Milwaukee vs. Memphis: A Night to Forget

Folks, we just witnessed one of the worst regular season games of the Mike Budenholzer as the Milwaukee Bucks lost 142-141 to the Memphis Grizzlies. From what I could tell, the other contenter was the 137-95 loss to Miami in the second game of last year.

It was a putrid shooting first quarter for the Milwaukee Bucks, who rode the offensive strugglebus the entire first 12 minutes as the Grizz took a commanding 33-18 advantage. By halftime, it was 70-41. The Bucks shot 31% to 51% for the Memphis. It was ugly. It got uglier in the third and Bud called off any starters late in the period. Hey, at least MarJon Beauchamp’s existence gives us some level of youthful intrigue to keep our attention in the garbagiest of garbage times! The game ended with a 37% shooting percentage for the Bucks compared to 54% for Memphis.

Three Pointers

Burn the tape.

Burn the tape.

Burn the tape.

In my view, this one generally looked lost almost from the start. Yes we don’t normally see these kind of losses from the Bucks, but the regular season is long and even high-rate clunkers like this can happen. Heck, the Warriors got blown out by almost 40 against a Memphis team without Ja Morant in last year’s playoffs, and they bounced back to win the next game. In my view, I’m just moving on.

Bonus Bucks Bits

• Carter went under the first few Ja Morant screens on the perimeter, prompting him to take a 3-pointer almost every time. George Hill carried on that same strategy once Carter left the game.
• Wouldn’t you know it that one game after Giannis started 0-14 on jumpers, he hit his very first pull-up from the free throw line in this one and then a deep one from straight on.
• George Hill has made a few more threes of late (including in the clutch), but overall he’s been well off his career mark shooting just 33% from deep this season. That’s never felt more true than when his wide open first shot beyond the arc completely missed the rim...and of course he sunk his second one.
• Giannis was creating sublime looks for plenty of his teammates in the early stages of this game, especially with Memphis showing so many bodies his way. Just one teensy problem: practically nobody could pay him off.
• MarJon Beauchamp got back in the regular rotation! He entered with 9:30 in the second. During his extended time on the court, we witnessed a pull-up triple, driving directly into Xavier Tillman at the rim for a finish, and got baseline on David Roddy (his draftmate) and used his bum to create separation at the rim on a layup. There were certainly mistakes too, but there’s enough negativity already to go around for this game.
• Dillon Brooks is definitely one of those players that would be absolutely infuriating if we had to face him four times a year.
• We got lots of early looks at the Middleton-Giannis pick-and-roll in the second quarter. You knew things might not be going the Bucks way when even that bread-and-butter action looked moldy.
• Bud went to an all-switching scheme (even with bRook out there) late in the second. Can’t say I blame him, the Grizz were carving up this Milwaukee team inside, outside and on the fastbreak.
• Khris Middleton shot 1-12 tonight, 8.3%. This is the second time this season he’s shot under 10% from the field (1-11 against Orlando). Yikes. He looks rusty, but I wasn’t expecting him to be Tin Man rusty.