Watch Raptors @ Bucks Game 6 live on Sky Sports Arena in the early hours of Sunday morning (1:30am)
Saturday 25 May 2019 19:44, UK
Milwaukee Bucks star Eric Bledsoe is cratering offensively in the Eastern Conference Finals series with the Toronto Raptors - NBA analyst Mark Deeks explores the key areas of concern for the team's starting point guard.
Well, now. This is a series.
The Toronto Raptors scored the first road win of the Eastern Conference Finals early on Friday morning, pulling out a vital 105-99 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks to take a 3-2 lead. They now only need to win one of the next two games to advance to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. And the next game is at home for them, something which seemed to provide their defense with extra energy in games three and four.
Indeed, it has been Toronto's half-court defense that has turned the series around. After throwing away a very winnable game one with the last vestiges of the annual Raptors playoff jitters, and looking overmatched in an easy game two Bucks victory, the Raptors have now won three straight by creating a half court defensive plan that Milwaukee have yet to break.
To reverse the scoreline once again, then, Milwaukee are going to have to do something different to break through the half-court defense of the Raptors. They are going to have to find players who can move a defense around, be a decoy, take and make good looks, create efficient shots, make the right decisions and execute them. And although the shallowness of their bench in this series has been a factor, the weaker link in these Eastern Finals has been the man at the helm at what is supposed to be the primary playmaking position - starting point guard Eric Bledsoe.
Even in that game five performance, though, things were far from fixed. Bledsoe started well, scoring seven points in the first four minutes after recording only five in the whole of Game 4. Yet as the game got into the close final stages, it was his decision-making that cost Milwaukee a chance at winning the game.
Such a play is not an anomaly for Bledsoe, not in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals nor at any other time. A sub-par outside shooter, his offensive game is instead based on his ability to get to the rim and finish; strong, athletic and with long arms, he does this both in transition and in the half court with some regularity. On a high-paced, well-spaced Bucks team, he has found a home; nine years into his NBA career, Bledsoe's two most efficient ones from both scoring and turnover perspectives have been his two in Milwaukee. Nevertheless, as is so often the case, the 29-year-old's weakness is right next to his strength - to see him drive to the rim with no obvious purpose, unsure whether to drive or to pass, finding trouble and turning the ball over or forcing an inefficient attempt, has always been a part of the Eric Bledsoe experience.
To pass up that layup opportunity for a theoretical three speaks to either not wanting the pressure of the big late-game shot, going for the inefficient three when the very efficient two was available, or both. That is to say, it was either backing down from the big moment, or a poor decision on the move by a player who does that quite a lot. Neither is good news.
Toronto in this series are backing off Bledsoe, allowing him to shoot. And quite rightly. In the playoffs as a whole, Bledsoe is hitting only 17.5 per cent on wide open three-point shots (i.e. with no defender within six feet of him). To put that into some context, even Giannis, a famously poor shooter, is hitting 31.6 per cent of his.
You would think that sagging off a talented driver like him and daring him to shoot would have the side-effect of giving him a running start on drives to the rim, just as Giannis routinely exploits whenever anyone dares him to shoot from outside. Bledsoe, though, has been neither aggressive nor confident, indecisive in his decisions, passing up the opportunity to attack sometimes when it has been there, while looking off (or not noticing) the mismatches that his team mates have elsewhere. Rhythmically, he has been all over the place. There is no flow to his game right now.
Bledsoe is discombobulated right now offensively, going when he should stop and stopping when he should go, at a time that the Bucks simply cannot afford him to be.
Game 6 takes place in Toronto in the early hours of Sunday morning (1:30am) live on Sky Sports Arena.
