The Bucks lost discipline and played into the Pacers' style of basketball to lose Game 2

In the days following the Milwaukee Bucks’ Game 1 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Sunday – and even into his pregame press conference Tuesday night before Game 2 – head coach Doc Rivers noted a slip in discipline by his team in the second half of that win.

Some of it had to do with shot selection. Some of it has to do with defensive assignments. Some of it had to do with allowing the Pacers to slip through the defense for offensive rebounds.

But there was another element he noticed, too.

“We just got to keep our focus throughout our possessions,” Rivers said after practice on Monday. “There were (defensive) loads that we have to load that we got into...”

His train of thought then switched tracks.

“And you know, the game, the series, becomes personal,” he continued. “I was trying to explain that to our guys. And it should be. You’re trying to take something from them, they’re trying to take something from you, but you still gotta do your team stuff. You can’t get into these individual, personal battles. And each game it ramps up. Guy says something in the first game and you ignore it. By the second game you start getting irritated and by the third game you feel like he said something about your mama or something. Then you start taking it personally and you just can’t do that. You gotta stay in it as a focus with the team. I think that’s what we just gotta keep doing throughout.”

It was clear Indiana noticed this, too, and they made an effort from the moment the starting 10 players took the court for their 125-108 Game 2 victory to try and divert that focus and even the series.

As players circled Bucks center Brook Lopez and Pacers center Myles Turner for the opening tipoff, Pacers forward Pascal Siakam started shoving Bucks guard Pat Beverley in the back – even knocking him off balance at one point before the ball went up.

Less than six minutes of game play later, Beverley was racing the ball up the court when Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton shouldered the Bucks guard to the floor. Beverley got up immediately and went right to the bench when Rivers called timeout.

After Indiana’s Obi Toppin made a layup to cap an 11-2 Pacers run to give them a 24-23 first quarter lead, Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard retrieved the ball out of the basket and handed it to Damian Lillard. The Bucks point guard didn’t appreciate how that occurred, and the two started jawing – drawing an emphatic whistle from official Jacyn Goble.

Lillard and Nembhard received double technical fouls in Game 1 after the two flailed their arms at one another after a made basket, and Goble clearly wanted to get their attention. But it was Lillard and Rivers who were working Goble for the first few seconds of the timeout as Nembhard went to his bench.

And this was just in the first quarter.

“I think that’s natural in the playoffs,” Lillard said. “You lose a game, you got a couple days to sit with it. You probably have practice and film and the coaches get on your ass about it and it’s an emphasis to make these adjustments and come out and make these changes, ‘this is what you gotta do to try and win the game.’ So I think it was a little bit of that. They played, they tried to come a little harder, a little more physical. Game 1 went one way and they wanted to come out and try to change that and try to make a statement or take a stand, and I think that’s natural. I’ve seen that every year I’ve been in the playoffs. From game to game, every game is different. The losing team is going to come back a different team the following night. I thought it was more of that.”

The Pacers were indeed playing differently.

Haliburton, held to under 10 points and assists in Game 1 – and who did a “Dame Time” wrist tap following the Pacers’ In-Season Tournament victory in Las Vegas on Dec. 7 – held his finish on a three-pointer in the second quarter that gave the Pacers a 40-38 lead.

Then after the Pacers went up 69-62, Khris Middleton was called for a loose ball foul as Aaron Nesmith went flying off Middleton and into Bobby Portis, knocking them both over. As Middleton argued the call, Nesmith bellowed “Let’s go!” toward his bench with a flex. On the next play Nembhard drove hard down the lane and drew contact on Beverley – and on the whistle Nembhard stood over the prone Bucks guard.

Beverly scrambled to his feet but thought better of it, instead turning his attention to the Pacers bench to give them a thumbs up. Simultaneously, Portis and Haliburton stood face to face and clapped it up in front of one another. Beverley was called for the personal foul, but Nembhard received a technical.

“I mean, you know, just quite frankly they frontrunners, bro,” Portis said. ‘Y’all can just tweet that, whatever it is, bro. I mean, when the (expletive) going good they all, laughing, clapping all that. When it’s going bad they’re not saying nothing.

"So, to answer the question, guys always feel good when they having a good game, hitting shots. Everybody. I think that’s just human nature in basketball. When you making shots you’re feeling good. But when the tough going, you can’t get nothing going, you kind of go the other way.

"So yeah, they’re supposed to feel good. They was hitting shots. They game planned really well. Yeah, they’re supposed to feel good, of course. But Game 3 on the way Friday.”

The fervor did spark the Bucks, as they trimmed that 11-point deficit down to 79-78 and then 82-80 – but through all of this the Bucks found themselves running with Indiana, trading baskets. Then, after misses, they were looking for calls that weren’t coming.

Milwaukee had done a good job of slowing Indiana’s pace in Game 1, but the Pacers extracurricular activities helped draw the Bucks into that more frenetic style of play – which was clearly to their advantage.

Then with 11:17 to go in the game and the Pacers leading 92-85, Toppin shoved an airborne Pat Connaughton from behind on a layup attempt. It went in, but Connaughton tumbled to the floor and grimaced as he grabbed his legs. Indiana took timeout, and while Connaughton had his lower left leg iced, the foul was upgraded to a Flagrant 1 on Toppin.

Connaughton made the free throw to cut the Pacers lead to 92-88, but it didn’t slow the Pacers down – the Bucks kept putting up quicker shots and the Pacers kept pushing the ball and immediately went on an eight-point run and took their largest lead of the game at a dozen point.

It forced Rivers to call timeout.

“You match it, but what you can’t do is react to it,” Rivers said. “This is not a boxing match. Nothing is going to happen out there. How many times we gonna square off with each other and look at each other. Both teams. It’s comical at times. Nothing’s going to happen. At least I hope not. Because I hope both teams can keep their composure to physical play. It’s the playoffs. It should be physical.”

Now, a 100-88 lead with 9:17 to go is far from insurmountable. But the Bucks needed to come out of that break ready to revert back to what had worked so well in Game 1. Patience on offense, disciplined floor spacing and ball movement, the right shot.

To their credit, they did that on their first two possessions. They ran an action for Middleton off a dribble-handoff and screens from Portis and Beverley, and when that was defended he dumped it down to Portis who worked a jump hook. Lillard then drove the paint and dished it to Lopez for a dunk.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t stop Indiana from scoring five points on their first two possessions to increase the lead to 13.

Then, the Bucks had to burn a timeout on an inbound play when Portis got caught in the backcourt while Lillard and Beverley were covered. Out of the timeout, they were called for a 5-second violation as Middleton couldn’t get the ball in. The turnover led to a Pacers bucket, and the lead was 15.

Any hope at a comeback had dissipated.

After a disappointing series-opening loss the Pacers’ intent was clear from literally the opening tip: Get the Bucks to play their style.

It worked.

Now it will be up to the Bucks to respond in kind on the road Friday evening in Game 3.

“I didn’t think it was anything dirty,” Rivers said. “I just thought they were more physical. The reason we were on the floor is because they put us on the floor. I thought they were on the floor in the first game., They flipped it on us tonight. Like, what should they do? They should do that. And it is personal. We’re trying to win something that they want and they’re trying t win something we want and the game should be personal. So, it’s 1-1. We’d love to go be 2-0 but it’s 1-1 and we go to Indiana and go win a game. Or two.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The Bucks lost discipline and played into the Pacers' style to lose Game 2