In a way, it’s nice to see that the Bucks can still make the Raptors work really hard over the entire regulation plus two overtimes just to win a game where the Milwaukee starters go 19 for 59 from the field. It’s only small consolation, given that this isn’t just a random regular season game where one loss doesn’t mean much but is instead a playoff game where every contest has large implications and moral victories are worth nothing. But it does provide hope for the future; there’s no way the starters play this bad again, right? Right? RIGHT?
For comparison, Malcolm Brogdon and George Hill combined for 15 buckets, almost matching the starters by themselves. Add in the three buckets from Pat Connaughton and the single shot from Ersan Ilyasova and the “bench mob” equaled the starters’ output exactly despite taking way fewer shots and playing way fewer minutes.
The Bucks’ strategy of having a different random role-player or two to step up every game works great when all the starters don’t simultaneously decide that they’re going to throw up bricks for the entire game and then continue throwing up even brickier bricks in the overtimes. They have a lot of good offensive players who can go off on any given night, and it’s just a shame that it didn’t work out this time. God dammit. I can’t believe I watched this whole game. I should no better than to tempt the gods of heart disorders by watching so many high-pressure possessions.
So shout out to Brogdon for showing up when hardly anyone else did. I still have no idea how he makes any threes/free-throws/jumpers at all with that wonked-out push-shot of his, but his membership in the exclusive 50-40-90 club doesn’t lie. Just out of curiosity, I watched some of his high school highlights (of which there aren’t many, he must not have been very hyped up back then) and man, his shot was kind of a one-handed catapult over his head. Some coach must have “fixed” it, making it more compact and replicable (and successful), but couldn’t that coach have been Mark Price or someone qualified to craft aesthetic-looking jumpshot forms?