NBA Playoffs winners and losers: Giannis Antetokounmpo shines for Bucks; Damian Lillard receives little help

The opening weekend of the NBA playoffs is one thing of a warmup. Groups are nonetheless feeling one another out. They’re figuring out doable matchup and lineup benefits. The video games lack the sense of urgency that sometimes comes within the postseason, and with the lengthy layoff between the top of the common season and starting of the playoffs as a result of play-in event, groups have been rustier than ever of their openers. 

However the excuses are gone now. On Monday, two first-round sequence superior to Sport 2. Within the first, the Milwaukee Bucks proved that their Sport 1 success towards the Miami Warmth was no fluke by flattening them, 132-98, and within the different, the Denver Nuggets earned a sorely-needed cut up on their homecourt earlier than their sequence towards the Path Blazers relocates to Portland. At this stage, we’ve a much better concept of the place each of these matchups are headed, so with each Sport 2s now within the books, let’s have a look at a few of Monday’s largest winners and losers. 

Milwaukee’s second-round loss to Miami raised a variety of questions on their roster and training selections, however maybe none higher than why Mike Budenholzer was so hesitant to permit Giannis Antetokounmpo to defend Jimmy Butler. Butler, in spite of everything, was destroying the Warmth late in video games, and Antetokounmpo, who was the Defensive Participant of the Yr, was certainly up for the duty. We now know for sure that he was as a result of, in two video games as Butler’s main defender, Giannis has helped maintain Butler to 8-of-32 taking pictures. 

In that very same sequence, Miami held Milwaukee’s function gamers to solely 32.7 % from behind the arc. That was partially because of their robust protection, however actually, it was a defect in Milwaukee’s roster development. The Bucks performed an offense that concerned taking a variety of 3-pointers, however they completed seventeenth in 3-point share. Miami dared them to shoot and so they couldn’t make photographs. They adopted that very same technique in Sport 1. The Bucks shot 5-of-31 from behind the arc. Properly, in Sport 2, they made 10 3-pointers… within the first quarter. They completed with 22, which is way nearer to their efficiency this season. The Bucks rose to fourth in 3-point share because of the smart additions of gamers like Jrue Vacation, Bryn Forbes and Bobby Portis.

Add all of it up and also you get a Bucks crew that’s not solely making higher selections round Giannis however one which was constructed higher for him too. Defenses can’t construct partitions to cease him if the Bucks shoot in addition to they did Monday. They will’t depend on Budenholzer’s conservative scheme to bail them out on offense both if he’s keen to unleash Antetokounmpo towards opposing stars. Monday was, in a way, proof of idea. It was the end result of the revamped, playoff-centric plan the Bucks have developed all season. It led to a blowout, and in all probability, there are extra the place that got here from. 

You would level to any variety of Warmth gamers as losers on Monday. Butler struggled. Bam Adebayo struggled. The one participant on their roster to shoot higher than 50 % was Dewayne Dedmon, so that ought to offer you a way of how the remainder of the roster regarded. However Herro is value highlighting contemplating how few alternatives he’s needed to even flip issues round. 

Final postseason, he turned one of many youngest gamers in playoff historical past to attain 37 factors in a sport. On this sequence, up to now, he has performed solely 37 minutes, complete. He’s taking pictures 3-of-15 from the sector and largely solely noticed the ground in rubbish time Monday. Kendrick Nunn has seemingly surpassed him within the pecking order contemplating he’s beginning. The Warmth needed Victor Oladipo to play a key function this postseason as effectively earlier than an damage ended his season. 

It’s been a pointy decline for one of many bubble’s brightest younger stars. It’s not as if Herro has fallen off of a cliff. His regular-season numbers have stagnated, and that’s the purpose. He was higher within the bubble than his rookie yr may have predicted, and now, he’s trying extra like he did earlier than that one scorching stretch than he did inside it. With that being the case, it’s value questioning how fluky that stretch actually was. 

Winner: Denver’s function gamers

The Blazers had a transparent aim getting into Sport 1 towards Denver: make Nikola Jokic a scorer. It labored. He dropped 38 factors, however just one help. With Jamal Murray and Will Barton out, the Blazers have been betting that if Jokic couldn’t create photographs for the remainder of his roster, they only weren’t going to attain. They gained the sport one which precept. 

Jokic scored in bunches once more in Sport 2, however so did his teammates. Every of Denver’s 4 different starters scored between 9 and 18 factors, and Paul Millsap and Monte Morris contributed a mixed 27 off the bench. Damian Lillard bought solely 67 factors from his supporting solid. Jokic bought 90. 

Realistically, Denver isn’t going to win the championship with its accidents. As soon as Murray went down, their priorities modified. What the Nuggets are now could be who on their roster deserves to stay round when Murray returns and championships grow to be possible once more. They couldn’t have been notably inspired by Sport 1, however nearly everybody stepped up for Sport 2.

Loser: Damian Lillard

These 67 factors from Lillard’s teammates? That’s not a brand new phenomenon. Portland has squandered loads of Lillard’s greatest video games, together with a 60-point explosion final season and a 50-point outing towards Oklahoma Metropolis in 2019. The Blazers can dwell with permitting 128 factors to Denver. As a lot effort as they put into fixing their protection final offseason, they ranked No. 29 for a motive. Enjoying three small guards alongside a middle with restricted mobility caps a protection’s ceiling. 

However the Blazers can’t beat anyone if their function gamers aren’t scoring. Lillard can solely achieve this a lot by himself. Take away CJ McCollum and Norman Powell from the image, and the remainder of the Blazers shot a ghastly 10-of-28 from the sector. If the Blazers are going to win with this all-offense components, they’ve to have the ability to rating persistently and throughout the roster. Defenses are clearly going to concentrate to the guards, and if everybody else fails to step up, Portland’s playoff run goes to finish very, in a short time. 

Winner: Followers of parity

The Blazers-Nuggets sequence lacks championship stakes, however it’s nonetheless a enjoyable showcase for 2 of the NBA’s greatest gamers. The presumptive MVP goes up towards the No. 29 protection whereas one of many league’s greatest guards is destroying a crew whose guards are all injured. The longer that sequence runs, the extra probabilities we get for particular person fireworks. Portland’s win was a win for our leisure. 

However Milwaukee’s win was a win for our aggressive success. That sequence will not be shut proper now, and it doesn’t must be. The much more vital improvement for the league is that the Bucks appear to be sorting via the problems which have knocked them out of the previous two postseasons, and if that’s the case, they grow to be a much more compelling opponent for the Brooklyn Nets, whose overwhelming expertise threatens to overwhelm the remainder of the league. 

If the Nets are nearly as good as their roster suggests they are often, they’ll win the championship, however the Bucks current the proper doable foil. Their three stars are all high-end defenders, which makes them a robust matchup for Brooklyn’s three-headed monster. The Nets battle to guard the rim. The Bucks have a star who focuses on attacking the rim. That sequence has an opportunity to be one of the best of the postseason, however it wouldn’t have been if Milwaukee hadn’t stopped getting in its personal manner. Now, the Japanese Convention seems to have generated not less than one severe risk to the Nets, and that makes the playoffs rather more attention-grabbing for all events concerned.

Loser: NBA officiating

Sport 2 between the Nuggets and Blazers featured 58 free throws, 4 technical fouls and two flagrant fouls. Video evaluations disadvantaged the sport of any sense of move, and the gamers weren’t completely happy about any of it. That is how Nikola Jokic reacted to a name when his crew was up by 18 factors. 

Jokic and Lillard mixed for 57 factors within the first half alone. This sport needs to be remembered for its unimaginable duel between famous person scorers. As a substitute, it was marred by officers too involved with reining in pissed off gamers. It says fairly a bit when calls grow to be so rampant that each side are upset with the best way that the sport is being officiated.