The Milwaukee Bucks have requested waivers on guard Darington Hobson (6-7, 210), General Manager John Hammond announced today.

Hobson, 24, was originally selected by the Bucks with the 37^th overall pick of the 2010 NBA Draft, but was waived prior to the start of the 2010-11 season. Hobson re-signed with Milwaukee as a free agent on Dec. 10, 2011, and appeared in five regular season games for the Bucks this season, tallying four points, three rebounds and six assists in 39 total minutes of action. Hobson also spent two separate stints with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the NBA D-League where he averaged 10.6 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.0 assists in eight games (six starts).

The Bucks roster now stands at 14 players.

What does this mean? Let’s let the next few days play out and see if it has any meaning at all before we jump to any conclusions.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Love this picture. I had to modify this post just to include it. Brandon Jennings: No fear, just swag. (Photo by Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images)

You’ll remember that Brandon Jennings spoke with Steve Nash over the summer.

“I asked him when he got that MVP two times, he said he just made plays down the stretch,” Jennings said in mid-Jaunary. “So, that’s something I really worked on this summer, not always shooting it, just making plays for everybody, trying to get the best possible shot.”

Everyone loves to hear that. The emphasis on teamwork sounds great. Teamwork is playing a big role in Milwaukee’s recent success too. The ball movement has been crisp. The players didn’t give up on themselves or each other when they were down 17 after the first quarter to the Heat. Scott Skiles had some nice things to say about the group’s chemistry after the game. Hooray for teamwork.

Teamwork wasn’t so much what had people on their feet last night though. That was just Brandon Jennings letting his natural abilities and attitudes shine through.

Jennings attitude and swag spread through the arena like smoke from a fire by the time the fourth quarter was over, but it actually started much earlier.

As he often is, Jennings looked frustrated when the Bucks were losing. He wasn’t shooting well, the Heat were doing their fast break thing and Lebron James and Dwyane Wade were taking turns making tough shots look simple.  Skiles said after the game that, given James’ mid-50s shooting percentage, there really is no such thing as a low percentage shot for him. The first quarter spoke to that, as James poured in 24 points while Jennings stewed.

With 1:52 left in the second quarter, Jennings hit a three. He was 2-10 from the field before that shot and 1-5 from three. Then he did something I’ve seen before.

He had that look on his face and made that motion with his hand that we’ve all made when we finally figured something out. It was kind of like he was a contestant on a game show and everyone else had moved on from the first step, but for whatever reason he couldn’t figure it out. Then  he figured it out and it was like he had to catch up, so going forward he knew he’d have to be better than his competitors.

Jennings did the same thing early in the second half of his 55-point game. I swear it was the same exact look.

From there, Jennings acted like he was just playing a game again. He started having fun and started letting the other team know he was doing so.

Jennings hit a three early in the third and almost before the ball had finished passing through the net, he stared at Mario Chalmers for just a moment before flashing the three-point monocle in his direction. I know we all grew up hearing about how important sportsmanship is and how no one likes a braggart, but does anyone really not love it when a guy on the team you’re cheering for is openly taunting the best team in the league and playing well enough to do it?

He wouldn’t stop there. Jennings banked in a floater a minute into the fourth quarter and gave Norris Cole a staredown. Maybe he was just insulted that Norris Cole has probably received more national attention than him this season. Maybe he was just excited that these weren’t just Knicks or Warriors point guards he felt like he could torch. Because he hadn’t even gotten to the torching yet. He hadn’t even begun his real fourth quarter show just yet.

Jennings would go on to hit three more threes in the fourth quarter, each one of them a hay-maker to the suddenly woozy Heat skull. He ended up 7-14 from behind the arc on the night. The Bucks play maker in the fourth quarter over and over again this season did it again.  He’s now averaging seven points and shooting 40% from three in fourth quarters this season. He certainly seems to have taken Nash’s words to heart.

And after his third three in the fourth, when the Heat called a time out to regroup, Jennings basked in the cheers from the Bucks crowd. He motioned for them to rise to their feet, but he had already put them there with his play.

After the game, Jennings talked about coming in early in the morning despite Coach Skiles canceling shootaround to get the team rest. He said it looked like it paid off in the fourth quarter. He talked about making plays for his teammates.  He talked about Luc Mbah a Moute’s insane defense on all three of the Heat stars. And he talked about the Bucks needing to get back to .500 on Friday. He had toned the swag back down and was all business once again.

It’s a delicate balance, like teamwork and a star knowing he should take over.

Teamwork is cool and finding the open man is just as important in the fourth quarter as it is in the first, maybe even more so. But when everyone who was at or watched the Bucks game at home last night talks about the game this morning there is a pretty specific order they’ll recollect in:

1. Did you see the Bucks last night?
2. Dude, Jennings went insane.
3. Those guys look good, they were moving the ball so well too.
4. But damn, Jennings was crazy.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Are you worried about Jackson's influence on Jennings?

“They know how I feel,” repeated Stephen Jackson over and over again after the game against the Pistons. On who “they” were, Jackson would not elaborate, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he’s talking about John Hammond, Scott Skiles and the Bucks organization at large.

The Bucks are 3-0 without Jackson. Against New York, he was suspended for missing shootaround because he overslept. He was suspended for the Lakers game because he was verbally abusing refs while playing the Bulls. Skiles chose not to play him against the Pistons. According to Jackson, this was the first time that he’s never played in an NBA game he was available to play in.

Without Jackson, the passing looks crisper and the offense looks better. Possessions aren’t wasted on Jackson heat checks. Delfino is playing better perimeter defense. And the team is stocked with better scorers, shooters and distributors. “Scott is right. We are playing well without me in the lineup,” said Jackson. “The rotation is great and as long as we’re winning. There’s nothing for nobody to complain about.”

Jackson isn’t playing well, but he isn’t a locker room cancer. The other players generally adore him. He’s the first one off the bench to high-five everyone during time-outs. He’s around and not playing well, but he’s not undermining any efforts to win. “My situation is going to get better soon,” Jackson said, “Until then, I’m going to support these guys and continue to collect my check.”

Hoopsworld recently ran a report stating the Bucks were looking to ship Jackson.

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Przybilla as a Buck. It could happen again soon.

From Alex Kennedy of Hoopsworld:

Stephen Jackson has been suspended one game for verbal abuse of an official and failure to leave the court. Incident occurred against CHI.

And things remain turbulent.

This is the second game this season Jackson will miss for disciplinary reasons. He missed the team bus to shootaround in New York and Coach Scott Skiles opted not to play him.

Jackson has apologized on Twitter.

To all my fans apologize for my actions. Its just somethings refs shouldnt say. Gotta keep my kool. Lesson learned.

In other news, I’ve obtained what I feel like is reliable information that John Hammond met with Joel Przybilla and his agent in Milwaukee on Saturday and could be close to working out some a deal. I’m now rooting for this scenario, solely so I don’t look like an idiot for reporting it.

That’s where this season currently sits for me.

Ultimately, Przybilla isn’t making or breaking the Bucks if he joins the team. He would be another big body and he would give the team a true center. But he’d be giving them one that hasn’t played in about eight months and seems fairly content to be retired.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Milwaukee's hopes may rest on Drew Gooden's wacky game. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

We know Andrew Bogut is going to be out (UPDATE: We now know it will be 8-to-12 weeks too. Damn). His ankle won’t unfracture quickly. Whether or not this torpedoes Milwaukee’s already fragile season largely depends on who replaces the majority of Bogut’s 30 minutes each night.

The early candidate is Drew Gooden. He will likely get the start in Bogut’s spot against the Chicago Bulls on Friday and Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday. For the time being, he’s Milwaukee’s best option for big minutes.

That isn’t saying much.

Last season, Gooden’s PER while playing the center position was 13.6, roughly six points lower than his PER at the power forward position. The numbers have remained consistent to last season this season. Gooden’s PER as a center this year is 13, while his PER at the four is 29. The smaller sample size for this season makes me hesitate a bit, but since they are consistent with last season, it seems to be a pattern worth recognizing as far as Gooden’s role on the Bucks is concerned, although Gooden did post an 18 PER while playing center with the Mavericks three seasons ago.

The aggressive, athletic Gooden can occasionally thrill, but he often seems to make the most simple parts of the game difficult. Many passes become no look ones. Pump fakes turn into foul drawing exhibitions. Suddenly, Gooden has developed a taste for the outside shot too, which is probably better than him shooting 22-foot jump shots, but isn’t an ideal shot for a starting center that has never demonstrated that range before.

An apparent general lack of attention to detail seems to make Gooden a less than ideal candidate as a back line defender. Simply, he isn’t the guy who erases the mistakes of his teammates. But if Gooden isn’t a perfect fit offensively and isn’t the defender Milwaukee thrives with, is there a better internal option to replace Bogut?

Nope.

Larry Sanders is a very good shot-blocker and very, very athletic. He can dunk as well as anyone on the team when he decides to dunk. This season he’s even been a bit of a creative passer. He still seems to struggle with his awareness and has bad hands though. Currently, Sanders is averaging 8.9 fouls per 36 minutes. He also turns the ball over on more possessions than he uses.

Ersan Ilyasova has bounced around Milwaukee’s lineups over the past three seasons. Sometimes he’s starting, sometimes he’s coming off the bench, sometimes he’s forced into the five role with a small lineup and sometimes he’s a natural fit at the four. Getting him just a bit of balance, some reliability in his role, seems like it should be a priority, even with Bogut out.

Ilyasova has consistently been the first forward off the bench since coming out of the starting lineup eight games ago and he’s averaged 8.5 points and 8.9 rebounds per game. He actually performed well at the center position last year, despite his apparently lack of size. His high effort, physical game likely helps him at the five.

Aside from Sanders and Ilyasova, Milwaukee has Jon Brockman (calm down) and Jon Leuer (good as a four, seems like a huge stretch as a five).

The pickings internally are slim. Externally, no one will stop talking about Joel Przybilla until he tells everyone on the record he’s done playing forever. Francisco “That’s fun to say” Elson has been signed by the Philadelphia 76ers. Dan Gadzuric is still available. I’m really writing these things. The D-Legue isn’t exactly brimming with center options either. Mikki Moore might be the best they have to offer, though there is a 7-foot-5 guy that blocks a lot of shots there.

That’s the situation right now. It’s Drew Gooden or bust, unless the Bucks can swing a trade.

Buckle up.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Pictured: Every Bucks Season Ever

500 Days of Summer on girls being full of it:

Tom: Look, we don’t have to put a label on it. That’s fine. I get it. But, you know, I just… I need some consistency.
Summer: I know.
Tom: I need to know that you’re not gonna wake up in the morning and feel differently.
Summer: And I can’t give you that. Nobody can.

Tom isn’t asking her to love him. He just wants her to stop yanking him around. One minute Summer tells Tom she’s not interested in something serious. The next: kisses, hand-holding, sex. Heck, she kisses him on the street then breaks up with him.

Scott Skiles can be Summer for positions 2 through 4. Flirt a little with the steady Shaun Livingston. Have a midnight fling with Stephen Jackson. Go wild with the mysterious, foreigner Ersan Ilyasova. Bat your eyelashes at the cute boy next door, Jon Leuer. That’s fine. Some of these suitors have looked better than others at this point in the season, but it’s still too early to settle down with any quite yet.

But at the 1 and the 5, you are MARRIED to Brandon Jennings and Andrew Bogut. Flirting with Drew Gooden for an entire fourth quarter is unacceptable. He had a soul patch on the back of his head. That is not Dad-approved!

One pixel on this venn diagram equals 8 miles.

Bogut was 3-for-10 with twelve rebounds and four assists in twenty-five minutes. In addition, his two-man game with Jennings was on point. Gooden was 4-for-10 with half as many rebounds and assists as Bogut in twenty-three minutes. He also was called for two defensive three second violations in the fourth. And his half-hearted effort to defend against Joe Johnson’s penetration may as well have been no effort at all.

Quick thing here: Skiles moving Ilyasova to the bench was a great move. He’s playing like gangbusters. But that move had good reasoning behind it. Ilyasova looked listless when he was starting. Bogut is active and doing well in rebounding and defense. His shot is just off. Reps are required to get it going again. He can’t do that while on the bench.

Scott Skiles Explaining why not to sub late in games, still not explaining why not to sub for an entire quarter:

We got a little bit of a hold on the game, and if you wait so long, bring the other guys back in it’s kind of unfair to them at that point.

Bogut playing late against the Hawks does guarantee the win. It makes it a completely different game. Maybe the Bucks get blown out by 20. But at least we’d all know that Skiles doesn’t just wake up in the morning and feel completely different about everyone.

Ian Segovia has seen 500 Days of Summer a handful of times. Enjoys it more than most Bucks games. Follow him on twitter. Like Bucksketball on Facebook.

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A lively Stephen Jackson against the Spurs on January 10. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

“That’s a dumb question, because my role was the same, I just didn’t get the shots that I should get. So, I just played defense and went out there and tried to help my team. The shots didn’t come, I didn’t force them. I don’t think my role was different, that’s just how the game go.”

- Stephen Jackson after Monday’s loss when asked about his role after taking just one shot in 28 minutes

Stephen Jackson played in 761 NBA games over 11 seasons before Monday’s game. Never did he play more than 25 minutes and take one shot or less. Monday was a unique situation for one of the NBA’s notorious volume shooters. Jackson caught and released passes with serious quickness. He kept the ball moving like he was working on an assembly line. There’s some good and some bad to that.

He wasn’t a ball-stopper, which he’s been accused of being at times this season. But he wasn’t a creator either. He didn’t probe the defense with his dribble, he didn’t seem like a much of a threat to catch and shoot off a kick out, he just moved the ball along and went on his way.

It wasn’t like Jackson didn’t care. He played hard and gave a strong effort on defense. Coach Scott Skiles acknowledged as much after the game.

“I thought he was very good on Joe (Johnson) individually defensively,” Skiles said after the game. “Offensively, yeah, he just seemed to be moving the ball around, he didn’t get many opportunities.”

Have we ever known Jackson to wait for opportunities? He isn’t Andrew Bogut. He isn’t waiting on teammates to dump it down to him in the post. He’s typically the guy creating opportunities for his teammates.

But Milwaukee didn’t trade for Jackson in June hoping to get Royal Ivey.

They wanted a complete player. Someone who could be relied on for some scoring punch, some assists and the sort of defense Jackson played Monday night. There was lots of talk about his ability to create shots for not only himself, but for others. We saw little of that creativity from Jackson against the Hawks. Not that it’s bad that Jackson was moving the ball. Forcing shots isn’t a great thing either. Jackson is better off swinging the ball around the perimeter than chucking contested 28-foot threes. Sometimes he’ll do that though, so it was unusual he had suddenly removed all those very Stephen Jackson specific aspects of his game.

The reasons for the sudden philosophical shift in the mercurial forward were flying around pretty quick last night. Lots of people are crying foul, saying Jackson was up to something. So far, we don’t have any evidence to indicate that’s the case. If Scott Skiles really thought a player was doing anything other than making what that player thought were the best decisions for the team, I have a hard time believing that player would have played virtually the entire fourth quarter of a game. He doesn’t often get into those kinds of games, especially in the fourth quarter of a game the team could really use.

We’ve seen two extreme sides of Jackson this season. There have been games where he’s come in and shot without conscience. In Milwaukee’s opener in Charlottes this year, hardly a moment went by when Jackson was on the court that he didn’t shoot. And in most games, when he hasn’t been shooting, he’s been looking to find teammates cutting or somewhere around the hoop. He’s taken more than his share of chances with the ball all season.

Monday he took zero chances. He played as safe as a player can play. When Brandon Jennings kicked out to him after a Milwaukee offensive rebound with the Bucks down three and 30 seconds to play, Jackson gave it up immediately when Jennings got back behind the arc and headed into the corner. Stephen Jackson, of all people, seemed to have little interest in offense with 30 seconds to play.

Jackson obviously wasn’t interested in talking about the differences in his game Monday when contrasted with his typical outings. That likely was his defense mechanisms kicking in once again. He’s been burned so many times before, it kind of seems like Jackson looks to take a shot at everyone else because he knows they’ll be coming for him. It seems like a product of coverage of him throughout this career and all that’s been written about his persona.

So as for why his game seemed so different, my guess is no better than yours. But we certainly saw a side of Jackson we’ve never seen before. If we can see a side that exists somewhere between that one and the one that shoots constantly, I think we’ll all appreciate Jackson a bit more.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Per  Charles F. Gardner, Stephen Jackson will not play Friday night.

Stephen Jackson suspended for Friday night’s game vs. Knicks. Source said he missed bus to morning shootaround.

Jackson’s Twitter account had him hanging out with someone named “jones” Thursday evening, presumably Dipset rapper Jim Jones (he did that song BALLIN’ a few years ago), as his next tweet was about Dipset. No word on whether or not they picked up Juelz Santana.

Jackson was very vocal post game about his displeasure with sitting for the entire second half Tuesday in Milwaukee’s 105-95 loss to the Denver Nuggets. According to Andrew Wagner, both Jackson and Skiles downplayed his comments on Tuesday as an outburst from a competitor who doesn’t want to lose.

It’s not all bad news though. Gardner also reports that Mike Dunleavy will return to the lineup this evening, quicker than most had projected. Dunleavy’s injection into the lineup could be the shooting boon Milwaukee’s been searching for. The small forward has hit 36% of his threes this season.

Shaun Livingston will start at the two in lieu of Jackson and forward Luc Mbah a Moute, who has only played in two games this season, will again be active.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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It’s one thing when a team is caught off guard and unprepared. Sometimes reserve players have huge games or rookies that haven’t been around the league yet show off a part of their game that the league hasn’t caught onto yet. Those situations are understandable.  It’s another thing when a team does a few things repeatedly and keeps having success with it, even when an opponent knows what’s coming.

That was the frustrating scenario the Milwaukee Bucks lived through on Tuesday night. The Denver Nuggets were hitting the outlet off made baskets. They were hitting it off misses. They were going coast to coast. They couldn’t be stopped in the first half, even though the Bucks knew it was coming.

Layups and threes. It was so simple for the Denver Nuggets  Tuesday and it wasn’t an accident. Denver averages 33.5 shots at the rim per game, the highest number in the league and it isn’t even close. Miami ranks second with just under 28.5 attempts at the rim per game.

“The percentages league wide show that’s where you win: At the rim and behind the line,” Scott Skiles said before taking on the Nuggets Tuesday night. “People are always looking for the guys that have sort of the in-between game. But the percentage show, not that they’re meaningless shots, but that it’s the shots at the rim and behind the line. They pass the ball very well and you have to get back. They penetrate very well.”

So he and the rest of the Bucks were well aware of what the Nuggets wanted to do. Run, make layups and kick out for threes. At least it was in the game plan so the Bucks could prepare to stop it. Preparation doesn’t make perfect I guess.

The Nuggets took 75 shots on Tuesday. 58 of those shots were at the rim or behind the arc. Of those 58, they made 27, accounting for 66 of their 105 points. That’s not factoring in free throws courtesy of the Nuggets assault on the rim either. Denver made 29-37 free throws. That’s 95 points on free throws, layups and threes.

The Bucks made 28 of their combined 62 attempts at the rim and behind the arc. The 28 baskets accounted for 63 points. Milwaukee made 12-14 free throws. 85 points.

The Bucks lost by 10, appropriately enough.

Milwaukee even took 16 more shots than the Nuggets. The problem was the 29 shots the Bucks took between 3 and 23 feet from the basket. The Nuggets rarely bother with those shots. They attempted just 17 on the night. Denver knows what a good shot is and they chase those shots with conviction all game long.

“When you’re watching the Nuggets play, when an open guy is open, he gets the ball,” Skiles said after the game. “They have several guys with vision and they see people and they get the ball. So they really put the pressure on your defense to cover them individually, and then you gotta be aware and scramble out to people and contest shots. We’re not close to really understanding yet how hard we have to play and how hard we have to compete and attention to detail and a whole bunch of things like that.”

Scrambling out and matching up in transition was a huge issue for the Bucks on Tuesday. That sort of attention to detail has been a problem all season long.

“One thing we talked about this morning in shoot around was get back,” Stephen Jackson said after the game. “The coaches did say that a couple times. But for some reason they was just getting rebounds and getting out. We wasn’t able to get back. When you getting contested shots and they gettin’ layups, it’s goign to be hard to win like that. We just didn’t pay attention to detail in our scouting report.”

Skiles was pressed further in the post game. A reporter said his team “wasn’t that good to play this cool.” But Skiles brought up a valid point that gets glossed over very often.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “You’re dealing with human beings, you know? You don’t always know what it is. We have to talk to the guys, we have to try and figure out why it is that we’re doing those kinds of things. You’re right, they just ran right by us. We had several clips at halftime, you guys all saw it, where we just stood and kind of let them run right by us. And that was point number one in the game plan and obviously we failed.”

The Bucks aren’t robots, the Nuggets aren’t robots. And you can see in the above clips how frustrated the Bucks were getting. They knew it was coming, but they couldn’t figure out how to work together to stop the fast breaks. That’s what the Nuggets do. Human beings are prone to imperfection and the Bucks’ transition defense was rife with imperfection against a Nuggets team that feasted on it every chance it got.

They were simply better at doing it than the Bucks were at stopping it.

Most teams the Bucks have played this season been better at most facets of the game than the Bucks. Yes, the team is made of up individuals, but this is a results driven game. If the Bucks can’t start stopping what they know is coming, if they can’t start paying attention to detail, frankly, if they can’t start winning, this season is going to get away from them as fast as the Nuggets did.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Jackson posts up in some rare minutes against the Nuggets. (Photo by Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images)

Stephen Jackson isn’t some nefarious, selfish prima donna. In fact, I’d wager that most of us, if not all of us have a friend like Stephen Jackosn. Maybe your friend doesn’t record raps in his spare time or make millions of dollars, but he or she probably has a similar throught process.

Jackson has a habit of missing the obvious, of taking things too personal.

I can’t count the number of times over the past two seasons that Scott Skiles has sat a player who hasn’t been playing well for an extended stretch, even for a half. If he went to someone new for a spark and the new guy helped to give the Bucks a spark, Skiles has always stayed with that new guy and tried to ride it out. He’s never seemed like a message sender. He’s just a guy who wants to play the guys who are playing the best.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Jackson hasn’t been playing the best this season. And with this team, there isn’t the typical talent gulf between the third best player and the tenth best player. Some guys are better than others at certain things, but very few Bucks have obvious talent advantages across the board, Jackson included.

So when Skiles went to Tobias Harris to start the second half, it didn’t seem like he was sending a message and he said as much later.

“I just thought he (Jackson) looked fatigued,” Skiles said after the game. “I thought he and Bogues both looked a little fatigued. We just tried to get some energy into the game.”

Jackson certainly didn’t react like someone who felt they had been pulled for such simple reasons. But he’s a human being, a specific kind of human being. Like I said earlier, we all have a friend who has trouble understanding the simplest of concepts. It’s not that your friend or my friend or Jackson is stupid, they all just have a habit of making things into a more personal situation than necessary. Given Jackson’s persecution, some deserved and some undeserved, throughout his time in the league, his defenses probably kick into gear quicker than most.

“If they want to blame it on somebody I’ll take the blame,” Jackson said after the game last night. “It is what it is. I guess they expected me to spaz out and go crazy. Too late in the game for that.”

When a reporter said he obviously wanted to be out there, Jackson was quick to point out that he couldn’t control that and he’d let the coaches have that. Jackson was then asked about Andrew Bogut’s minutes, equally limited throughout the game.

“Last thing you need to do is upset your best player. So, I don’t know. I don’t know what they was trying to prove. Hopefully they proved the point, whatever they was trying to prove. When they didn’t play me, my thoughts was just, ’support the young fellas, support everybody out there and try to get this win.’ If they want to make it personal, they can, I’m used to it.”

Jackson conceded that he hasn’t been playing well this season, but he failed to connect the dots any further than that. In his mind, his performance apparently hasn’t warranted any extra time on the bench given his track record of success over his career.

“I’m not playing well right now and I admit that. I’m not going to blame one person, but I will take the blame because I know I can play better.”

It may sound crazy, but Jackson is a sensitive guy. His defenses were up last night after the team lost and he seemed to have felt a bit embarrassed. He cares. He wants to be on the court and he wants to be playing well. He isn’t going to go into shut down mode the way Corey Maggette seemed to have by the end of last season. That’s probably a good thing.

But he’ll need to realize pretty quick that Skiles has a habit of treating everyone on his roster the same way. The guys who play wel are going to find minutes. The guys who aren’t contributing are going to find the bench.

The team surely did their research on Jackson and knew he’d occasionally get quotable after games, so I don’t suspect they’ll be too concerned with last night’s comments. Jackson has a way of saying a whole lot of things at once without really meaning any of it. He’s not going to skip practices, he’s not going to miss a game. It will probably be business as usual today at practice now that he’s gotten some things off his chest.

Think about the way you handle things with your hard headed friend. You accept the good with the bad. The Bucks will do the same.

And they’ll hope more good is coming pretty quick.

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