Recap/Box Score

This is the kind of game people have been longing for from Brandon Jennings for some  time.  I’ve been swearing that Jennings has been playing well the last few games, but haven’t had much data to back up me when pleading my case to anyone who hasn’t watched the games.  They’ve been looking at the box score and saying, “Hey, this guy couldn’t shoot a jumper into Lake Michigan from Bradford Beach, what do you mean he’s playing well?”

Okay, they didn’t actually say that, but you get my point, things haven’t looked pretty for a while when Jennings stats are glanced at the day after games.

Well we can finally look back at Jennings stats after a game and feel good now that Minnesota has again visited the Bradley Center.  They seem to spread good tidings wherever they go with their 3-19 record on the road.  That 19^th loss is courtesy of the Bucks by the way.

(Photo by Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images) Al Jefferson had that "Man how do we keep getting busted so bad?" look on his face for most of the game.

Jennings had a lot to do with the win.  The Bucks burst out of the gate with 12 fast-break points in the first quarter, or more than they’ve had on 25 separate occasions this year.  Jennings had eight assists in the first quarter (he’d finish with 18 points and 13 assists).  If you hadn’t already suspected that many of the points that were piled up in the fast-break first were assisted by Jennings by now, then shame on you, because they were.  The points, and by association the assists, came in all sorts of ways: three-point shots, dumps down to Andrew Bogut and even another alley-oop to the Austrailian center, but one play stood out to me as different than the rest.

After a miss by Damien Wilkins (he’s good for that) Carlos Delfino gained control of the rebound and took a dribble.  It appeared as if he’d take it up himself as he’s custom to doing, but that changed quickly.  Jennings barked at Delfino with some intensity and demanded the ball immediately.  On the catch Jennings burst up the court with some serious decisiveness, almost like he knew where this was going.  He must have seen something he liked.  He raced on an angle that drew a few defenders and just as he was running out of real estate and about to come to a halt six feet to the left of the hoop he threw a no-look pass to a wide open Bogut standing directly in front of the basket for an easy lay-up.

I assure you my words don’t do it justice.  That is the kind of play people like me are talking about when we say Jennings is the type of guard who can see ahead of the play and make passes most people can’t.  That is the kind of play that gets me through these extended shooting droughts Jennings has shone he’s prone to at this stage in his career.  That is the kind of play that excites me about the Bucks future.

Offense

Remember that Bucks team that got zoned for the majority of the second half against Toronto and responded with three made threes in the entire half?  That team must have missed the flight back to Milwaukee.  The Bucks connected on 11-23 from behind the arc in yet another piece of evidence indicating that, yes they are inconsistent.

• Delfino brought it to the table Saturday night and no one said “Not at the table Carlos.”  Zing.  In what was without question the finest game of his NBA career, Delfino flirted with a triple double and ended the evening with 24 points, eight assists and eight rebounds.  This is one night after chucking his way to a 4-15 performance in which he had the entire city of Milwaukee wondering how he could possibly be playing 40 minutes.

• The contributors to the onslaught were many: Hakim Warrick 18 points, Jerry Stackhouse recorded his first double figure scoring game with Milwaukee, dropping 14, Bogut had 14 and even Dan Gadzuric tossed in three points.

• The Bucks 36 assists were a season high and both Jennings and Delfino set new personal bests with 13 and eight assists.  Overall, the Bucks moved the ball about as well as they had a lot recently, except they were just able to knock down a lot more shots than they typically do.  Any time the Bucks are able to hit at a high clip they’ll rack up assist numbers, it’s just the first part of that sentence that has proven to be a problem.

Defense

Now that he’s started, is Bogut ever going to stop blocking shots?  Coming into Saturday night’s game, Bogut was third in the league in defensive plays per game (steals, blocks and charges combined) at 3.63.  That’s better than Marcus Camby, better than Dwight Howard and better than every other center in the league.  It’s getting harder and harder to talk about the best defenders in the league without mentioning what Bogut does every night.

• The T’Wolves shot just 38.4 percent on the night, largely because of good work by the Bucks big men, Bogut and Kurt Thomas. They didn’t make life easy for the T’Wolves horses, Kevin Love and Al Jefferson. The Wolves don’t have much shooting or anyone who excels at slashing, so if Love and Jefferson are shut down, it gets difficult for Minnesota to get the ball in the basket.

Final Thoughts

The Bucks have been taking care of business against bad teams and at home all year, so it was no surprise to see them beat Minnesota.  What was surprising was how thorough the beat down was and that the Bucks were able to string together two very good halves.  That’s the upside of playing against the Minnesota’s of the world I guess though.

Recap/Box Score

I know the Bucks have been inconsistent this year, hell, I write about it every game.  So glancing at a box score and seeing some shaky performances doesn’t really faze me anymore.  But they took inconsistency to a whole new level in Friday night’s loss to the Raptors.

(Photo by Ron Turenne/NBAE via Getty Images) The Bucks were far more interested in getting it outside of the paint in the second half Friday night.

After playing what I thought was their best half of basketball all year long in the first half, the Bucks went away from everything that had been working for them and resorted to chucking up three-point shot after three-point shot against the Raptors zone defense.  The more they chucked, the better Toronto felt, because Milwaukee ended up 5-26 from downtown, including a 3-15 performance in the second half.  And, as has been the case often times this year, once the Bucks offense gave out their defense soon followed suit.

Quickly, the Bucks double digit lead became a single digit lead and then it was a one possession game and then the Bucks were trailing.  It was a slow and painful deterioration, but that’s only because Luke Ridnour wouldn’t let the Bucks bungle their terrific first half any sooner than they did.  Remember those three threes I said the Bucks connected on in the second half — all Ridnour, all in the fourth quarter.  The Bucks scored 23 fourth quarter points, 18 of which were Ridnour’s.  So, when looking back on why the Bucks were unable to translate some of their best ball of the season into a W, we can safely agree that we needn’t look in Ridnour’s direction. Read more…

After tonight’s game with the Raptors, the Bucks will have successfully (actually, typically not so successfully) completed 41 games.  Milwaukee sits one game back of the eighth and final playoff spot in the East, with 22 home games and 19 away games the rest of the way.  With that being said, there are some things that I’m especially interested in checking out in act two of the NBA’s season.

1.  The Integration of Stackhouse

How much does the veteran have left?  He looked terrific as a role player type on Wednesday, but that was in his first game in nearly a year, surely it isn’t a true indication of his actual current talent level.  After a few practices and games, it’ll be interesting to see what Stackhouse can bring to the table offensively.  At the very least, I like the idea of having Stack out there at the two spot simply for the extra size he gives the Bucks.  While Charlie Bell can look good at times, there aren’t many twos he can physically match-up with very well.

While I’m not sure the actual relevance of this as I haven’t been in enough NBA locker rooms to really know, it’s supposedly going to benefit many of the Bucks younger players to have another old guy around.  It does make sense to me in theory, he’s someone who’s been through playoff races before, he knows when to feel good and when to feel bad.  He ideally can help calm overreactions to losses and prevent overconfidence after wins.  It’s after the real emotional games that I imagine having Stackhouse should help the Bucks, especially someone as young an emotionally involved as Brandon Jennings. Read more…

Recap/Box Score

If we can be certain about anything regarding an inconsistent Bucks team through 39 games, it’s that they’ll be putting on a good show at home.

In their first home game in 12 days, the Bucks withstood a career night (44 points) from one of the most discussed players in the league these days, Chris Bosh and for once got the right bounces in the end of a 113-107 home victory Wednesday night.

Sometimes in these few possession games, that’s what it’s all about, a bounce here and a bounce there.  Sure, it’s awfully important for a team to keep it close the rest of the game to give themselves a chance at the end, but once two teams get down to business in the last few minutes, it’s often a flip of a coin that decides who pulls it out and who doesn’t.  To this date, the Bucks haven’t been on the lucky side of the coin very often this year as evidenced by their 3-9 record in games decided by three points or less.

But a pair of offensive rebounds by Ersan Ilyasova, one coming on a one handed snag of a ball seemingly heading out of bounds, and a ball ricocheting off the Raptors out of bounds that eventually led to a Milwaukee basket finally allowed the Bucks to pull this type of game out.  Oh, and the 6-7 performance at the line in the last five minutes didn’t hurt either. Read more…

The time has come for Joe Alexander. He’ll likely finally be getting his chance to earn some real playing time and be a featured option in the offense.  The only problem?  It’ll be for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the NBA’s D-League.

From the Milwaukee Bucks

The Milwaukee Bucks have assigned second-year forward Joe Alexander to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants (Indiana) of the NBA Development League (D-League), General Manager John Hammond announced today. Fort Wayne is led by Head Coach Joey Meyer, who previously coached the Bucks D-League affiliate in Tulsa. Alexander will meet with the team tomorrow and his first game with the Mad Ants will be Friday at Iowa.

“This is a good opportunity for Joe to receive regular minutes in real game action and continue his development as he returns from injury,” Hammond said. “We’re looking forward to seeing his progress as he works with Coach Meyer and his Fort Wayne teammates.”

I suggested that this was the most logical option for Alexander back in October before the had declined his option for next season.  My thinking was that would prevent this season from being a total loss for Alexander.  In the D-League, Alexander will get the chance to get some real playing time as a featured part of the offense the same way Ramon Sessions did once upon a time.  If he has success there, he could possibly make an impact down the road.

But at this point, that’s irrelevant for the Bucks.

It seems the Bucks just don’t want Alexander hanging around taking up space on the end of the bench, because his development is no longer of interest to the Milwaukee Bucks.  By not picking up his option after another injury setback this year for Alexander, the Bucks have made it clear he’s not apart of their future.  Despite labeling him a project coming out of college two years ago, the Bucks have seen something about Alexander that has made him toxic in their eyes.  The Bucks, a team that has the desperate need for any talent at all on the wings, sending a healthy, athletic player like Alexander to the D-League is a pretty strong sign that Alexander is persona-non-grata in that locker room.

Where Alexander could possibly still be useful to the franchise, is in his value to the rest of the league.  If Alexander heads down to the D-League, averages 20 points a night and grabs ten rebounds, he could look like an asset.  Given the number of expiring contracts the Bucks have, they already could theoretically be players at the trade deadline and Alexander could play a role then.  If a team is looking to shed cap space by dropping an okay younger player with two or three years left on a moderately priced deal, it’s possible they’d consider Alexander packaged with an expiring deal and toss a first round pick back at the Bucks for their trouble.  That’s all speculation at this point, but for Bucks fans the best Alexander can do for us going forward is have success in the D-League and turn himself into a viable asset in the next month.