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Los Angeles Clippers (7-5) 128 - 126 Milwaukee Bucks (9-3)

First published November 11th 2018
Note: Only talking about the first half here. Couldn't get the time today to do the rest... Hell of a game though.
The first five minutes saw both teams not really able to generate any good looks with the respective half-court sets. The Bucks were fed Giannis in the post, was promptly doubled, and the Clippers were doing a good job running back to contest any perimeter shot.
I felt that Harrell had the most defensive blunders in the Clippers in that first quarter. There were multiple plays he kinda stood out to me as slow to contest or unsure of his position. Like, why is he so slow in getting to DiVincenzo here? (NOTE: Just by highlights alone, he had one hell of a game overall. Just didn't start off very sharp)
It's nice to see Gortat is still getting his teammates clean jumpers with those "elbows-out-to-the-sides screens", and they are still pretty effective. The Clippers ran a lot of through him. This wasn't really resulting in much with Shae as a ball-handler since the defense just ignores Gortat as the guard penetrates, and he seems to have no interest in shooting the three.
Beverly was taking a backseat to the rookie running the offense but every time he showed up it usually was the most effective possessions (the Bucks were all sleeping in that offensive rebound play). He would go on to have a very nice shooting game.
It was only already into the second quarter that the Bucks seemed to flick a switch. Pat and Giannis were playing really off each other, weather a straight PnR or Giannis doing a Dribble hand-off to slip and roll to the basket. Either way, the offense started to look a lot more like what we saw against Golden State and the new found movement was also generating three point shots with some space. Following these sequences Lopez would catch fire from deep and the lead was theirs.
There's also the fact that attacking Gortat considering his defensive decline seems to be an easy recipe at this point. Him sitting in the final minute of the half would result in a couple of good defensive possessions for the LA team.
Other notes:
Great job on the Clippers defense to draw charges on Giannis. It took him out of the game twice during the first half, made him very passive.
Where was this Bledsoe hiding? A much better pickup for MIL than i thought last season. I love his hustle on both ends and his defense (and Lopez was great at the rim as well btw) was a big energizer of the second quarter run.

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