Before the start of the Milwaukee Bucks’ first-round series with the Indiana Pacers, it was clear the Bucks had two defensive priorities:
- Slow down the Pacers.
- Keep Tyrese Haliburton in check.
Through two games, the Bucks have had mixed results.
In Game 1, they largely took care of business on defense. With the help of a strong first-half offensive performance, the Bucks were able to set their defense on most possessions, and the Pacers were unable to get out and run. On top of that, Haliburton scored only nine points on seven shot attempts.
In Game 2, the Bucks failed to execute across the board. While they managed to score with the Pacers for the first three quarters, their lack of shot discipline on the offensive end eventually caught up with them as the Pacers executed a 23-4 fourth-quarter run to seal Game 2 on the road. Haliburton once again did not score much for the Pacers (12 points), but he did dish out 12 assists.
Now that the Pacers have found their footing in the postseason, the Bucks know that if they take care of the ball offensively and take the right shots, their defense can slow down the Indiana’s transition attack. However, the focus on Haliburton and slowing down the Pacers in transition has created another large problem for the Bucks.
Through two games, the Bucks have not found an answer for Pascal Siakam. The Pacers’ two-time All-NBA forward is averaging 36.5 points, 12 rebounds and four assists per game while shooting 64.6 percent from the field and 50 percent from behind the 3-point line.
“It was a major (matchup problem),” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said of Siakam after his Game 2 performance. “I thought the difference was the 3 ball, plus I thought he was a playmaker, as well. In Game 1, he scored, but he didn’t really get anyone else involved. I thought (Tuesday) he did everything for them.”
While the rest of the Pacers struggled in Game 1, Siakam showed off his championship experience. All series he has looked comfortable, and his dominance to this point is going to force the Bucks into making a decision about their initial game plan.
Without Giannis Antetokounmpo, Siakam has turned into the worst matchup for the Bucks. At 6 foot 8 and 230 pounds, Siakam is too big for Khris Middleton. And while he is too big for Middleton, he is too quick for Brook Lopez or Bobby Portis. The Bucks’ best matchup for him would be Antetokounmpo, and as long as the two-time MVP cannot play, Siakam is going to have some sort of advantage against whomever is assigned to cover him.
“We just gotta figure out a way,” Middleton said of Siakam. “He’s a proven champion. He’s been at this stage before, and he knows how to play. He’s taking advantage of different mismatches, going to the post, knowing when to drive (against) certain guys.
“He’s a great player. That’s why they signed him, you know, for this type of basketball at this time. We just gotta do a better job of trying to figure out ways to contain him. Limit his touches, limit him getting to his scoring areas.”
While Rivers and the Bucks have gone out of their way to avoid divulging their future game plans, the Bucks will have to consider whether or not they should divert some of the attention given to Haliburton and focus more on Siakam. Slowing Haliburton, who runs the show for the Pacers, made sense as a top priority before the series, but if the Bucks have any doubts about Haliburton’s ability to score enough to keep the Pacers’ offense afloat, they might consider if Siakam should be their bigger concern.
If the Bucks are going to keep their attention on Haliburton though, there are plenty of things they can do better against Siakam on the second level.
Executing coverages
The first thing that stands out in the film from Game 2 is the Bucks blowing coverages against Siakam. In the first stint of both halves, the Bucks are not on the same page regarding how they plan to cover him.
Look at this drive from the first quarter:
The Bucks spent most of the game closing out short on Siakam, so Lopez clearly is not expected to close hard on him as he lined up this above-the-break 3-pointer. But if you watch Lopez’s feet and the angle he takes to get to the right side of Siakam’s body, it appears the Bucks wanted to try to force Siakam to baseline help in big-to-big pick-and-rolls:
But that pick never showed up. Myles Turner went back to the middle of the floor on the swing, and then Lopez found himself out of position against a quicker opponent.
Something similar happened on the first play of the second half.
To stop the Pacers’ initial action, Lopez needed to stick around the middle of the lane to keep the Bucks from giving up a wide-open opportunity to Myles Turner. To give Lopez an extra second to recover and hopefully take Siakam out of rhythm on this above-the-break 3, Middleton stunted at Siakam before returning to Aaron Nesmith in the left corner. Lopez thought that meant Middleton was taking him, and Siakam drove right to the basket.
Siakam has been the Pacers’ leading scorer by a wide margin in this series. The Bucks cannot make mistakes against him any longer.
Contesting 3-pointers
Siakam has attempted eight 3-pointers in the first two games of this series. As Rivers mentioned, Siakam made 1 of 4 from deep in Game 1; he made 3 of 4 in Game 2.
Of his eight attempts, five have been in the corners, and three have been above the break. He has made 3 of 5 from the corner, where he shot 46.1 percent this season, and just 1 of 3 from above the break, where he shot 29.9 percent this season.
Lopez is essential to everything the Bucks are doing from a help perspective against Haliburton. He is the backline defender who needs to stick around to help on the big man rolling to the hoop or protect the rim if Haliburton turns the corner. With Lopez being responsible for so much, the rest of the Bucks have to make sure they execute their assignments.
For example, this pass cannot be thrown in front of Damian Lillard’s face:
If Haliburton turned the corner on Jae Crowder as a help defender and then threw a kick-out pass to the corner behind Lillard, that would have been understandable. But Lillard needs to be further up the line in a help position because that pass should not be able to go in front of him to the corner.
Holistically, the Bucks need to make a decision on Siakam’s corner 3-point attempts. If Lopez is going to continue to be assigned to him, the Pacers are going to continue to plant him in the weakside corner. Siakam can be a serious threat from the corners, so how will the Bucks handle that?
Getting more physical
The Bucks felt pretty comfortable offensively throughout Game 1. The Pacers set out to make sure that didn’t happen again in Game 2 by turning up their physicality. No matter who the Bucks tried to get a touch in the post or on the elbow, the Pacers got underneath them and pushed them further away from the basket.
When Siakam tried to get a touch in the post, it was far too easy in Game 2. Look at the early post position Siakam established on Portis on this first-quarter possession:
Portis obviously was strong enough to handle Siakam in the post, as Siakam didn’t move Portis while trying to back him down. But it didn’t matter. Siakam already had established great position because of his work early in the possession, so he could set up a short jumper off the glass. If Portis pushed him out further before he caught it, that shot may not have been available.
The Bucks have to respond to the Pacers in Game 3 in the exact same fashion the Pacers responded to the Bucks in Game 2. They have to bring the physicality to Siakam when he tries to post up.
Rivers also will need to put some serious thought into his lineups and rotations. Two of Siakam’s easiest buckets of the game came on possessions where Lillard got stuck on Siakam in transition, and the Pacers forward took him straight to the post.
In both halves, the Bucks had stretches where they only had either Lopez or Portis on the floor, while the Pacers had both Turner and Siakam on the floor. With Antetokounmpo out, the Bucks are down one of the three men in their regular rotation of bigs, but Portis and Lopez were the two starters who played the least for Rivers in Game 2.
With a dearth of legitimate size, can the Bucks afford to play long stretches without matching up with the Pacers’ big men?
Both Siakam and Turner were on the floor for the final 6:32 of the first half of Game 2, while only Lopez was on the floor, as Portis sat on the bench. Rivers played a single big man against the Pacers’ two-big alignment for a two-minute stretch again in the third quarter — which included the post-up on Lillard above — and then again from the 7:19 to 5:49 mark in the fourth quarter.
The Pacers outscored the Bucks by five points during the first-half stretch, by five points in the third-quarter stretch and by eight points in the fourth-quarter stretch. That’s a total of 18 points; the Bucks lost Game 2 by 17. (In Game 1, a single-big lineup for the Bucks versus the Pacers’ two-big combo of Siakam and Turner was minus-2 across 14 minutes.)
Putting together lineups and rotations with Antetokounmpo out is not an easy job. Rivers has to figure out the best way to squeeze enough offense out of the group while also still performing well defensively, so he likely will need to continue to tinker.
But moving forward, trying to find enough physicality to counter Siakam might be a more important question than he initially thought.
Required reading
Iko: Siakam proves too much for Bucks: ‘He just doesn’t get rattled’
(Top photo of Pascal Siakam and Khris Middleton: Benny Sieu / USA Today)
