Hoops Tonight - NBA Power Rankings: Will Giannis Antetokounmpo lead Bucks to another title? - podcast episode cover

Hoops Tonight - NBA Power Rankings: Will Giannis Antetokounmpo lead Bucks to another title?

Sep 30, 202236 min
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Jason Timpf breaks down the Milwaukee Bucks ahead of the 2022-2023 NBA season. With Giannis Antetokounmpo being the best player in the league and Khris Middleton returning from injury, will the Bucks return to the NBA Finals? #Volume

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The volume. What's up, guys, It's Jason from Hoops Tonight, presented by FanDuel. Football season is here and there is no better place to get in on the action than with FanDuel. It's my favorite sports gambling app out there. It's safe, secure, and easy to use. They have exclusive offers, tons of ways to play like spread and money line over under his team totals, same game parlays where you can combine multiple bets from the same game. My favorite

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hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, Welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Vandel here at the volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I hope all of you guys have had a great week so far. Continuing with our power rankings today with number three the Milwaukee Bucks, the team that has the best player in the world in my opinion, and Janice Antenna Combo and the champions from that we're

taken down by injuries last year. Very dangerous basketball team that's very interesting and we're gonna get into the weeds with them today. You guys know the drill. 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 jin lt so you guys don't miss

any show announcements. And last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys can't get back over to YouTube to finish one of these videos, we do put them in podcast form wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight. And lastly, before we get started, I wanted to shout out our partner again a product to that I've been using every single day for the last couple of months, and that's

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let's move on to the Milwaukee Bucks. So last year they went fifteen and one, excuse me, fifty one and thirty one. They lost in the second round in seven games to the Boston Celtics without Chris Middleton obviously, and that was one hell of a barn burner of a series. They actually went up three two at one point, winning a huge game on the Road in Game five in Boston. In the regular season, they were third in offense and defense.

Excuse me, brook Lopez only played in thirteen regular season games. That's the big thing that most Bucks fans point to as it pertains to their defense. I do think it goes a little deeper than that. There's too much talent on that roster to not be able to get more stops even without brook Lopez, but that's certainly played a little bit of a role. Janice was my m v P last year. I would have given it to him over Nikola yokich I thought he was a better all

around basketball player last year. I think there's just fatigued with the honest and there's just a lot of hype behind yokich I like yokich I believe in everything he does, but the movement with him is getting a little bit out of control. The same goes for Joel Embiid. Those guys are very good. There are better players. I thought Janice played better last year too. He would have been

my m v P if I had a vote. Um I also thought that the Eastern Conference was a lot tougher than the Western Conference last year, and too often we cling to records, and we'll say like, oh, like, you know, Yokich managed to you know, pull off almost fifty wins with that group or whatever it is, And too often we forget that, like the day in, day out schedule, when you play, you know, the vast majority of your games against your own conference, it's just easier

to put up better advanced metrics. It's easy year to put up wins. Then when the conference is tougher. It actually reminds me a lot of Lebron in twenty I thought, you know, the Bucks finished a couple of games ahead of them and the standings, and everyone clung to that,

and everyone clung to the advanced metrics. But in that season, the bottom of the Eastern Conference was absolute trash and you were just stacking up wins, and the Bucks were like nearly undefeated against those teams and beat them all by a million points every time, and it just inflated the heck out of their advanced metrics, and it it inflated Janice's MVP case that year, and I actually thought Lebron deserved it in It's kind of a similar thing

for me with Joannice this year. I thought Janice did more in a tougher conference, missing his back line partner in in In Brook Lopez, and put together a really damn good season. I would have had him as the m v P. I think he's the best player in the world right now. As well. His performance in that uh in that Boston Celtics series was ridiculous. It was inefficient by his standards, but so was everyone when they

faced Boston except for Steph Curry. And with Steph Curry, they ran a coverage that Steph's elite skill specifically targeted, and so it was. And don't get me wrong, I'm doing this whole thing because obviously, as you guys can guess, Number two and number one are two teams that played in the NBA Finals last year, the Celtics and the Warriors,

not in that order, in some order. I'm not gonna reveal it right now, but in that series I have for these two videos coming up in the next two days, I'm completely rewatching the NBA Finals just to learn a lot more about what those teams did schematically and just to rehash that series for this over the course of these next two videos. And I cannot tell you how much Ema Udoka got out coached in that series. It's difficult for me to even explain to you at this point.

I'm still trying to put all of that together, but like it was jarring the gap in in schematic competency between Steve Kerr and in Email Udoka, and it was a huge part of why Boston lost that series. And it's a huge part of why Steph was so good in that series compared to some of the other stars around the league and how they played against that Boston Celtics defense. That's a credit to Steph for the record. That's not a shot at Steph. But I don't blame

Janice for his inefficiency. K D had inefficiency issues. Um Literally every Jimmy Butler had three games in a row where he had like fourteen points or less in the Conference finals. Every star struggled a bid against that Celtics defense. But Janice was extraordinarily impressive in that series. On both ends of the floor. He flashed levels of high end

playmaking that I didn't think he was capable of. As I've always said, Janice and his ability to pass the basketball was always what mattered the most to me in his development, way more than shot making. Because the reality is you can't stop him from getting to the rim. The only way you can stop him from getting to

the rim is by crowding him. And it's actually easier for him to beat that by passing the basketball than it is by him shooting over the top, especially with how far he still has to come as a shop maker outside of the paint. He's still incredibly inconsistent and that, and he is a very long way to go in that department. But if he passes the basketball this well, it just doesn't even matter. But what you saw in that series is that he's physically completely impossible to stop

at this point. And even when you saw Grant Williams and Al Horford have some success against him early in the series, by the end of the series he was going through them like tissue paper too, even in big moments. And so uh that that Celtics series, even in a losing effort, solidified Nice to me as the best player in the world right now. Um I again, we talked

about this yesterday and the Warriors media day thing. I think for bragging rights purposes, it's cool to call Steph the best player in the world, but I think even Warriors fans would acknowledge that what Janice can do on both ends of the floor right now is just at another level than really anybody else in the league. This offseason, they made two first round first round draft pick in the second round draft pick. I'm not going to talk about them today. One. I don't think they're gonna play

much in the rotation too. I don't know a ton about them, and I'm not a big believer in coming on here and just talking when I don't know what I'm talking about. So I'm gonna reserve my opinions on those two guys until I watched them play more NBA basketball. They resigned Bobby Portis, Wesley Matthews, Sirgebaka, and Javon Carter. They signed Joe Ingles, who actually really liked as long

as he can get his health back. He does really well defending big wings because he's got good uh he's got a good frame, he slides his feet well, and he's really good at anticipating changes in direction. He's a very smart defensive player. He does struggle to contain quicker players, but in the in this scheme, with how much size they have on the back line, it's a little less important He's a very good spot up player, which is important because that's the very specific weakness in this Buck's

roster right now. He shoots the ball really well and he attacks closeouts well, especially as a passer. So I thought it was a really smart pick up for Milwaukee, and I think it's gonna make them better. They did lose Donte DiVincenzo to the Warriors, but he was hurt last year. He uh, they're essentially running things back though they want a chip essentially with this group in and they nearly beat the Celtics without their second best player, there was no reason for them to do any sort

of massive shake up. Looking at the depth chart at the guard position, Drew Holiday, George Hill, Javon Carter. On the wings, they have Jana Sntenna Kombo, Chris Middleton, Grayson Allen, Joe Ingles, Pat Conaton, and Wesley Matthews. In the bigs, Brook Lopez, Bobby Portera, Surgebaka and then Janice and for all intents and purposes, is a big as well. You

guys know the drill. The way we're gonna do this is we're gonna dive into what they do on the offensive end of the floor, dive into what they do on the defensive end of the floor. Then we'll talk about what their best case scenario is, their worst case scenario, and their biggest X factor. So on offense, I wanted to start with their transition attack because, as you know, typically it's an ancillary thing for most teams. Most teams in the league run when it's convenient, they see an opportunity,

they'll push the ball at the floor um. In general, the pace of the game kind of takes that field around the league for all thirty teams. But this is a team that consistently pushes the break. This is a team that struggles to score in the half court because they don't have great creation, especially in a situation like what happened last year when Chris Middleton goes down the you know, Drew Holiday can be somewhat inconsistent as a score.

Janice is better in transition and better in the right like he struggles a little bit when things are really crowded in front of him in the half court, and Chris Middleton could be inconsistent from time to time. So pushing and transition is just smart for this team. They were third in frequency last year and excuse me. They scored one point one four points per possession on transition plays. Uh,

this is mostly Janice pushing the break. When Janice gets ahead of steam in transition, teams have to build a wall and when they do, it opens up shooting opportunities. And then in addition to that, it creates an initial advantage that allows them to flow into their motion offense. So before we go any further on that concept, I thought was really interesting. Darvin ham Um in his first day at training camp, this was going around on social

media yesterday. He drew some boxes on the court, or had the staff tape some boxes on the court, two in the deep corners and then one that extended basically the dunker spot underneath the basket. And apparently Darvin Hamm's reasoning there and this is something apparently he picked up from Mike Budenholzer and there's some other coaches that do

it around the league. But essentially they want to dissuade or take away from team's ability to build the wall, and the best way to do that is to sprint to the corners so that you have spray out options or to force transition defenders to take out to take off to the to the corners, and then in the dunker spot. Obviously, if you run to the wall, that's a guy you can drop the ball off too. And essentially he's preaching if we sprint to these three spots

on every transition possession, it makes them impossible. It makes it impossible for them to build the wall, and that opens up Lebron James and transition. That was Darvin Hamm's reasoning, and that's kind of essentially the concept of of of what Milwaukee tries to do to beat the wall. They push the ball in transition and they look for those

kickout passes to three point shooters. And again, this is a team that does well when there is an advantage, but from time to time they can struggle to generate an advantage. One of the easiest ways to do that is just to have Janice barrel down the floor. Even if they do stop you, you typically someone's gonna have a kickout pass with a little bit of an advantage.

And as long as they can attack that close out and extend the advantage and start that rotation process where the balls being driven and kicked around the floor, that's where you can get good shots early in the shot clock. Their primary motion offense, they run a lot of sets. They run stuff out of horns, they run stuff with one one guy in the high post and four corners.

It's a lot of a lot of like cross screening Lopez and Janice to try to get different screen defenders onto Janna so that he can set ball screens and things like that. They do some Janice Middleton stuff. Their general motion offense is pistol, and the foundational concept of pistol is basically a dribble handoff that flows into a ball screen, and that interchange makes it difficult to guard the pick and roll. So, you know, my last year in college when I played Arizona Christian, we were a

pick and roll offense. And that conference that I was in had all sorts of amazing guards, like all American incredible guards. The guard play in that conference was ridiculous, and so most teams ran a ton of pick and roll and so the vast majority of our practices, like a good forty minutes a day, we were literally just

set up and run pick and roll. Coverage is trying to guard two on two so that we could learn the different spots on the floor of what our pick and roll coverages would be and I obviously for the most part, was defending on the ball. And when you're on the ball defending in ball screens, it's so important to get set up. So for instance, if we're on the side of the floor and we're running ice, an ice coverage dictates that I have to force the ball

handler to reject the screen. So if the ball handlers on the wing and the bigs coming to set a screen, that he wants to come off that ball screen towards the middle of the floor right, so I literally will get up and take away his left hand to force him back towards the right, and then my big man is waiting for him, essentially in a drop coverage around

the block. There are different ways to attack that pull up jump shooting from the guard position always helps, and then it's a pick and pop is always the best way to attack it as the screener. But my point is is as the ball defender, I have to get pre positioned to send the guy the way I want him to go right, and a typical drop coverage, I have to prepare myself to fight fight over the top of the screen, so I'm hugging up to the ball handler.

I'm getting my steps right to take these lunging steps to get around. I'm getting low and set so that I can initiate contact with the screeners so I don't get caught on it. Right, There's all these different things I gotta do well. There's an interchange before the interchange that takes away my ability to get set. So if I'm guarding Drew Holiday or h and I'm in the corner and Chris Middleton has the ball at the top of the key and he does a dribble handoff into Drew.

By the time Drew has the basketball, I'm already out of position and he's flowing into a ball screen with Janice And so because of that, it takes away team's ability to set up their pick and roll coverage. It's a basic interchange, and that concept is the foundational concept of the pistol offense. A dribble handoff that flows into a ball screen. And they run a ton of this down in Milwaukee. They also run a lot of what

I called double pick and roll. This is essentially where uh this used to be run all the time in the NBA when we used to have two bigs consistently, not as much anymore. It's also really heavily used at the lower levels of hoops, like in high school and in college um because a lot of teams lean on size there just because the ball handling is not as

good at the lower levels. But basically all that is is you have Brook, Lopez and Jannas set simultaneous ball screen spaced out by maybe five ft, and as Drew comes down, one of the big men will roll to the basket and the other will replace to the top of the key. A lot of teams will mix that up to try to confuse you. For Milwaukee, it's a lot of Janice rolling to the rim and Lopez bouncing out because he's a little bit more consistent as a

three point shooter. But essentially it's designed to confuse you, and the vast majority of teams, both of their screen defenders will end up dropping back and or one of them will have to help on the ball handler and the other will drop back. So almost always the big man is wide open at the top of the key, and if he's got a good look, he can shoot it. If the defenders closing out at him, he can swing it,

or that can flow into a drible handoff. It's a basic way to get the ball to the top of the key wide open that can flow into your next action. One of the other one of the other most common ways that that the Bucks initiate their offense is transition post ups. So all three of Chris, Drew, and Joannice are good back to the basket players in different ways. Like Drew can bully most of the smaller guards in

the league. Chris Middleton, his specialty is literally to shoot over the top of defenders that are smaller than him.

And then Janice obviously is just a freak of nature physically, so a lot of times what they'll do is when they get a stop, whoever has that ball will just run up the floor and turn their back to the basket at about the three point line and back down to the block, and then inevitably one ends up happening is the defense kind of collapses on them, and that's how they get their initial advantage to start their drive

and kick. Almost every team in the league has a foundational concept to generate the initial advantage from there, it's about playing basketball, and playing basketball means extending the advantage until somebody gets a wide open three, or somebody cuts to the basket, gets wide up and lamp, or someone is able to drive to the basket. That shell action, though, is done a bunch of different ways. Some teams, like the Brooklyn Nets, do it through a ton of high

pick and roll. Some teams like the the Los Angeles Lakers and the Milwaukee Bucks do it through a ton of post ups. Some teams like the Miami Heat and the Golden State Warriors do it through a ton of sets. But the point is is all of it is designed to generate that initial advantage so that everyone else can work on extending the advantage and get a good look

out of it. For the Bucks, one of their most common ways to do that is their transition post ups UM isolation, so they were the fourth most frequent isolation team in the league, seventh most efficient. They have three walking mismatches. Like we talked about earlier, Drew Holiday is too big for most guards, Chris specializes in shooting over the top of smaller defenders, and Janice is probably the

biggest mismatching all of basketball. When I was watching the footage from the Celtics Bucks series earlier, when we were doing UM, the player rankings and I was covering Nice. The one of the funniest things in that series was how when Janice managed to get Tatum or Brown on a switch, he literally ripped through them like tissue paper.

And these are the best perimeter defenders in the league, some of the best perimeter defenders in all of basketball on the wing and a specific archetype of perimeter defender that is considered by most gms to be the most valuable defensive position in all of basketball, and he was ripping through them like tissue paper. He's too fast for bigs. So really, the only type of player that has any hope of guarding a Janice is the super strong, bulky,

low center of gravity forwards. And that's why you saw guys like Grant Williams do okay. Al Horford did okay too. He's kind of a unique archetype. If I was building a defender in a lab to guard Janice, it would be a Lebron James or Draymond Green, someone who's undersized to play the big but is as big and strong

as most of the biggs in the league. I think it would be awesome for the league if we got a Bucks Warriors Finals this year, and it would be an incredible matchup to watch Draymond Green try to guard you honest for an entire series. As basketball fans, we should all be wishing for something like that at some point in the future, because I think it'd be really fun to watch. Isolation teams that rely on shot making can be really inconsistent. So when you hear fourth most ISOs,

there's an initial kind of recoil over. You're like, Oh, that sounds stagnant, sounds like they don't move the ball much. That sounds silly, right, But their isolation is different. It relies on bullyball. It's a lot of physical uh trying to uh like for enforce your physicality on the opponent. Rather than the Kevin Durant Kyrie Irving, we're taking crazy off the dribble jump shots. Like in isolation, teams that rely on shot making can be inconsistent. Isolation teams that

rely on bullyball can make you feel utterly helpless. And that's kind of like the Bucks Lakers dynamic, where it's like, sometimes the offense can look uh stagnant. Sometimes it can look like things are crowded in the paint, and then there's not enough movement. But then it's like a lot of Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Johannae Antenna, Cumbo, Drew Holiday, and Chris Middleton just bullying you to get whatever they want.

And that's why it works. All three of those guys give you about one point per possession in ISO, which is above average. That's why they are successful as an isolation team. M They were eight in pick and roll ball handler efficiency seventh and rollman official efficiency, so they're good pick and roll team. Part of that is, like I was talking about the pistol sets running interchanges before they flow into pick and roll to make it hard

for them to guard. That's something I'd love to see the Lakers do more of because too often they're just too brute force and there's not enough Uh, there's not enough motion flowing into what they like to do. Uh. Janice, Chris, and Drew are all in the seventi percentile or better as pick and roll ball handlers. Janice was seventh in pick and roll efficiency as a rollman among those who registered at least one D role possessions. Bigging that stood out to me on tape this year was just how

well he's passing out of the short role. Obviously, Janice catches the ball in the short roll, he's getting dunks and fouls all the time, but he's also passing really well out of that role. Right now, they ran the third most post ups in the entire NBA. Janice was really efficient here, Drew and Chris less so. But the big thing here is less them scoring out of the post for Drew and Chris, and more than just initiating

the offense. Like I talked about, to start possessions to get that initial rotation, that initial advantage that they can expand um spotting up. There were ninth inefficiency and spot up possessions during the regular season, but I thought this was a big part of what got them beat in the Celtics series they Boston. By the end of the series, when they realized they couldn't stop him in single coverage,

We're sending the kitchen sink towards Joannice. You know it'd be Grant Williams on him, but you'd have two guys in both driving lanes just waiting for him to put the ball on the floor, and the Bucks were just incapable of capitalizing on that attention. Sent towards Johannice. In that series, the Bucks were thirty three on catching shoot threes, thirty six percent on wide open threes. That's when the

defenders at least six ft away. That's just not good enough to win a playoff series when you've got a superstar that teams are going to be throwing the kitchen sync at. A couple of things are gonna help a lot here. One Joe Joe Ingles getting into the rotation. I just think he's a much better spot up player than most of the guys they have on the roster.

And then to Chris Middleton. Like obviously we think of Chris Middleton as this excellent shot creator, a guy that fills Janice's specific weakness as a guy who can knock down shots over the top of the defense, but it's also an off ball thing. It's also when Janice has the ball, Chris Middleton is just a deadly spot up player. So by putting Chris Middleton back into a spot up roll back in there to help with spot up possessions,

and by having Joe Ingles is a better option. If Grayson Allen or Pat Contatton are just not playing well on any particular night. I just think it gets I think it just increases their options there. So that's what

got them beat last year. But I do think that that gets a dress us to when they're healthy and um and with the Joe Angle signing, Chris Middleton's loss in the playoffs, him getting hurt took away just enough of that spot up threat and just enough of that on ball creation and shot making to allow Boston to swarm me on us and fatigue him. That's why he looks so tired in Game seven. Limit his efficiency, and the guys off the ball weren't able to make enough

shots and that's what costs in the series. But what's crazy is they still were right there, you know, with a chance to win late in Game six, and they just happened to lose that series, uh, you know, by a late flurry from Jayson Tatum to win Game six and then they ran out of gas in Game seven.

When healthy, this is an offense that is built for the playoffs, that relies on bullyball with smart role players, and it allows them to capitalize on the attention that sent towards the honest it will not be nearly as easy to knock them out this this year, and it wasn't easy last year. That's why they're such a dangerous team. Moving to the defensive end of the floor. So there's some metrics from last year first, before we go any further.

Their fourteenth in defensive writing obviously not good, but they had a lot of good stats. They were third best overall in the league at defending the paint. They were the best transition defense in the league according to Cleaning the Glass on a per possession basis, and they were the second best defensive rebounding team, and they were the best at not fouling. They led the league and free

throw attempts allowed per one possessions. So that's a lot of good stats that speak very highly of Mike Budenholzer and the attention to detail that this team has on the defensive end of the floor. But they were dead last and defending the three point line. They gave up more than twenty wide open threes per game, which was worst in the league. And they didn't force any turnovers. They were sent seven and opponent's turnovers per one possessions. And the reason why here is this is a classic

over helped team. When you're watching film and I watched a bunch of film on them yesterday. They on any possession that anybody has the basketball, the other four players almost always have a foot in the paint. There By design, they're trying to dare you to shoot at the expense of making everything impossible in the painted area, which is why they were such a bad matchup for that Chicago Bulls team that looked utterly helpless against them. And in general,

it's it's it's kind of an interesting playoff. Uh, it's kind of an interesting playoff strategy because role players do typically get nervous in the playoffs, and role players shooting is one of the first things that tends to go in the playoffs, and and so I get it from a strategy standpoint, But the risk there is that what if they make shots and what ended up happening in game six in game seven of the Conference semifinals against Boston is Boston shot from three and made thirty nine

threes in game six in game seven and you lost. So as a strategy, it can burn you, and it did in this particular case. But then again, if I'm Mike Budenholzer, I'm saying, Okay, yeah, that's all great. But if I have Chris Middleton, we're probably winning that series in five or six games. UM. I think the other thing too that kind of hurts them guarding the three

point line is they're a little bit slow footed in general. Um. Sometimes they have these lineups with like Drew Holiday and Wesley Matthews, who, even though you know Drew's a great athlete, they're shorter and so their strides are shorter, and so they don't cover ground as quickly. And then obviously you've got brook Lopez who's a little bit lumbering. So if you get Brooklyn, or if you get Milwaukee in rotation, they can be a little bit slow to close out

UM two shooters as well. This is a vintage defense. They play gigantic lineups with tons of size and strength. They do the least switching of any team I've seen on this list so far. Most of the teams are switching one through four and then just running drop coverages from the center position. Some of the more modern thinking teams are switching everything. You watch the Milwaukee Bucks game, and it's Drue Holiday fighting through off ball screens. It's

Chris Middleton fighting through off ball screens. They will switch when they need too. But there's a whole lot of just we're playing old fashioned basketball. Stick your man, and we're not going to We're not going to make things easier on you by switching. You've got your responsibility and you stay with that guy. They run drop coverage with

crazy help from the weak side corner. They love to set it up where you know, Brooke is navigating the ball screen as the screen defender, and then Janice is just abandoning. You know, whether it's Patrick Williams in the in the Bulls series or whoever the hell it is, Robert Williams, wherever the hell it is he's guarding in the Celtics series, he'll just abandon that guy as soon as the screen action starts and he's waiting under the basket.

It's a very, very vintage defense. They're super physical on the perimeter. Wesley Matthews, Pat Connaton and Drew Holiday are both all all three of them are stout guards that play defense with their hands, and that's allowed in the playoffs. It's a great way to contain on the perimeter, and they rebound super well because they're huge, and they completely shut down the paint at the other expense of letting

you shoot threes and hoping you'll miss. But it's it's a very vintage defense, and you know, we can nit pick it all we want, and god knows, I've done a lot of that over the course of the last six months. But the results are there. They were right there anyway, even without Chris Middleton, and they won the title the year before. So what's the best case scenario with this team? Obviously, they win the title one healthy.

They haven't lost a playoff series since the Bubble. Janice is the best player in the world and will likely be the best player in any potential playoff series that he plays. That actually ends up playing a bigger role than most people think. And then, even for teams like the Celtics, Warriors, and Clippers, even if you managed to beat this Bucks team, they're going down in six or seven games. This is not a team that anybody's gonna knock out in four or five. They are too physical,

they're too big, they're too talented. They're gonna be royal pain in the ass for everybody. I think they're the third most likely team to win the title. Worst case scenario, even if they lose a star They're still gonna make it to the second round at least as we saw UM, except for Janice if he goes down, But I mean

he that dude's invincible. I literally watched his knee invert in conference finals and he was just ready to go and killed everybody in the in the NBA finals, So I mean one of the it feels like the safest bet in sports that Milwaukee is gonna make it to the second round, come hell or high water next year. So they have a pretty decent Uh, they have a pretty good worst case scenario. Biggest X factor for this team I think is Joe Ingles. He was a really

solid role player before this injury. Um is competent, like his competent spot up play specifically address as a weakness on this roster, and so I like the fit there. He also gives them more aggregate size. That they play a lot of undersized wings, guys like Wes Matthews, guys

like Pat Connatson, guys like Grayson Allen. Sliding in someone that's a little bit taller there will will kind of open things up for them UM in terms of aggregate size, especially when Janice plays center and Buddenholzer Lean's really heavily into Brook Lopez at center. If you looked at the on off numbers from the Celtics series, they were much much better with the honest at center in that series. He just refused to go to it. But again that's

his vintage approach to the game. But if they ever do start to go to Honest at the center, more ingles gives them more aggregate size to be able to

functionally run those lineups. The bottom line is is if he can get back to what he was or even close and take away some of the weaker minutes that they were given to guys like Grace and Allen, it fills a hole in the roster, it makes them better, and so I think I think he's the biggest X factor for this particular team if he can get back to what he was in his prime years in Utah. Al Right, guys, that is all I have for today.

Starting tomorrow, we're going through number two and number one, and I'm gonna be covering a ton of the NBA Finals. This last year, I'm rewatching. That's my job for the rest of the day. I'm gonna keep rewatching the two thousand two NBA Finals as always, I sincerely appreciate your guys a support and I'll see tomorrow and the volume

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