Milwaukee vs. Miami: Florida Man Announces Candidacy for Bucks Slayer

The Milwaukee Bucks lost to the Miami Heat by the score of 111-95. Thanks again to the scheduling gods for the early tip-off, but also no thanks to the scheduling gods for a double-header against Miami in Miami with a Friday night in-between.

Losing two games to Miami without Giannis on the back end of what turned into a .500 road trip against decent teams is not the end of the world. That it came at the hands of Gabe Vincent - again - is frustrating, though. He put up 27 two days after a career high of 28. He didn’t do it alone (see: Victor Oladiplo and Bam Adebayo (especially in the fourth) and Jimmy Butler (especially in the first half)), but this man scores 8.8 (or should I say 9?) points per game, folks - that’s triple his average in back-to-back games.

Indeed, it was mostly deja-vu-all-over-again. In particular, the Heat grabbed 13 offensive rebounds to the Bucks 7. Beyond the lack of penetration discussed in the Rapid Recap, that was where Giannis’ absence was felt the most.

If I keep rambling I won’t have any things left over for Three Things, so here we go...

Three Things

The Bucks shot the three-ball.

The Bucks shot 39.6% from three, with Bobby, Brook, Grayson, Jingles, AJ, and Jevon all hitting at a 50% or higher clip. Pat was also good for 40%, even after starting off with several misses. The volume - they hoisted up 48 threes - remains questionable, but perhaps not surprising in the absence of the Greek Freak. Yet, the Heat, despite taking 26 fewer threes, had only eight fewer makes, for a mark of 50% (Vincent: 5-8), leaving them plenty of shots inside the arc (Vincent: 6-6).

AJ Green minutes? AJ Green minutes!

AJ Green was good for 3-6 from beyond the arc in his 17 (!) minutes. His +/- of -5 was among the best, he pulled up quick from deep, and he looked more adequate on defense than in previous games. Perhaps most notably, he received significant run in the second half, unlike a certain puppy-owning first-rounder. Is he the microwave shooter that we’ve all been waiting for? Probably not, but if Adam ends up doing some easy surfing in the coming weeks, maybe he’ll revisit that question for us.

Jingles doing stuff.

Donte is gone, but the stuff remains. Joe Ingles had a very Donte-esque stat line, with 5 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, and only one turnover in 25 minutes of action. (Oh, how much I wish that one of those assists gets voided - a “Snell Waterfall,” if you will). It was great to see him being active on the defensive end, even jumping a pass like Donte for a lay-up on the other end. (Unfortunately, also like Donte, he missed the lay-up - and the put-back to boot. Just that kind of game. ) It was also great to see him jawing with Butler after the latter shoved him and Joe was called for a technical. I’ll take that any day.

*pats self on back for focusing on the positives*

Bonus Bucks Bits

• Kyle-stradamus called the name change at Miami’s stadium, but the FTX Arena banner was still projected on the court during the broadcast. Womp womp.
• Giannis and Jingles had their very elaborate pre-game handshake filmed as Giannis looked on, giggling. We’re going to win a championship, folks.
• SVG hates Oshkosh - in winter. Apparently he’s a big fan of Oshkosh summers?
• Speaking of seasons, I’ve never been to Miami, but I have to say that it looked quite nice on the broadcast. Is it actually? It was apparently a cold day - in the 50s, lol. I’m not sure I could live somewhere that doesn’t get at least mildly cold.
• The Bucks’ coaching staff were rocking their cute tops again.
• The stats room pulled out all of the stops and compared the length of Mamu’s name (20 letters) to the longest name in NBA history (Martynas Andriuškevičius, in case you were wondering). I was confused why they included first names, since we associate players so much with the names on the backs of their jerseys. I also find the hyphenated names to be a little OP, but not sure what you can do about that. Inexplicably long and confusing article on this subject forthcoming.
• The Heat mascot is infernal, but its Wiki page is something else. It’s called “Burnie” (...) and it is a “rough, anthropomorphic depiction of the fireball featured on the team’s logo” - emphasis on rough. Oh, and it’s been charged with aggravated assault and battery, with the case ultimately settled for 50K instead of Burnie being behind bars for 20 years. Can’t make this stuff up, folks.
• Drink every time a national pundit mentions how Brook has transformed his game.
• Let’s end this on the most important note. I’m sure you know the State Farm Commercial where Chris Paul moonlights as a professional race walker. We see a sequence in which he is challenged by a competitor near the finish, but ultimately pulls through. Importantly, the rest of the field finishes close behind the top two.

I actually paid attention to it during one of the commercials, and the ticker - which I seem to have fixated on recently - says that it is a 50K. As in KILOMETERS. Ain’t no way all eight race walkers are finishing a race that takes HOURS at the same time. That might make sense for a 100m race walk, but according to moderately reputable sources, the shortest race walk is 3,000m. I cry foul.

(Update: Justin R commented the same thing on the YouTube video, to the tune of several likes. I hate the Internet.)

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