TOM HABERSTROH: It’s a wait and see for me. Like, I do think Cam Thomas, in some ways, is drop coverage Kryptonite.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that he went off for 45 points against that coverage.
And the Bucks just had no answer for that. So I think it was a little bit of an illusion to say that they are a mess defensively, because hey, the Brooklyn Nets just dropped– what was– how many points did they score last night?
DAN DEVINE: I think it was 125 and 101 possessions. It was a big number.
TOM HABERSTROH: I think it’s going to take some time with Damian Lillard getting acclimated.
It is a big red flag to me that Terry Stotts resigned in the pre-season from the assistant coaching ranks.
Dan, that must have, like, hit you a certain way, right? Wait a minute.
Damian Lillard’s guy is just going to walk away from a championship-contending team? This doesn’t smell right over here.
DAN DEVINE: The offense bleeds into the defense a little bit because when they’ve been stagnant, or when they’ve taken bad shots or had bad turnovers, it kickstarts their– other teams out in transition. And the Bucks have been awful in transition defense. Not getting back.
Some of it is off of live ball turnovers. Some of it’s just like you missed a shot, you’re not busting it back.
And other teams are running it down their throats. They’ve lost whatever made them special on it.
It’s not so much that they’ve lost it. It’s that they’re trying to find other things. And so, they know how good they are in drop coverage.
They know how good they can be when they go smaller with Giannis and Bobby Portis up front and they switch everything.
They hardly ever played zone. They’re playing a ton of it early in the season.
They went with the 23 a ton last night. Part of the reason why is because they’re trying to stop dribble penetration.
And they’re having no luck doing it because as it turns out, when you swap Jrue Holiday and Jevon Carter and Wesley Matthews for, you know, Dame Lillard and Cam Payne and Malik Beasley, your point of attack defense takes a little bit of a hit.
So all of these things are interconnected. And they’re sort of trying stuff out. Giannis– I was able to talk to him briefly last night.
And one thing he said to me was I don’t think we’re trying to find an identity. I think we know our identity.
I think we’re trying to find what works. And we’ve got to be good at everything.
So they’re playing a long game. We’ve got to try all this stuff now to get our reps in because what was the knock on those Coach Bud teams?
They knew exactly how to win regular season games.
But then, when it was time to play left-handed in the postseason, they didn’t have the other pitches in their arsenal.
And this is– I think that’s the goal right now. But it can lead to things looking a little bit clunky in the process.
