All Eyes On Me

Get Caleb Houstan off the floor

Franz being out is brutal. We need Jalen to clamp Dame and hopefully the excitement of fan appreciation night and the last home game of the season doesn’t fuel Milwaukee’s role players with too much momentum. It shouldn’t be the same as Houston last night because Milwaukee will have playoff games

Only player officially ruled out at this time is Gary. Franz and Kelle still questionable and Isaac not in the injury report

We’ve had a lot of hyperbolic must-wins, but tonight is really a must-win. Win and we don’t have to deal with the play-in. Lose and we probably do.

Even with Carter’s obvious regression, he’s still probably better than his salary pays him. We need to keep the long term picture in mind. Any replacement Center we get for him will probably cost significantly more money if we’re flirting with the idea of Hartenstein or Claxton. If the plan would be to pay Goga less long term and he was that fringe big, id be okay with it, assuming we dealt Dell for a guard that could shoot to throw into the starting lineup for spacing. It’s disappointing because a year ago he was head and shoulders our 3rd best asset on a sweetheart deal, now he’s probably not much more than a fringe starter big who isn’t good enough to close out most games. If there’s ever a world where JI can play more than like 20 minutes a night, I actually like him as our starting 5.

If we win tonight and Miami loses we clinch the Southeast Division, which is huge for tiebreaker implications with the standings as close as they are. Division champ is the first tiebreaker. If Cleveland and Miami both lose tonight, not likely with Cleveland hosting Memphis-but if, then we clinch a top 6 seed.

Paolo has had a pretty bad run the past few weeks, and I think I forget all the time that he’s 21 years old at the end of his 2nd year in the league. He’s being asked to do and take on so much of our offense just due to lack of offensive talent and he needs help. Last night he played I think pretty similarly to how he did the 8 games Franz missed earlier in the season where he had to do everything because nobody else could. Difference is that when Franz was out earlier, we were missing like our entire rotation, last night it was just Franz and Paolo didn’t have to force the way he did. Also, if we keep up the ramming our head down and hoping for foul calls we’re gonna be out quick.

That’s a big stretch to me. Tanking when you haven’t clinched a non play-in spot would be wild.

I agree with you 100% on not being in a position to sit guys, but we’ve been in similar spots all year where I thought we’d bend our ways and we haven’t yet. It will be super interesting

Keep in mind that we have pretty substantial evidence that we’ll be sitting Isaac, Fultz and Harris for injury maintenance tomorrow night, and assumedly Franz will still be out.

It was a bad night for us, but silver lining is we still control our own fate. If we win out we’re the 2 or 3 seed. I think if we just win one more of the next 3 we’ll avoid the play-in, but 2-1 guarantees it without needing a loss from Philly, Miami, and Indiana. The boys need to be a lot better than they were tonight to pull it off tho, even if Milwaukee will more than likely be without Giannis.

We need to win 2 of the next 3 I think. It would take us losing out to land in the play-in, but we definitely have the schedule and injuries on the roster to do it

We lose. Everyone else we’re competing with in the East wins. Bad night. On to the next one

I hate Fred VanVleet

Fultz starting with Franz out. Fultz/Suggs/GH/Paolo/WCJ

Franz out, Isaac in. Franz apparently was a shoot around this morning, so hopefully he’s not out as long as the last ankle sprain.

We need to be rooting for them to break their skid tonight against Boston

Yeah, I’m more nervous than I should be about still winding up in the play-in. I think we just need to go 2-2 in the last 4 and we’ll be fine, but after tonight the Bucks (x2) and Sixers games are gonna be full on playoff games. Bucks tomorrow night where we’re banged up and on the 2nd night of a back to back is pretty much a penciled in L.

I’d think we’d be a lot more likely to reintroduce AB to the rotation and possibly shorten the rotation if both Isaac and Franz are out. Not to downplay Franz’ injury, but the ankle sprain didn’t really look bad compared to his last one. Maybe he surprises us.

Franz MRI came back positive for an ankle sprain but nothing worse. He’s questionable tomorrow, but I doubt he plays. Honestly wouldn’t shock me if we sat him down for the rest of the regular season. Kid needs the rest anyway. Crickets on JI, but he didn’t play in the 2nd half last night cause his back was sore. He’ll definitely miss at least one of the next two cause we have our last back-to-back of the season. Gotta imagine same with Harris and Fultz.

It’s like Jeff Turner said last night, this time of year it’s important to jump on the teams that have nothing to play for early. If you don’t, you wind up with games like the Charlotte and Portland games we’ve had over the past week

It’s tricky with the Rockets because they’re pretty much locked in the standings no matter what happens. No benefit in tanking, no harm in winning. I agree with you, I hope we get a young team that has quit on the year and their heart is already in Cancun.

Yeesh, you’re not wrong. Everybody else were competing with outside of Milwaukee has like one possible tough matchup left, some don’t even have that. We just need to win 2 to avoid the play-in. Tomorrow night against Houston has to be a W with how Philly is surging and now we need to expect to get a desperate Milwaukee team to close out the season.

Rockets lose and Dubs win. Curious to see how motivated Houston is on Tuesday. They’re officially eliminated from playoff contention

Great win that we controlled from the get-go. Kelle rounding into form right on time. Hopefully Franz and JI aren’t long term, especially Franz. I’m getting more and more worried about his ankles. Can’t take this season for granted. One of the youngest squads in the league and we’re 46-32 and still have a very legitimate path to the 2 seed. Unreal. Staff and team deserve a ton of credit. Let’s finish strong and avoid that stupid play-in tournament! Last note, think the league needs to bring back the rule from the bubble. I’m okay with the play-in IF the 9-10 seeds are within 4 games of the 7-8. If that rule was in place right now, the top 8 in the East would just make the playoffs like they’ve earned.