NBA Game Notes: Bucks, Warriors Post Statement Wins
Notes from all five games on Tuesday!
The NBA season is just getting started, but it’s never too early for a statement win. The Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors picked up what feels like important wins on Tuesday. We’ll take a look at those games, plus the rest of the five-game slate.
Here’s what I saw on Tuesday!
New York Knicks - 111 at Milwaukee Bucks - 121
Giannis Antetokounmpo isn’t messing around. He’s been incredible to open this season. A minor worry is that he’s having to do a lot, and I mean a lot, for the Bucks on both ends. But so far, so good.
Here’s the crazy thing about this game: Antetokounmpo just kept attacking the rim. He made 16 field goals and took only one three-pointer. This was Antetokounmpo’s only made shot that wasn’t near the rim, and this is a perfectly good shot for him:
Kevin Porter Jr. is out, but the Bucks are getting really good minutes from Ryan Rollins and Cole Anthony in his place. Rollins was really good in this one. He was the second scorer that Milwaukee needs to make like a little easier for Giannis Antetokounmpo. This was good patience to call the big into the action, so Rollins could attack him off the dribble. Nifty lefty finish too:
As for Cole Anthony, he’s reading the game better as a playmaker than he has earlier in his career. Anthony has primarily been a scorer to this point in his career. With more talent and shooting around him, Anthony is doing a good job as a passer. This was a good read. Anthony sees that both Ariel Hukporti and Mikal Bridges are focused on finding Giannis Antetokounmpo. That left Jalen Brunson guarding two on the opposite and wing and corner. When Brunson dropped to the corner, Anthony skipped it over to Gary Trent Jr for the walk-up three-pointer:
The Knicks are trying to more dynamic on offense than just spamming the Jalen-Brunson-Karl-Anthony Towns two-man game over and over. That means asking more of OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges. This was the opening possession of the game for New York. Bridges drives and kicks, then relocates as Anunoby runs his own drive-and-kick. This is good stuff out of a non-Brunson-KAT possession:
Something to keep an eye on: The Knicks offense is sputtering a bit as they reinvent themselves. But they are relentless going to the offensive glass. 17 more offensive rebounds in this one. And this is without Mitchell Robinson. That’s how you keep the team afloat when the shots aren’t falling and the offense figures itself out.
LA Clippers - 79 at Golden State Warriors - 98
The Warriors offense was nothing special in this one. Jimmy Butler was good and efficient. Stephen Curry did enough. Quinten Post hit some threes (more in a minute), and Brandin Podziemski did some stuff.
What was special was the defense. The Warriors were flying around. Draymond Green was controlling the defense the way a point guard controls the offense. He was calling out everything. When it wasn’t Green doing that, it was Butler or Horford. This team is so veteran-laden and smart, you just aren’t going to fool them very often.
Green isn’t worried about Brook Lopez bring open here if he doesn’t get the ball when he drops into the passing lane. Post will rotate to Lopez and Green knows he can probably recover to Kawhi Leonard in the corner. And time and score matter here. The Warriors were up enough that this kind of strategic gamble can really pay off if it works:
The Warriors haven’t had a real stretch-big element in their offense in a while. We assumed that was the role Al Horford would play, and he will. But Quinten Post is a pretty good shooter too. This is a good example of the stress Stephen Curry puts on the defense. Derrick Jones Jr. has Curry here, but Ivica Zubac still gets sucked in. Post finds his spot and lets it rip. The Boston College big man (I had to work it in there!) also had eight rebounds and a block too, in a pretty productive night.
The Warriors threw a lot of different looks at Kawhi Leonard. It was good to see Jonathan Kuminga hold up here in one-on-one defense. Kuminga stayed in front of the Clippers star, then he stayed down when Leonard went to the baseline and made this a tough look:
Not much to say about the Clippers. There was no real sense of urgency. They had a couple of different points in the game when they could have possibly taken control, but they never did it. They have the look of a team that is coming off a title run and just getting through the regular season. The only problem is…well…they’ve never made even as much as a Finals run, forget a title run.
Philadelphia 76ers - 139 at Charlotte Hornets - 134 OT
Maybe the Sixers are just going to play awesome, close games all year. That isn’t a complaint either! Thus far this season, Philadelphia hasn’t done a whole lot to slow other teams done. It also hasn’t mattered, because no one can slow them down either. If you want to watch a fun, entertaining game, check out the Sixers.
This was late in the overtime period. Tyrese Maxey was already at about 47 minutes played. (Side minor quibble: Can we bring Maxey’s minutes down a little? He got run down early last year. Let’s not repeated that!) Still, Maxey looked like the freshest guy on the floor on this drive:
The Sixers approach to Joel Embiid seems to be “Give us what you’ve got in the minutes you can go”. Philly isn’t orienting everything around Embiid. He’s part of the machine now and not the machine itself. That’s best for the team, and probably best for Embiid too.
Adem Bona is a little wild, but boy is he bringing some great energy to the Sixers. With the guard-heavy usage and Embiid and Andre Drummond, no one really plays above the rim much here. But Bona does. He just gets after it on both ends. This block helped get the game to overtime for Philadelphia to win. Fun player!
Alex Sarr picked up two fouls very quickly in this game. Brian Keefe let him play through those fouls and got rewarded with one of Sarr’s best NBA games. I loved the physicality here. Sarr challenged Joel Embiid and got blocked. But then he recovered and went up strong for the two-hand finish:
Washington’s bench group gave them good minutes. The Wizards are pretty fun. It’s often messy, but they’re learning and improving rapidly.
Second-year guys don’t usually get much love for Most Improved Player, but Kyshawn George might break that trend. He’s been awesome. This is such a great read for a guy who wasn’t supposed to being this much on-ball already:
