Bucks vs. Pacers NBA Playoffs Game 3: Painfully Close, But No Cigar

12 days ago

Brew Hoop

You can’t say the Milwaukee Bucks went down without a fight, but they did unfortunately go down in an overtime road defeat to the Indiana Pacers, 118-121. The Pacers now hold a 2-1 series lead over the Bucks heading into Sunday’s Game Four tilt.

Bucks vs Pacers - Figure 1 — Photo Brew Hoop

Game Summary

At the very start of the game, you’d not have been insane to have felt at least a little bit of hope with the way the Bucks began the affair. While the offensive shot selection was still iffy, the defense hung together passably enough to avoid letting things get out of hand early. Bobby Portis struggled to make the right decisions or execute properly on both ends (a theme throughout the night, unfortunately), and he’d get sat down eventually for Pat Connaughton once Bobby’s mistakes started stringing together on consecutive possessions. Meanwhile, it was Malik Beasley (-11 in 6:55 of play) getting the first call off the bench in the only quarter he would appears in last night. Myles Turner got loose for a couple of open corner threes while Obi Toppin started going nuts making all five of his shot attempts in under five minutes. When Damian Lillard rolled his ankle and twisted his knee with about three minutes left in the quarter, it looked like yet another grand opening, grand closing for the Bucks. Down 22-39 after one thanks in part to Patrick Beverly getting a nice BS shooting foul at the buzzer.

Lillard would make his return to the floor just a few seconds into the second quarter and didn’t look too hampered doing it. Outside of free throws, though, his shot was not falling this frame, and it fell primarily on Khris Middleton to do the majority of the heavy creation lifting. And lift he did. In Middleton’s matchup with Aaron Nesmith, it can be boiled down to a fight between youthful athletic exuberance and veteran moxie; Khris did a great job isolating Nesmith so that no help defense could rotate over, and then Middleton did his thing — bumping, grinding, hitting turnarounds or spamming enough spin moves to finally get Nesmith out of the way. A mini Middleton run dialed the score back to 26-39 and forced a Rick Carlisle timeout.

In the back half of the second, it was remarkably the Andre Jackson Jr. and Brook Lopez show. AJJ was inserted for his first real run of these playoffs and immediately added a much needed shot in the arm of energy and chaos on both ends of the floor. A cleanup putback dunk lifted morale a bit while a nutty spike block to help cover for his elder teammates certainly got my attention. Crucially, he did a very commendable job guarding one Tyrese Haliburton, proving himself probably the only Buck on the roster who can match Haliburton step for step on a drive to maintain ball pressure. Just a completely different look off the bench from the ones the likes of Beasley or Jae Crowder (who played for two minutes, was awful, and was benched for the rest of the game) gave Doc Rivers. Lopez helped keep the offense afloat with his inside game going 5-5 himself in the second, and it was a Lillard, Beverly, Khris, AJJ, and Lopez lineup that reeled the game back to a manageable 55-67 deficit at the half.

Then the starters returned to the floor in the third and there was a bit of a drop in effort and execution. I’ll stop here to try to make sense of the number of possessions we saw throughout the night where the Pacers simply beat the Bucks to loose balls, scrapping for rebounds, and all sorts of other pure energy plays. Part of it was surely tied to fatigue by the latter stages of the fourth quarter and overtime, but part of this is something we’ve noted for months during the regular season, too. When it comes to willingness to truly battle and give 110% in the crucial hinge moments the Bucks are at a disadvantage if Giannis Antetokounmpo isn’t on the floor. Bobby Portis and Jae Crowder are your two great hopes in this department and neither guy brings it often, if at all. Jae puzzlingly shrinks from any sort of contact and Bobby loses both motor and technique when the game demands he bring both to bear. Often throughout the second, third, fourth, and OT I was typing away in all caps yelling about 50/50 opportunities various Bucks didn’t even bother to engage in. That would eventually tank them and is worth noting here.

But anyways, back to the third quarter.

It was the Lillard-Lopez pick and roll combo which did some early work for Milwaukee which the Pacers hadn’t found an answer to. On the other end, for the first time in what felt like the entire series, the Pacers were funneling themselves directly into Brook’s zone drop without making it supremely difficult for him to rapidly adjust his positioning. They were helped out by a couple of shooting foul calls, but it was a far cry from the incoherent defense of the first quarter which looked ready to spell Milwaukee’s doom. A pair of heroic Lillard contested threes late in the third got the Pacers looking wobbly on their feet, and it was just a 83-90 hole after three for Milwaukee to climb out of.

The fourth was one of the most compelling quarters of basketball I’ve seen this team play all year. A fast 7-2 run from Khris and Dame dragged the Pacers to within two, and then it was Lillard with yet another three to cap the comeback and take the lead at 93-92. At this point, various Pacers looked unsure of their approach and, indeed, a bit intimidated by the responsibility to be the guy taking the final shot to try and staunch the bleeding. Milwaukee took advantage in the dying embers of the third and start of the fourth to begin launching haymakers to keep Indy on the ropes.

A Bobby putback made it a three point lead, and the scrap was on. Dame and Portis both threw more threes to try and put a nail in the coffin with neither falling, and the Pacers pushed back to regain the lead, 95-96. A Haliburton three put the Bucks back on the ropes, but Lillard paid off a broken possession by forcing a shooting foul and hitting his throws to tie it at 99. Some more punches back and forth got it to 104 each with a Doc timeout with four minutes left, paid immediately off by an extremely tough Khris Middleton shot at the elbow.

Unfortunately, when it came down to the very end, the Pacers were able to execute on a number of offensive rebounds after the Bucks forced a handful of misses — even if it would take until OT for it to really kill them off. A Siakam and-one made it 106-109. He would miss the free throw, and the Bucks would get a chance to tie it on the last possession, 108-111. And it was all Khris Middleton. An extremely extremely extremely tough above-the-break three while fading from the basket dropped home and tied it at 111 all with 1.4 on the clock. Pascal Siakam missed a contested three, and it was off to OT.

There was really one key sequence in overtime which would spell Milwaukee’s doom. This picture was in the rapid, but it is worth reposting here:

Extremely aggravating to watch. Maybe a combo of fatigue and age did Milwaukee in, but there’s no surviving this sort of stretch even if, somehow, the Pacers never actually paid it off and the Bucks actually went the other way to get Middleton to the line. Each time Indy regained the ball it was another boost to their morale and another blow to the Bucks. Khris Middleton made yet another tough three late to tie the game up at 118 all, but it was a Tyrese Haliburton full-court sprint out of a timeout which resulted in and and-one conversion which put the dagger in Milwaukee. Lillard was visibly hobbled at the close of the fourth quarter and had no choice but to play decoy, and poorly at that (no shade to him, he just literally couldn’t move). Indy survives and Milwaukee falls short, 118-121.

What Did We Learn?

There are no moral victories in the playoffs, but the Bucks didn't just roll over and die after the first quarter, either. My takeaway, though, was that this may have been the best possible shot the Bucks could throw without Giannis Antetokounmpo. Two veterans who got serious burn to close the season have likely been demoted out of the rotation (Beas and Jae) and there just isn’t enough bench scoring for the Bucks to keep pace — Indy’s bench outscored Milwaukee 28 to 6. As a team, the Pacers shot 13 of 49 from three (26.5%). It is hard to imagine another golden opportunity like last night presenting itself. A shame, too, because a win there gives the Bucks a tiny bit more breathing room and buys Giannis time. Now Lillard is banged up with an Achilles injury to top it all off. Extremely tough circumstances leading into Game Four.

Three Things

Let’s go with three unremarkable bench Bucks, not necessarily to clown them once again (although I really would like to), but to make clear just how the bare the cupboard is. Or, perhaps, just how important your star players are for making the entire roster work.

Jae Crowder - 2:17 of play, 0-1 from the floor, literally no other counting stats

Malik Beasley - 6:55 of play, 0-2 from the floor, 1 assist

Pat Connaughton - 13:11 of play, 0-1 from the floor, 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal

And now, maybe unsurprisingly, Rivers has to go to his young guys in the hope that more than one of them have a tangibly positive impact on critical playoff games. Tough.

Bonus Bucks Bits Khris Middleton ended the game with 42 points (16-29), 10 rebounds, and 5 assists. Better yet, both he and Bobby Portis had great moments guarding Pascal Siakam in isolation without giving up easy looks or many cheap fouls. A vintage Middleton performance even in a losing effort. Lillard intends on playing in game four even with pain in his Achilles. He will probably be a little limited when it comes to the whole moving around thing, so they may need another Middleton masterclass to keep it close. The Bucks took my advice (you’re welcome, Doc) and tried to get Haliburton to beat them via his own shooting. He finished the night 8-22, and even though he got that last bucket to drop, I thought the team did a great job forcing him to be the final guy on ball time after time and were paid off for it with his shooting a sterling 1-12 from three. Milwaukee looked its best when they could drag the game into the mud. Once the Pacers got out and free flowing in the first quarter the dam looked ready to burst. Sure, there is only so much you can control of a game’s pace and character, but the Bucks have to do everything they can to make it ugly on Sunday to have a chance to tie the series back up. You can’t throw a whole quarter again.