Hello Smash Fans. I hope you all are having an amazing day so far. Today I want to talk about one of the most stubborn coaches in the league and how much that stubbornness has cost his team in recent years, that coach is Coach Mike Budenholzer
I have never seen such a stubborn coach in my life. Coach Bud refuses to change any part of their regular-season game plan to accommodate what is happening in the playoffs. His entire game plan is to get the ball in the middle of the lane, drive and kick, or someone makes a shot on isolation, that is just not how you beat every team. Additionally, if your offense becomes predictable, it becomes a lot easier to stop. A great example is the effectiveness of the wall against The Bucks. However, despite this, Coach Bud refuses to adjust or make his game plan more complex, and it has hurt The Bucks the past 3 years. If The Bucks had the same game plan against the Heat as they did last year then The Bucks would have won that series. If Coach Bud knew how to adjust mid-series he would have made a game plan around the wall in the Toronto series and The Bucks would probably have a championship. Budenholzer has not learned his lesson yet as he is repeating the same mistakes in this Nets series.
In game one The Bucks got rolled by the Nets. On the offensive end, the main reason they lost is that no one could hit their open shots. This is going to happen every now and then, however, Coach Bud didn’t adjust, failing to tell his players to play more inside. Additionally, on the defensive end, Brook Lopez could not step up on the pick and roles as well, and the fact that Giannis was not on KD led to The Bucks’s downfall. To fix both of these issues for game two all Coach Bud had to do was cut Brook Lopez’s minutes significantly by playing both Giannis and P.J. Tucker at center, tell his team to swing the ball more, get the ball in the paint at least once per possession, and tell Giannis he has to guard KD. That’s it. However, the Bucks doubled down using the same game plan yet again, and that resulted in another loss. We all hope as basketball fans that Budenholzer will change and finally start adjusting, but the truth is that will not happen and because of that it is time for The Bucks to make a change.
Now, there are some good coaches out there in the league right now that are available and are in my opinion better than Coach Bud. Off the top of my head, I know for sure that Kenny Atkinson would be a better coach than Coach Bud and I think Mike D'Antoni can help improve this team’s playoff aptitude slightly. However, with that said, I don’t know if either of those coaches are what the Bucks need. I think the best scenario for The Bucks is a coach like Ty Lue, someone who can make adjustments but also get out of the players’ way. Whatever happens, I just hope The Bucks don’t keep Coach Bud after this year because as long as The Buck’s stick with Coach Bud, this team will not win a championship.
Thank you Smash Fans for sticking with me until the end. If you want to talk about this topic or any other topic sports-related, please email me or text me using the information on the contact page. If you want to support me even more, please consider following my Spotify as well as subscribing to my youtube channel and blog for weekly podcasts and articles. Until next time, PD Smash signing off