Upset 1 win and 5 losses, ugly 3 consecutive defeats! The favorite to win the championship fell off the altar, only to know that the little abacus is too shrewd, you really don't have a champion!
Text: Lao Kan Kanqiu
Editor|Lao Kan Kanqiu
The NBA regular season has officially entered the final stage, and the top ten teams in the league's East and West divisions have basically been released. On the West side, the 11th-ranked Rockets are basically out, and the only possibility is that the Warriors in front of them have lost five in a row, and the Rockets themselves need to win all five games, and the probability is slim. The Lakers in front of them have rushed into the top eight in the West, and are in a battle with the Kings, Pelicans and Suns to fight for a direct qualification to the sixth place in the West in the playoffs.
The competition in the Western Conference is indeed fierce, after all, there are too many strong teams, not only the Warriors, Lakers, Suns, Clippers and other giants, but also the Thunder, Timberwolves, Pelicans and other dark horse teams, which should not be underestimated. In fact, whether it is in the top half or the bottom half of the table, every team is full of uncertainty, and when they meet in the playoffs, no one dares to easily assert that they can win, because each team has 2-3 star players, and they are the premise that determines the height of the playoffs. In contrast, the East seems to be much easier, there are not so many top stars here, the Celtics and the Bucks are half of the giants, the Celtics have reached the Eastern Conference Finals four times in the past six years, and the Bucks also won the championship three years ago.
Speaking of the Bucks, they have begun to make their mark in the Eastern Conference in recent years. The core figure in this is undoubtedly Brother Alphabet. Since the 18-19 season, he has led the Bucks to a regular season victory, maintaining a winning percentage of over 60 percent for six consecutive seasons, including three seasons with a staggering 70 percent winning percentage. Such dominance is reminiscent of those dynastic teams of yesteryear.
And the performance of Brother Alphabet is even more eye-catching, not only did he repeatedly break records in the regular season, but also ranked in the top five on the MVP list, becoming one of the brightest stars in the league today. His all-round offensive ability and excellent leadership skills have made people see James's shadow, so he was once recognized as James's successor and became the new face of the league.
However, although Brother Alphabet is full of impact on the offensive end, his shortcomings are also very obvious, that is, his projection ability, the more critical this shortcoming is, the more critical it is, and other teams have found a solution to the impact of Brother Alphabet, which also leads to the dominance of Brother Alphabet is slowly declining, and this is the biggest reason why the Bucks were humiliated by the Heat last season. To this end, the management did not hesitate to sacrifice the two core role players of Holiday and Allen, and brought in Lillard, hoping to make up for the shortcomings of Brother Alphabet and improve the team's ceiling.
It's a pity that the two top offensive superstars who seem to be very compatible don't seem to be as perfect as they imagined, and even a little incongruous. The reason for this is that both Antetokounmpo and Lillard need to be on the ball to get the most out of them, and a team has so many balls, and the two need to make sacrifices, so far, this balance has not been found, and Lillard is obviously not adapted to the Bucks' offensive system, and his efficiency this season has hit a new career low.
Therefore, the team management once again did not hesitate to let Adrian Griffin, who had just been in charge for less than half a season, step down and rehire the former 76ers head coach Rivers to take charge of the Bucks. The results are still unsatisfactory, the first five games after Rivers took office, the Bucks only 1-4, although the late record has picked up, however, after losing to the Western Conference Fish Belly Grizzlies one after another, in the past five games, they have played an outrageous record of 1-4, and the familiar reversed attribute has been activated again. In addition, the Bucks are 1-7 in the eight games Lillard misses, and the 62-year-old Rivers seems to be taking the Bucks to the abyss.
However, some fans joked, saying that the Bucks' recent losses are just because they don't want to meet the 76ers led by Embiid who returned from injury in the first round, we think this is a small calculation by Rivers, but if he is the head coach of a team that wants to compete for the championship, what he needs to consider is not who the opponent is in the playoffs, but the real strength of the team.
By digging deeper into the data, we can get a clearer picture of the difference in the Bucks' performance under Adrian Griffin and Rivers. In Griffin's first 43 games, the Bucks had an offensive efficiency of 120.8, which ranks second in the league behind the Pacers' 121.0. In the same period, they ranked 21st in the league in defensive efficiency of 116.9 and 10th in the league with a net efficiency of +3.9.
However, things changed when Rivers took over. In the 30 games he coached, the Bucks' offensive efficiency dropped to 114.6, a number that only ranked 17th in the league during the same period. At the same time, while their defensive efficiency has improved to 112.9, which ranks 12th in the league for the same period, overall, their net efficiency is only +1.7, which ranks 16th in the league, which is significantly lower than Adrian Griffin's performance under the coach.
From these stats, we can see that Rivers did bring a slight improvement to the Bucks on the defensive end, but on the offensive end, they lost their previous dominance performance. The current Bucks look mediocre on both ends of the floor, their offense is no longer sharp, and their defense is only mediocre, and the Bucks are gradually becoming a mid-table team in the Eastern Conference.
To make matters worse, after Rivers Sr. took over the Bucks, the Bucks' performance in key moments (within 5 points in the final 5 minutes) was disastrous. Originally under the coaching of Adrian Griffin, the Bucks had an 18-6 record in key moments of the game, and firmly ranked first in the league with a winning rate of 75%. However, after Rivers Sr. took over the coaching whip, the Bucks' game record at key moments fell sharply, with only a 5-10 record, a winning percentage that plummeted to 33.3%, ranking 27th in the league during the same period, and even suffered multiple reversals.
It has to be said that Rivers' ability to adjust is really disappointing, and he has become the weakest link of this Bucks team. It turns out that no matter how shrewd your Rivers abacus is, your Bucks really don't have a championship this season!