It was much more than Bud for Kidd. Bledsoe came over from Phoenix out of shape after recovering all summer from an injury while not having a training camp with his teammates which is important for a PG. They also traded in Jabari, Henson, Dellavadova, Maker, and Jason Terry’s corpse for Lopez, Ilyasova, Mirotic, Hill, and got a find in Connaughton.
Their second unit and complementary pieces were much much improved this year and the new personnel was a perfect fit for Buds system. Let’s not discount the leap Giannis took also.
For one, this was a completely different Bucks team than last year. They upgraded their entire roster, Giannis through personal development and Bledsoe being healthy and in shape while being there in camp, with the exception of Middleton who is the same real good player while adding a coach whose system on both sides of the ball was a perfect fit with their personnel.
We had the same players plus Kyrie and a recovering Hayward paired with an entire cast of impending free agents who didn’t fit well together. The Celtics may or may not have underachieved in the regular season depending on ones definition.....but in the playoffs they were the same flawed team they were for 82 games and nowhere near the Bucks league as we saw in these 5 games.