Hoops Tonight - Jimmy Butler drops 56 to lift Heat over Bucks, are Giannis & Milwaukee done?

So this morning, we're just gonna focus on the current predicament that the number one overall seed the Milwaukee Bucks find themselves in, as well as Jimmy Butler and yet another magnificent playoff performance, you guys know the Joe before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason LT. And for whatever reason you guys miss these shows and you can't get back

over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight, all right, let's talk some basketball. So you know I have these overarching basketball philosophies that I talked about a lot on the show and one of the big ones, and you guys have probably seen this in the way that I rank players. But generally speaking, when I've ranked players, like in our big player rankings that we did this summer,

I've had centers pretty far down the list. Right Like, I got a lot of people mad at me because I had jokitchen Embiid at seven and eight on my list this summer, although I probably have both of them a little higher now, But there's a reason why I felt that way. Most of the guards around the league I have pretty far down my list, with exception of Steph Curry, who's literally the biggest guard anomaly in NBA history.

When you're ranking all time great NBA players, it's a bunch of Fords and centers, and Steph Curry he's the outlier that kind of proves the rules, so to speak. But the guys that I typically have at the top of the list typically are bigger, stronger players that are either that either have a physical advantage in height or a physical advantage in strength, that can score from every spot on the floor, can do so on and off the ball, and can create shots for their teammates consistently.

That's always the type of player that I have up there. That's why I've always thought very highly of Lebron James, That's why I've always thought very highly of Luka Doncic. That's why I've thought very highly of Kevin Durant over the years. That's why I've always thought very highly of Giannis and Tenna Komba. That specific archetype of player has always been the guy that I think is most valuable in the NBA, especially when you get to the postseason.

Jimmy Butler is an interesting kind of case study on that conversation because, for whatever reason, he's never been considered in that as schalon and it really just comes down to regular season production. Like Jimmy made a joke last night, He's like, you know, playoff Jimmy's not really a thing. I'd just be hooping. Well, yeah, but there's a gap.

The reality is is Jimmy goes from being somewhere around the fifteenth best player in the league during the regular season, and then you put him in a playoff series and he can play just as well as the best players in the league. That was an unbelievable performance last night, one of the best playoff performances I have ever seen. I have to really think about it to rank that sort of thing. Maybe that's something we could do over

the summer. But for whatever reason, like that's just a level that he can reach at that stage that a lot of his peers can't. And like I said, it's not the first time. I think he had two forty point games in the twenty twenty NBA Finals last year against the Celtics and the Conference finals, had a bunch of big games surrounded by some bad games, but he was dealing with some injuries, but he had some big games, including having a three that could have sent them to

the NBA Finals. Now, if you ask me, Jason, why is it that you think that Jimmy is able to elevate his game on this stage in a way that some of his peers can't. I think generally speaking, that archetype of player has success elevating their game. I think you consistently see the Luka Doncic types, the Lebron James types, the Kevin Durant types, the Giannis types, the Kawhi Leonards, the Jimmy Butler's, those big forwards that have a great

mix of offensive skill in playmaking and physical advantages. You see that player go up level because that is the most valuable. And there's bunch of specific reasons why. First of all, it is much more difficult to account for a star player from the standpoint of defensive attention with a live dribble twenty five feet from the basket than it is operating closer to the rim, where everything's generally

more contested. Point being, it's easier to double a yokic or an embid effectively than it is to do so with a guy with a live dribble operating from the perimeter. And when you combine the act that he can hit pull up jump shots, and like, here's the deal, Like Jimmy Butler shot twenty eight percent on pull up threes this year, and generally speaking in his career, that's been a shot he's been super inefficient at. But like he just has the ability to I don't through sheer force

of will. Maybe I don't know, but for whatever reason, he just suddenly has the ability to knock that type of shot down when the stage is big as that specific jump shooting dynamic kind of reminds me of Dwayne Wade. Dwayne Wade was another guy that was a really inconsistent jump shooter, but man in big playoff games, he always

just seemed to make some big ones. I think confidence is a huge part of jump shooting, and I think guys like that that are filled with an unwavering sense of confidence seem to be in a rhythm more frequently than other players do. And confidence is a big part of rhythm. But for whatever reason, they're just able to dig down and make those shots. And why that's important is again, like, what makes Jimmy Butler such a devastating playoff player, in my opinion, is a combination of a

bunch of factors. One, he has legitimate three level scoring on that stage. Regardless of whether or not he has it in the regular season, he has it on this stage. He can hit pull up threes off the bounce. He can hit jab step threes when you play off of him, when he gets lower in pick and roll, he can hit pull up fifteen footers. He can hit floaters in the lane. He can finish in traffic at the rim.

He can draw fouls effectively. You put a smaller defender on him, he can put Drew Holliday on his backside and back him down and hit post up fadeaways over both shoulders or hook shots over both shoulders. He's got great footwork. He can play off the ball in transition, ducins under the rim. He's got a lot of that. Lebron James like, oh, I got a smaller defender on me, let me just duck in real quick and call for the basketball. I'm gonna get a basket or a foul.

And then when you combine that with his playmaking, which has always been a super underrated element of his skill set, it suddenly turns him into one of the most effective playoff players that we have in the league. He's also just a big, strong athlete. Generally speaking, players that thrive in physicality end up going up a level when we get to the postseason. I don't know. I think it's a coincidence that Austin Reeves, for instance, is succeeding in

the postseason. He's a player that plays with a great deal of physicality in the regular season. Lebron James and Anthony Davis big strong athletes, their skill sets have almost completely abandoned them in this playoff series. When it comes down to jump shooting and beating people off the dribble and things like that. But they're just big and strong and they can have a great deal of impact there. Jimmy Butler is a player that thrives in physicality, so

his impact goes up a level. I don't know why it is that it's not there in the regular season. I don't know if it's just and for the record, Jimmy's a great regular season player. He's just not you know, twenty seven to seven and seven, which is generally what you get from the other big ford superstars in the league. He's just a tier below that in the regular season, which is going to perpetually keep him in that ten

to fifteen range. For the record, there's some legitimacy to that fact, like him being that type of kind of coast a little bit in the regular season type of player actually does lead to seating issues and you know, putting yourself in a predicament where you have to go on the road to Milwaukee in the first round to try to win a series. Now, mind you, there was a lot going on from a roster construct standpoint with Miami, but he's not the floor raising eighty two game MVP

level superstar. But then you put him in a playoff series and he can play just as well as those guys. This is no longer just a coincidence. This is no longer oh, he got hot a couple of times. This is a career resume now from Jimmy Butler, of him going up a level and being one of the most devastating playoff players in the league. I had so much fun watching him last night. It kind of felt somewhat of a crowning achievement, so to speak, and the best

way other than winning a championship. And he may never win a championship, especially if he can't find himself on a roster with a little bit more talent. But this is a big part of why, you know, as much as winning is the ultimate goal and it should be the framework with which we evaluate these guys. The at the end of the day, Jimmy is a winner. He's every bit as much of a winner as some of the guys around the league that do have championships, and

I hope he gets credit for that. Looking at the series in particular, you know, I said before Game four, I said that I didn't think there was any reason to worry for Milwaukee until Giannis, for whatever reason, had to miss a game, and then they announced he's gonna play in game four, and now they're legitimately is a reason to worry. Not because I don't think Milwaukee's the better team. I still think Milwaukee's a better team. It's just the reality of their predicament now that their margin

for error is gone. This is what happened in this series. The Giannis goes down with an injury in Game one, Milwaukee kind of is flattened. As a result, they lose. Then without Yanis, they beat the shit out of the Heat in game two, Game three. Mike Budenholzer in the staff, I would imagine look around and they said, hey, we can beat them without Yannis. Let's buy him some extra rest, let's go play. But you end up losing. Okay whatever, Giannis comes back, They're up twelve with six minutes left

on the road. The Bucks played more than well enough to win this game. Now here's the thing, and this is the reality of what happens when you make a decision like sitting Yannis in game three, you cut into your margin for air. Why is margin for air important? Because in basketball games, any sort of variance can happen. Right For instance, in that fourth quarter run, I watched it again this morning. They're up twelve. You know, Miami

made a lot of characteristically difficult shots. The run started. Bam Adepayo hits a pull up jump shot. That's you know, Bam Aebio is not typically a guy that you expect to just dribble up the floor and beat you off the dribble and make a jump shot. But he did good for the band. Very next possession, another pull up

jump shot from Jimmy Butler. Now, there was one tactical thing that was hurting Miami that will or that was hurting Milwaukee that will get to in a second, where they got a couple of really good looks on specifically an and one from Jimmy Butler. And then there was another play where he got downhill. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I think he finished at the rim twice during that stretch against this specific tactical issue

for Milwaukee that we'll talk about in a second. But outside of that, it was all pull up jump shots. Jimmy pull up jump at the foul line, Bam pull up jumper at the foul line, Caleb Martin a contested jab step three in the corner with Giannis's hand in his face, and then Jimmy Butler, who shot twenty eight percent on pull up threes this year, makes back to

back highly difficult pull up threes off the bounce. That's what look chances are, same shot diet, you probably win, right Like Jannis missed a short, little hook shot in the lane in the final minute when they were down one that would have given them the lead. Yan has just missed it. You know that shot missed, and Jimmy made pull up threes again. That's where the margin for

error comes in. You have to account for the fact that on any given night, the other team can just make some shots that they don't normally make, and you can miss some shots that you normally make, and you can lose. I'm not trying to take credit away from Miami. They earned that win. My point is is like they also shot above their shot quality down the stretch. For

forty two minutes. Milwaukee was clearly the better team in Miami's home arena, and they were up twelve, and normally, if you're up three to zero or you're up two to one. You drive home and you're like, nah, they got us. You know they beat us. Congratulations. You know, you build margin for error by having a lead in the series. My favorite example of this from last year was Bucke or Heat Celtics. If you guys remember the Celtics went into Miami beat the Heat in game five,

so they bought themselves a three to two lead. Game six was this crazy bam ad a Bio game. Remember I think he had thirty something and bam Ade Bio like, say what you want about him. He's not the guy that goes and gets you thirty. He's just not. But he went and got thirty in game six, and the Heat stole a game. But because they had a lead, they bought themselves the margin for air to weather that storm, and then they went into Miami and beat them in game seven. That's kind of the way I see this

sort of thing. You went down to one, and then you got the crazy pull up shooting Jimmy Butler game, which was always on the table, and now you're down three to one. Now as of right now, the Bucks are an eleven point favorite, I think in game five, so they're probably gonna win This is why I said, like last night, I was gonna be looking at FanDuel odds for when for whether or not Milwaukee can win

the series, because like it really is as simple. You go home and you beat the Heat, which you're gonna be a double digit favit, you are a double digit favorite. You should win that game, right, So now it's three to two. Then you go back to Miami and you're probably gonna be a four or five point favorite in that game. That doesn't mean you can't win. That's gonna be a difficult or that doesn't mean you're going to win.

It's gonna be a very difficult game. But if Milwaukee goes into Miami in Game six and plays Milwaukee Bucks basket for forty eight minutes, they should win. They have more talent. Not only does this Miami team have is not only is this Miami team devoid of size, but they're down two additional shot creators in Tyler Harrow and Victor Oladipo. Now, they've been getting a lot of contributions elsewhere.

We talked about the Caleb Martin shot. Kyle Lowry was freaking outrageous defensively down the stretch of this game containing Chris Middleton switching on to Drew Holliday to get a key strip and stop at the end. Like, I didn't think Milwaukee's offense was that bad down the stretch. They

really did get good looks. The only two plays I didn't like was the play where Drew Holliday isolated Kyle Lowry and got stripped, and then there was another play where they turned it over at the half court line when Jimmy got the dunk to put them up one. Other than that, Milwaukee ran pretty damn good offense down the stretch. But Chris Middleton missed two pull up jump shots that are like good looks for him, like higher percentage shots for him than some of the pull up

jumpers that Miami made. There was a wide open three for Pat Connaton in the left corner on a kickout I believe from Giannis if I remember correctly, that was dead on and just rattled in and out. You know, Giannis misses the little hook shot in the lane. The Bucks played well. They just lost, which is something that can happen in any one game sample size. But I was looking at I was like, okay, if this is if they got If the Bucks become a significant underdog.

I'd like to bet them, because it's just I would put the odds of this series at about a coin flip right now. I think there's about a fifty percent chance that Miami wins one of the next two games, and I think there's about a fifty percent chance that the Bucks just win three straight. So if I could find the odds to make that a worthwhile bet, I would take it. But it turns out I think Milwaukee's only like plus one twenty, which is pretty close to a coin flip anyway, and not really a good enough

number in my opinion to bet. But it's not over for the Bucks, however. They are now at a point where they have absolutely zero margin for air. They absolutely have to play forty eight minutes forty eight minutes forty eight minutes of championship level Bucks basketball because now they cannot afford to be beaten by variants. They need to play ten to fifteen points better than the heat every

night to avoid whatever could crazy could happen. One last thing I wanted to talk about was the Jimmy Butler problem. So we did a show yesterday in the morning, our Chase three points segment where we talked about the key adjustments for a bunch of these series, and the main one that I talked about was for this series was Giannis has to guard Jimmy. He, like Drew Holliday, is

simply not bothering him. They started running a Jimmy was really trying to attack Chris Middleton, and one of the tactical things that I didn't like was like, Okay, yeah, Chris Middleton is going to struggle a little bit in that matchup compared to Drew. Like There was a play where they got a switch down the stretch where Jimmy drove into Chris Middleton's chest and drew a foul and made it got an had one, but it was a tough shot and at least it was heavily contested and

against their set defense. There were two additional plays down the stretch where they tried to hedge and recover and as a result they gave up driving lanes. There was one where on the left wing where Jimmy calls for the ball screen, gets Chris Middleton to hedge out, and then as Chris Middleton is recovering, he runs into Drew Holiday and Jimmy gets a clear driving lane to the left and makes a kickout pass to Caleb Martin on the right wing, who had just made a three, and

he makes a three. It's a wide open three for a shooter that was in rhythm and hot, specifically because they tried to hedge and recover with Chris Middleton and instead of just switching and having Jimmy have to actually beat Chris Middleton off the dribble, he got a wide open driving lane because Chris botched the hedge and recover and Drew ran into it on the first pull up three that Jimmy Butler made, same thing Chris Middleton brought

up into the screen. He hedges in that gap between when he's recovering and before Drew Holliday can come up. Jimmy steps into a pretty good look from three at the top of the key, so he's having plenty of success against Drew. Everything that he's doing with Drew to attack Chris is causing problems. Get Giannis involved. He's wasted elsewhere. Jimmy is not being bothered by Giannis and help at all. But maybe, just maybe, if you have Giannis just hawk

him all game long, you can slow him down. The dude's shooting like sixty percent in the series, and nobody on your roster can guard him except for the guy that I think might be the best defensive player in the league, which is Yannis. You gotta try. Yeah, it's a lot to ask. Yeah, he's hurt, clearly heard. I had a lot of Heat fans in my comments yesterday, like, oh, you said, there's no chance the Heat can beat if Yannis plays every game in this series. They're up three

to one right now. That's that's just a fact in my opinion. Like, Yah, Yannis when he's healthy on the Bucks in particular, makes them way better than the Heat. Credit to the Heat, credit to Jimmy. I'm not trying to take away from it at all. In general, the playoffs are a war of attrition. It's about who survives it. Saw Nick Wright on Fox Sports the other day talking about how, you know, oh, the Warriors have been so lucky with injuries. I mean, yeah, they've had some luck.

But like every NBA Finals is a war of attrition, it just simply is. The Celtics made it to the finals last year in large part because Chris Middleton was gone in the Milwaukee Bucks series, that's just what happened, Right, The Warriors got to play a Nuggets team down two of their top three players, Like it's it's part of the deal. The year before, in twenty twenty one, the Milwaukee Bucks got a lot of injury luck along the way. That's that's just what happened. They got to play a

really flawed Suns team in the finals. In twenty twenty, the Lakers Steph Curry, Kevin Durant on their couches not playing. Bam Adebayo hurts his shoulder. Goran Drodgits pulls his groin or whatever. I think it was plantar fasci itis. I can't remember exactly what it is, but he had an injury, like every year, twenty nineteen, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson get hurt, twenty eighteen, Chris Paul gets hurt twenty seventeen, Kawhi Leonard gets hurt twenty sixteen. Like it's just it's a war

of attrition. So I'm not trying to take away from what Miami did, but like, my prediction was based on the fact that Giannis would play the series and be healthy. But it's it's not over. I'd say, like I said, I'm thinking it's about a fifty to fifty shot right now. If I had to gun to my head pick, I'm gonna stick with the Bucks. But just because I haven't seen anything specifically skimly that leads me to believe that Miami's better, they just they just they wield themselves to

a big win yesterday. It reminds me a little bit of the two thousand and six series between the Suns and the Lakers, where through four games, Kobe's clearly the best player, just like Jimmy's been clearly the best player through four games, and through heroics by Kobe Bryant in Game four and heroics by Jimmy Butler in Game four, they take a three to one lead. But you know what happened. The Sun's won game five, and then they won Game six, and then they won game seven, and

that's certainly on the table for the Bucks. It's not a lot of Bucks fans like saying, ship everyone off. Only Giannis gets to stay. Time to mix up the roster, and this roster has some flaws. They're a little bit old, they're a little bit slow, but they're also huge, outstanding defensively and have a pretty decent amount of offensive skill, and there is no team around the league that is perfect, so the grass isn't always greener. On the other side, you might make a bunch of roster shifts and be

a worst team next year. This is not over. The Bucks are still in this. But credit to Jimmy, credits to the heat. Like I said in that last playing game, was it against Chicago. I think I was rooting for Miami to win because I thought they would give a better fight till Milwaukee, and they certainly have lived up to that. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. We are all three games tonight are double digit favorites. I just actually placed a little moneyline parlay on all three.

I think it pays out like one to two, So you know, you bet ten dollars, you get five back. I just did those games. I think I think you'll see Atlanta, in particular, will fold. The Clippers just simply don't have enough offensive skill. Minnesota. Denver's the one that's kind of up in the air because in the last in Game four and in Game two, Minnesota gave Denver a lot of issues, so they certainly have a chance.

But this is a long grind, and we're trying to find handfuls of, you know, a night here, a night there where I can actually hang out with my wife a little bit. So we're going to take tonight off and then we will be back for just a wild slate of games on Wednesday night. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys, and I'll see you on Wednesday. The volume