The Suns defense was near perfect and they took the Bucks out of rhythm offensively

All year long, Monty Williams and the Suns coaching staff has put an emphasis on being locked-in defensively and this showed in Game 1’s victory. Phoenix swarmed the ball every single possession for Milwaukee and they did a great job at creating a wall across the paint. 

The Bucks like to get the ball to Giannis or Middleton in the high-post near the free-throw line and when they did, the Suns simply created a “three-man wall” that included the man guarding the ball and two other defenders on opposite sides of the ball-handler. This “wall” for Phoenix was highly successful in not only keeping the Bucks out of the paint, but forcing them to take jump shots they were not comfortable with, which resulted in the Suns getting the ball and pushing the tempo in transition. 

The whole gameplan of the Bucks all season long and in these playoffs has been to attack their opponents in the paint and to score in the paint. In their previous series against the Hawks, they found great success attacking the paint on offense and outscored Atlanta by 98 points in the paint, but this was simply not the case in Game 1 against the Suns. 

Phoenix controlled the paint on both ends of the court and they actually outscored the Bucks 44-42 in the paint in this game. Monty Williams made adjustments all game long, but Mike Budenholzer once again failed to do so. He just watched from the sideline as his team looked lost at times offensively, yet nothing was done in terms of switching things up gameplan-wise. 

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Another key element of success for the Suns defensively came from them finding success on offense against the Bucks’ big men. Brook Lopez was effective early on, as he scored 11 of his 17 points in the first-half, but he quickly became a liability defensively since the Suns attacked him and Bobby Portis in pick-and-roll sets. 

This forced the Bucks to turn to a smaller lineup that was not as dominant in terms of attacking through their bigs in the paint, which gave the Suns an advantage defensively because they could focus all of their attention to Giannis Antetokounmpo being their lone low-post threat. 

Monty Williams was brilliant with his gameplanning and philosophy for Game 1 and as of right now, it seems like targeting the Bucks’ bigs is going to be the plan moving forward. Until Milwaukee can prove that they can make adjustments, which we hardly see, this is going to continue to be the focal point for the Suns in this series, which is why they have the edge after one game.