Bucks’ keys to slowing Pacers in playoffs: Getting back on defense, limiting turnovers, more

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On Thursday, the Milwaukee Bucks announced that Damian Lillard was “cleared for full basketball activity as the deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in his right calf has resolved” and the nine-time All-Star point guard was no longer on blood-thinning medication.

While the team confirmed that Lillard would be out for Game 1 against the Indiana Pacers on Saturday, head coach Doc Rivers said that Lillard was able to be a full participant in Thursday’s practice in Milwaukee and Lillard had no restrictions — outside of his conditioning and physical readiness — to get back on the floor with the team, opening the possibility of Lillard’s return this postseason.

For now, though, the Bucks will prepare for the Pacers without Lillard. After a week of practice and post-practice conversations with players and Rivers, the Bucks seem to have three keys heading into this series.

Limit turnovers

This is a basic tenet of winning basketball, but it will be of the utmost importance to the Bucks in this series.

“You turn the ball over against Indiana, you’re going to lose,” Rivers said on Tuesday.

The Pacers love to play fast and run, but they weren’t exceptional at forcing turnovers this season compared to the rest of the league. Indiana forced turnovers on 14.8 percent of their opponents’ possessions, the 12th-highest rate of any team. They were slightly above league average, but not some menacing defensive team.

To Rivers, though, turnovers could be a huge problem against the Pacers, especially one type of turnover.

“A live-ball turnover, I’d rather you throw it in the stands,” Rivers said. “And I’m serious, I said that today. A guy was falling out of bounds, and he tried to throw it in and they grabbed it and went the other way. And I said, ‘The next time, I want you to chuck that 20 yards into the stands, now we can set our defense.’

“There are teams that you can turn the ball over (against) and there’s teams that you can’t. This team, you just cannot. If we have high turnovers, it’s going to be tough for us.”

Not only do live-ball turnovers help the Pacers turn up the pace of the game, but they also give players opportunities to get themselves going with easy baskets. In two of the Bucks’ four matchups against Indiana this season, Pacers All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton scored easy buckets on steals. Those are the points Milwaukee can’t afford to give up.

The Pacers love to create turnovers with their full-court pressure on inbounds plays immediately after a timeout. As three players head down to the other end of the floor to find their positions for the play that was called during the timeout, the Pacers pressure the lone player waiting for the pass from the inbounder and force a quick turnover.

Turnovers on those plays don’t just give the Pacers easy points; they also keep the Bucks from establishing a rhythm. Plays after a timeout are supposed to let a team settle itself and establish pace and feel. Turnovers in those situations can push a game into further chaos.

Get back and defend

These two teams have seen a lot of each other over the last two seasons, so they know what to expect. To the Bucks’ two-time MVP, that means the Bucks have to execute one thing, first and foremost.

“I think it starts with transition,” Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “We gotta do a better job just communicating, getting back. And then, when we get back, identify where the ball is. And when we identify where the ball is, then we gotta protect our home, which is the paint. If we do those things, we put ourselves in a better position to be successful.

“I don’t know, but I can guess, I’ve watched (15) games against the Pacers, I can guess the game plan. They’re gonna try to pick up the pace of the game. They’re gonna try to run and play fast, so just gotta be ready for that.”

The Bucks will need to be ready to run in this series. Offensively, that doesn’t need to be the case, but they need to be disciplined defensively and that starts with getting back as quickly as possible. The Pacers regularly punish even the slightest lapses or missteps in transition defense.

Following a made basket by Kyle Kuzma out of a dribble handoff early in the Bucks’ fourth meeting against the Pacers, Antetokounmpo did not get down the floor quickly enough. Three possessions earlier, the Bucks switched the pick-and-roll action with Haliburton and Pascal Siakam. Taurean Prince might have switched too willingly on the possession above, but Antetokounmpo trailing behind Siakam put Prince in a difficult position. If Antetokounmpo were closer to Siakam, it would have been easier to communicate a call and defend the screen.

No matter what happens before, the Bucks have to do their best to get back and defend on every possession.

Slowing Tyrese Haliburton

On March 11, the Pacers beat the Bucks with an off-balance Haliburton four-point play in the game’s closing seconds. Before the Bucks played the Pacers four days later, Rivers was still upset about that shot (and the foul called on the play), but a different topic drew his ire.

“I think they had nine or 11 3s with 10 feet of distance,” Rivers said of the defensive execution in his team’s only regular-season loss to the Pacers. “And that cannot happen.”

Far too often in that game, the Bucks gave up shots like this:

The Pacers can put immense pressure on the Bucks’ defense with the simplest of actions.

Haliburton is a pass-first offensive maestro who serves as the engine of the Pacers’ offense. He is the second player in NBA history to dish out nine or more assists per game while committing two or fewer turnovers per game for a season (Muggsy Bogues did it in 1989-90 and 1991-92).

Myles Turner is one of only five centers in the NBA to take at least three 3s per game and make 39 percent or better.

Of the 37 combos around the NBA that ran at least 100 pick-and-pops this season, Haliburton and Turner were the fifth most efficient. The Pacers scored 116.6 points per 100 possessions directly out of those actions, per Second Spectrum. (The most efficient combo? Haliburton and Siakam. Indiana scored 143.7 points per 100 possessions out of their 167 pick-and-pops.)

When the Bucks were one of the league’s best defenses with Eric Bledsoe or Jrue Holiday flying over the top of screens while Brook Lopez backpedaled in drop coverage, they struggled to control teams that executed pick-and-pops at a high level. (This 2019 article provides a refresher.) Now that Lopez is 37 and the Bucks’ point-of-attack defenders are considerably less proficient, it’s even more difficult to defend.

“He’s incredible,” Antetokounmpo said of Haliburton. “Understands the game. Plays it with great pace. Knows how to get downhill, knows how to get to his spot.

The Bucks struggled to defend it when the Pacers ran the most basic version of the play, but it only got worse as the Pacers added more layers to the action.

Here’s what happened when they added another screener and turned Turner into a roller instead of a popper.

And then here’s what happened when they set a triple drag screen in semi-transition to get Haliburton going downhill and create a pick-and-pop for Turner.

From the most basic actions to the most complicated offensive sets, the Bucks have their hands full with Haliburton. Their point-of-attack defense has been below average for much of the season. That could end up being a real problem against Haliburton, who is one of the league’s most creative offensive players.

“He has great vision,” Lopez said of Haliburton. “He’s unselfish. He’s a playmaker. The way he does it is a little unorthodox, and he’s great at it, so you have to be on alert, on your toes at all times and we have to be ready for the other guys and the ways they make plays.

“They don’t just stand behind the 3-point line. They have a lot of great cutters, guys who move on the backside when you don’t necessarily have vision and that requires more communication. So much of it is just communication and being ready to see these fires and put them out.”

The Bucks are not going to shut Haliburton down as a playmaker. He is too good of a decision maker and has seen too many different defenses, but if they can at least contain him slightly, they will put themselves in a far better position to win this series.

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(Photo of Tyrese Haliburton and Taurean Prince: Stacy Revere / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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