one ingredient that's changed is Drew Holiday all World defender to Damian Lillard Cone.
Cone.
Three of the four teams below them are the Hawks, Jazz, and Wizards, who are all lottery teams.
And number three the Chemistry. Listen, have you ever just seen a plate where.
You're like, these cuisine don't even belong together.
I think that.
Might be honest, And Dame, this might be the most damaging part of the Bucks right now. I am hearing they are like oil and water. I am hearing there is no peas, no carrots. It is peas and male.
I'm like, uh, what are we doing? Not yelling? Damn?
And if you look at the quotes, not just my inside, you know, getting into the what's happening in the tea.
Dame.
His quote said this, me and Yannis gotta be able to hold each other accountable.
And I don't mean just yelling at each other all the time. Whoa.
It just means like I gotta be able to say something to you and you gotta be able to say something.
To me at all times.
Feels like either one Janice is doing some yelling, or two there's some little sneak dissing going on and people aren't opening up and saying how they feel. Yannis had other things to say, right now, we don't have an idea entity. How are we going to win?
Are we gonna defend for forty eight minutes? Ouch? Are we going to move the ball for forty eight minutes? Ouch? Both of those potentially veiled shots at Dame? Are we going to attack? We've got to find an identity and we don't have that right now.
Oh boy, it doesn't sound like these two were on the same page, doesn't.
And to be honest, after watching a ton of Bucks.
Basketball, it's pretty obvious from a basketball standpoint that they aren't yelling either. It's like, hey, we've got chicken on the plate and also we've got steak.
Do we need two proteins on the tape on the plate?
No, we do not. Dame ball dominant player, be honest, ball dominant player. Both having trouble giving up the ball because I don't know, they became superstars.
By having the ball in their hands.
Not shocking.
This season's gonna get away from them very, very quickly.
The Bucks are an absolute car wreck that I'm watching as a Blazer fan. Oh man, we don't even need to go to that description about this.
They are a car wreck.
And I'm not talking about Andre Jackson Junior, who crashed his car into the Yankee Hill apartments in downtown Milwaukee on Saturday.
But guess what, that's kind of what it feels like right now.
I'm very concerned, like pleasantly concerned.
You know what I'm saying.
Doc's about to get his ass fired.
He's already passing the blame along. He's already saying mean shit about how like, oh, well, we had to go with the shortened rotation. They're literally using like a playoff rotation right now, and why because oh, we just don't have guys that can.
Produce off the bench. Don't say that, Doc.
If they don't fix this shit really quick, Darvin Ham might be the new head coach of Milwaukee Bucks basketball and that might be coming closer than you think. All Right, moving on on the other side, we gotta talk about some positive We're talking about the Cleveland Cavaliers, folks. Oh yeah, we said it in the lead up to the new season. Not enough people are talking about this team. Note enough type people are giving this team credit because what because Kenny Atkinson he can cook his ass off.
Boy, he is one of them ones. He's Bobby Flay up in there, quisa Quison, that's.
What he's doing.
Donovan Mitchell in there, Darius Garland and there, Evan Motley taking a step, Jared Allen's still there, Isaac Corro doing his damn thing. And we don't even have Max Struce yet.
Guess what, he doesn't care.
He doesn't care what ingredients are there because guess what, They're gonna play hard basketball, tough, defensive minded basketball and try to get buckets. I saw him on Saturday at Capitol want to read it to the Wizards. Of course, they beat the shit out of the Wizards. But I told George Yang Bang Bang Nang before the game, hey, I've been to Cleveland before. It's not actually like not great. But my first instinct was actually not great, but not
terrible either. And he said, listen, boy, if we beat the Knicks on Monday, that's what everybody's gonna be.
Saying, actually not great, actually not terrible.
The Calves rolled through their first three games by an average points margin of twenty four. Those three wins that, of course, were against bottom feeder teams like the Raptors, Pistons, and Wizards, but don't tell the Denver Nuggets. Those are a bottom feeder team since they just went to overtime against the Raptors. Three teams almost guaranteed to be in
the lottery. So a lot of people were like, let's see what it is Madison Square Garden against the Knicks team that's looking to get right, looking for revenge at the crib.
Let's see and guess what. They passed that shit with flying colors.
So Cleveland not great but actually not terrible. Look out, the Calves are picking up right where they left off. Maybe the Celtics shouldn't be looking at New York or Philadelphia, maybe they should be having their eyes on Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland because look at it, the Calves are on five at half, but put their boots to the necks of the Knicks for a one to ten to one oh four win on the road, and Garland. Garland
is back, He is all all the way back. Rumors of him being the odd man out vastly overblown, Darland and Mitchell saying he can't play with me, we need to trade.
Him, vastly overblowed.
He destroyed a Knicks defense that has og Anobi, McHale, Bridges and Josh Hart. Those three, by the way, were a combined minus fourteen net rating, mostly because of Darius Garland. Garland was thirty four to three and three.
Wow.
Long stretches, virtually unstoppable. He said, by the way, last year he lost the love of the game because he broke his jaw. But now that he's healthy, he's bawling out. The schedule moving forward quite favorable to the Calves. The first month of the season, a lot of home games, pair of games against the Bucks, then the Pelicans without Trey Murphy, the Nets and the Warriors at home, and then the Bulls. Not a stretch to think that this
team might start the year off ten and zero. But also, what I like about Kenny Atkinson is that he's creating an offense that is maximizing not only the bigs Jared Allen and Bobie, but also the guards Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland. He also has a relationship with Jared Allen and with Carris Livert when he coached them for the Brooklyn Nets. Remember that that was before the staged coup, when it was Kyrie and KD. They also have an underrated bench.
Mob caris Sam Merrill bang Bang niang a Coro, very good second unit. Dean Wade starting now too. He has this team on the verge of being very dangerous. Also quick aside, we gotta be concerned about the next That defense I think is gonna have.
The struggle bus.
You've got Donovan Mitchell going off for twenty five, and you've got Darius Garland going off for thirty four ooh, fifty nine points from the backcourt alone. Then you have Evan Mobley, get seventeen, you have Jared Allen, I think get fifteen.
You can't have that, sir, you can't have that.
Got to keep an eye on those Nicks and whether that defensive intensity that we got used to them having is actually going to persist now that now that Karl Anthony Towns is on the team. As I said, though Cleveland not great but actually not terrible. Ooh, big news last night. I don't know if you saw the game.
Pallo Ban Carrol, Palo Ban, Carrol, Palo Bancheo. He put up a fifty burger boy against the Pacers, and I know it's the Pacers, but holy shit, was inefficient and it was just happening with Ease.
I saw Polo. I've said this this conversation before.
But I saw Pollo in person when he was at Duke in the ACC tournament in Brooklyn, right before he was drafted. I said, man, I've never seen a human being that big before. He's not a normal seven footer where it's like, oh, that's Chetholmegrin, like I could, I could wrap my hands around his whole wrist, like oh he's like or like oh that's Yonis Valanciunis, like he's a grizzly bear. No. No, this is like a normal human that's been put under an enlarging ray, like Honey, I enlarged the kids.
He's massive.
His proportions though, pause, perfect calves like perfect arms, perfect legs, perfect neck. He doesn't have like an overly large neck or an over He's just a perfectly proportional six' ten. Dude two years, ago he went off for twenty seven eleven for eighteen shooting in HIS nba. Debut that was the most made field goals for a number one overall pick Since jordan And.
Kream Abdul jabbar AND i knew he would be.
GREAT i Knew, actually WHEN i saw him At, barclay's he's gonna be. Good great, passer really willing, passer and an awesome leader as. Well so now that he's arrived against The pacers defense who could not stop, him he went six for twenty six, folks fifty, points thirteen.
Rebounds of nine.
Assists that's, disgusting one assist short of a fifty point triple.
Double he also had one steal and two. Blocks.
Wow more, importantly when The pacers, decided, oh we're gonna come back and make this a game because it was just a blowout at, halftime storm back take a, leap and he, decided, no, no, no give me the. Ball. Steady the ship hit two, no one last second free throws to steal the.
Game couldn't have been two because they would have covered the. Five but, HEY i.
Digress he had thirty seven first half. Points thirty. SEVEN i watched that first half in all because no other games were on at that point. Either that was the first seven o'clock. Game every other game started at seven. Thirty he hit, threes he hit ones and, Twos he went to the line fifteen. Times he had middies and
ones floaters behind the back, passes wrap around. Handles he literally was doing everything six, ten six.' ten the thing about this is he became the tenth youngest player IN the nba history to score, fifty points youngest FORWARD since i don't know to get. FIFTY cents i Don't Know lebron james.
With two thousand.
And six. It's insane and Now The lebron james comparisons are getting people a little excited because the only person that looks anything Close to pallo does Anything Like Paalo. Lebron james He's, Not, CARMELO folks i don't think You understand, carmelo's game the, ball stopper and then exactly what a guy who Plays a european style passing type of. A game pallo is Bigger than braun, six'. TEN two fifty i think he's. BIGGER than that i bet he's. Like two seventy he's.
A big Boy i.
THINK bron's bigger I think, HE'S i mean i think He's. FASTER than palo i think he's More. Explosive Than paalo but palo is a better jumper right now at His age than braun did. At twenty one, he's TWENTY one am i? Glazing right now people are. CALLING me glazing i don't think that's. What it Is it is palo seems, to Be Different and. Orlando magic fans don't give me your pessimism about how he's gonna go for. Fifteen next
game How? Good is Paolo how good paolo? IS is that i think he could be and maybe should be the best forward in two YEARS. In THE nba and i don't think this is his last fifty, point game either. That's for, sure moving on some quick news from.
Around the league Speaking, of the, pacers.
My god.
Someone help us if we're Not gonna get aliburton like we got him in the beginning, of LAST year then i don't know.
What to say it's.
Just been rough it's just been rough since he had his. Injury last season it was Rough, in the olympics it was, rough before then it was rough in the second half. Of the season and he's just starting to take. A beating online how bad. Has it been, he's averaging fourteen four and five through his, first four games and, by the way he had, nineteen last games so that increased the average. Quite a bit thirty four percent from the
field and twenty seven. Percent from deep things have gotten so bad than an eighty six percent, free throw shooter Which is.
What halle is so things have gotten So bad that halle got sent.
To the Line, against the sixers he was down to proceeded to shorter on, the first one then try to miss, the second one and, then they. Lost of course And then against orlando, he bawled out had, a spirited comeback came up. Shore once again he just is not shooting, well at all six or fifteen from the field nineteen, nine and ten, which is fine like the first ok stat line, of the, year OF course when i decided to.
Take his under but how bad are?
Things for him he is currently averaging seven points less and seven assists less.
Than he did last. Season per game.
Is?
This a trend is?
This, a blip well the worst four game stretch of twenty twenty three twenty twenty four he was shooting thirty five percent and, twenty percent three averaging eleven. To and eight so we've seen Some Stinkers from, tyrese halliberg before, and to me it's not the shooting. That's the issue he's always been. A streaky shooter that forum. Is struggle bus, but to me it's the fact that his a sister solo the only stretch last season where he had comparably
low assist levels where. The games are he had a minute's restriction coming off. Of his Injury after, the sixers, loss he said it. Doesn't feel good same thing after the next game when. He went scoreless, at the, Moment It. Sucks god willing i'm sure the sun will. Come up tomorrow we have, another game tomorrow.
Seventy nine.
More it sucks and To act like i'm not gonna replay it for the rest, of the evening it's.
Probably not TRUE but, like i said seventy.
Nine More games the sun's gonna come out tomorrow and we're gonna get another chance. To compete tomorrow that's the beautiful.
PART about It i think kelly's, gonna be fine but like we got to kind.
Of monitor this this is worth keeping an eye On because if, hallie's not Right then the pacers.
Are not right quick Update On, de.
Jontay murray who broke his wrist hand excuse me in the first Game with the. Pelicans last Week, According to sham's murray had successful surgery on his fractured left hand and it scheduled the miss four.
To six weeks. That's not bad actually he should Be back.
Around, christmas time also then you take some time to re integrate him back, into the team back. Into The Offense then trey murphy out with. The hammy injury pelicans injury woes keep on keeping on year after. Year after year and did you see that they Lost To. My portland, TRAILBLAZERS and finally i have some crushing news for anyone INTERESTED. In The Nba kyle kuzma, coos has retired, not from basketball which wouldn't be, Also THAT bad and i swear.
THIS is true i Watched Him on Opening Night at capitol one put. UP six airballs i think he's trying, to GET traded like. I really do he says he's retiring from. The fashion game the man noted for the sweater sleeves that dragged, on The Floor Who The new york times said was famous for his as famous for his off court fashion as he was for his, on court play which does not, say a lot has officially retired from the. Pregame fit world the thing that made
him famous is now the thing he's not. Gonna do Anymore What a kyle kuzman. Thing to do just when you guys get, Excited about something i'm not gonna give it. To you anymore before they're opening Game, against the celtics you know where he had, All those airballs, KUZMA said this i don't want to be a part of that community where you have to put. On a fit i'm gonna take a back seat. To all that what brought him,
to that, REVELATION he says i can. Speak from experience when you're, a younger player you don't want to wear the. SAME thing twice a lot of times we get, played INTO thinking oh i gotta, switch it up we gotta. Buy something new now we're just buying clothes to impress people or.
To stand. Out it's ludicrous that man's not going.
Any money, Anymore he's like i'm not paying three thousand dollars for a ridiculous shirt that no one would wear except for that it's gonna give me attention, on LEAGUE bets and i can't wear it ever again because. It's That outlandish so i'm not. Doing it Anymore It's white. Tea kuzma day this is the man who strutted The Catwalk In New york fashion week the, past three years, and, He said no i'm not. Avant garde anymore i'm not.
DOING it anymore i need to concentrate. ON my game i think he really is just tired of spending money. On dumb shit and when YOU'RE not, a max player that's when you stop spending money.
On, dumb shit kuzma.
By the way speaking of why He's not, a max player shooting thirty three percent from the, field right now twenty eight percent from deep so.
Far.
This season.
Listen i'm not one to, give unsolicited advice but he was balling when he had those, league fits on so maybe he should. Bring them back that's all the time that we have for this episode. That he Checked come back friday for an. All new episode check out the feed, for past episodes and many episodes, would drop Unexpected Like.
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The heat check we'll be all be, happier for it and do not forget to follow. Me on threads that's a metas. New social media tons of PEOPLE on the nba people have Been. MIGRATING from twitter i will be posting. There a lot it's the same handle as It, is on instagram which is just.
To underscore crick also this heat.
CHECK on TikTok i think maybe shit like maybe now YouTube MAYBE now.
Like i think we kind. Of, got it anyway
We will see you soon