I’ve watched Oklahoma City and more recently, the Minnesota Timberwolves, load themselves up with talented young players. I’ve seen them flounder and flourish. I’ve also seen the risks. The Washington Wizards present the flip side of the destroy and rebuild plan. Sure, they landed John Wall, but they also have hitched their wagon to Andray Blatche and Javale McGee. It’s a dangerous game.

Dangerous as the game may be, I’ve wanted to see the Bucks play it since it was obvious Michael Redd wasn’t enough to make the Bucks relevant. Playoff appearances may generate some revenue, but title contenders are what really sparks fan interest. Title contenders capture hearts and minds. The middling records and low playoff seeds the Bucks have been shooting for since 2003 haven’t been of much interest, they’ve been Band-Aids on a basketball wound.

Many have been begging for the tank. We saw it roll out for a little bit in 2006-07, but the Bucks got burned, landed the sixth pick and Yi Jianlian. But with Redd coming off the books in 2011 and John Hammond the new GM, it seemed 2008 would be the start of a new era. An era where the Bucks would spend a couple years losing then many years reaping the benefits. Joe Alexander didn’t work out, but Brandon Jennings seemed like just the young dynamic talent the Bucks would be acquiring over and over for the next few years.

But the Bucks were ahead of schedule in 2009-10. The planents aligned and some how that team started playing like a real threat, eventually landing a sixth seed in the playoffs. That team’s success looks to have the Bucks set on an infinite loop of mediocrity.

Scott Skiles, Andrew Bogut and Jennings made them a playoff team and a two month out of body experience for John Salmons altered the course of the franchise. Suddenly, they weren’t going to be rebuilding, just adding on.

So we’re still here. Still not good enough to contend and not bad enough to land a potential star. That’s a problem. But the biggest problem the Bucks have is that they can’t go back now.

Beg all you want, but this team can’t and won’t be tanking any time soon. It’s too difficult now. This is what would have to happen for the Bucks to completely blow things up:

• Trade Bogut for nothing. No lottery team would ever trade for Bogut, it wouldn’t make sense. No contender that would look to add Bogut could give up any sort of value to a rebuilding team.
• Lose Brandon Jennings. Is Jennings going to want to sit through a rebuild in Milwaukee? Tank now and Jennings is gone after two more seasons, no question. It would take at least two seasons before the Bucks could get together enough young talent to move forward with.
• Fire Scott Skiles. Skiles can’t be the coach of a rebuilding team. He’s too good. I have a hard time believing a team Skiles coaches will ever win less than 30 games. Freak out about his rotations and handling of Stephen Jackson all you want, this dude is a terrific basketball coach.

Look at those three bullet points once more. How could the Bucks possibly spin those items as positives to the casual fan that follows the team and wants to see a win when they come to the Bradley Center? Impossible.

If this were Portland and the Bucks had a die hard base, maybe they could level with the fans and get their point across. In Milwaukee, where the Bucks rank a distant third on the major league level and probably fifth after Marquette and the Badgers, these moves would be unforgivable.

Even if they could some how find a way, the Bradley Center’s uncertain future further muddies the situation. The blow up is a four to six year plan. Six years from now the team could be on the way out of town. More than anything, the Bucks need to sell themselves to Milwaukee again to get funding for a new arena. A blow up may be the thing that sells them to the die hard fans, but after the past 20 years, stringing together a bunch of 50+ loss seasons right now wouldn’t appeal to the average tax payer. This isn’t baseball and the Bucks don’t have the goodwill the Brewers had.

So clamor all you’d like, but things aren’t changing any time soon.

Milwaukee will keep trying to catch lightning in a bottle like they did two years ago while the rest of us stand watching in the rain.

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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John Hammond Announcement on the Bucks Twitter page:

Andrew returned to Milwaukee this morning to be evaluated by Bucks orthopaedic physician, and to undergo a MRI exam on his left ankle. The results of the MRI identified a left ankle fracture which will keep Bogut out indefinitely

Fracture’s are often a bigger nuisance than a clean break.

Ugh.

This season, the Bucks are 0-4 without Bogut.

Ugh.

Larry Sanders is going to be playing heavy minutes.

Ugh.

Jon Leuer will probably play more too.

Yeah!

Unless the Bucks keep shooting like they did against Houston, well I don’t think I have to explain what will happen. They don’t really have any big men who are truly comfortable in the post. Drew Gooden, Ersan Ilyasova and Leuer all play better when they’re out on the perimeter.

This isn’t the end though. Ilyasova has been rebounding fantastically as of late. And the Bucks have the third highest ranking in assisted field goals at the rim: they generally get a lot of backdoor cuts or dump-offs from penetration.

Oh who am I kidding, let’s just burn this mother down.

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The East isn’t really the Least any more.

The 2004-05 season was the last time the Eastern Conference featured a playoff bracket without one team with a record either at .500 or below. You have to go back to the last lockout season, 1998-99 to find a season in which a team made it to the playoffs in the Western Conference with a .500 record. The West has been the best, in terms of volume of strong teams, for quite some time.

And the West is still deeper this season, with current eight seeds, the Houston Rockets and Memphis Grizzlies generally well regarded and currently sporting 10-7 records.

But this season, the Eastern Conference is as tough as it’s been 1-8 since the middle of the 2000s. The current top five is Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami and Philadelphia. Miami, Orlando and Chicago features superstars with supporting casts that have been tinkered with for multiple seasons now in an attempt to play to the strengths of their stars. Orlando has been an early surprise, but if they intend to keep Dwight Howard, and it seems they do at least through this season, they’ll always be relevant. Chicago and Miami are legitimate title contenders.

Atlanta and Philadelphia are on opposite ends of the “pretty good, but not great” spectrum. Philly is young and coming up. Jrue Holiday could still be something special and they have a number of guys in their early 20s learning how to be really good NBA players. We don’t know how good they’ll be by the end of this season or next, but we know they are a team worth watching for now thanks to their 12-5 record. The Hawks still have Joe Johnson and Josh Smith, so they still matter, as Bucks fans can attest to after Monday night’s loss. Al Horford is hurt, but the Hawks are still a tough team.

It gets no easier after that.Right below the Hawks are the Indiana Pacers. A bad, playoff team last season, but likely a good one this season. They added David West and George Hill. Paul George is another year older and an inch or two taller. They are not a team to be taken lightly.

The Celtics are older and are dealing with injury problems, but are you ready to write them off? More importantly, if you’re a Bucks fan, are you ready to safely assume Milwaukee will be able to leapfrog them in the standings? I sense some serious “nos” right now. The Celtics sit seventh in the West. One spot ahead of the New York Knicks.

I know, Milwaukee waxed the Knicks less than a week ago. How can I be seconds away from writing about the Knicks like they are a team that matters? They have carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire. You really think they won’t figure it out eventually? They point guard situation isn’t going to improve much, even when Baron Davis debuts. But would you rather have Milwaukee’s roster or two star/superstar players? Maybe Mike D’Antoni gets fired and everything comes together. Or maybe Mike, Melo and ‘Mar’ figure it out. Regardless, I’d bet on them to finish better than .500.

I’d bet on each of these teams to best that .500 mark actually.

Would you bet on the Bucks to do the same?

Watch This Guy Not Other Guys

• Kyle Lowry

He’s not just a character from Bad Boys When I wrote that, I was under the impression that Will Smith’s character in Bad Boys had the first name Kyle, not Mike. I corrected it because it’s inaccurate, but I stand by the line as one I enjoyed. So read it again and then read this next sentence. He’s been a bad man this season.

The Rest

In Houston, it’s raining quite a bit. The Rockets have been very good at home this season, and while they didn’t land that superstar they were hoping for this off-season (or any off-season lately for that matter), they still have waves of talent to throw at teams. They aren’t all that unlike the Bucks, but they are a little better across the board.

And Andrew Bogut has always struggled against Samuel Dalembert in his career, so be on the watch for that.

Game tips at 7:00 PM on FSN.

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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Atlanta Hawks

97

Final Recap | Box Score

92

Milwaukee Bucks

	Andrew Bogut, C 25 MIN | 3-10 FG | 0-0 FT | 12 REB | 4 AST | 6 PTS | 0 Offensively, Bogut isn’t where he wants to be, he isn’t where the Bucks want him to be and he isn’t where Scott Skiles wants him to be. Skiles was asked about Bogut after the game and he said he thought Bogut struggled tonight. Asked if he was concerned this far into the season that Bogut hasn’t been able to find his touch on his post-up moves and Skiles said, “A little bit.” Take that for what you will. The center’s absence late in the game did little to increase Skiles’ popularity in southeast Wisconsin.
	Brandon Jennings, PG 40 MIN | 9-22 FG | 0-0 FT | 5 REB | 11 AST | 21 PTS | -2 It can’t be all 30 point games and it can’t be all 5-20 nights for Jennings. There has to be some kind of middle. Monday night was just a little better of the middle. He shot a decent percentage, but most importantly, he was in attack mode all night and was finding teammates regularly. Jennings detractors often point to his low assist totals as a sign he’s not much of a real point guard. They didn’t have much to point to Monday.
	Stephen Jackson, SG 28 MIN | 0-1 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 2 AST | 0 PTS | -1 Maybe he was tired of hearing everyone complain about his shot-selection or his ball holding or whatever else we’ve all been complaining so much about. Whatever the reason, Jackson took just one shot on Monday night, which was a fair amount of unbelievable. It wasn’t like he wasn’t playing hard – he drew a particularly nice charge on Joe Johnson in the fourth quarter. It was strange to see him so uninvolved with the offense though. He just moved the ball quick and went on his way while Jennings, Gooden and Dunleavy did the heavy lifting in the fourth quarter. Very un-Jacksonlike. He’s a man who could stand some balance in his game now that we’ve seen both extremes. He said after the game that shots didn’t come tonight and that his role was no different. He went as far as to say a question about whether or not his role was different tonight was dumb. For the record, this is the first game in Jackson’s career that he’s played at least 25 minutes and attempted one or fewer shots. Seemed like a relevant question.
	Drew Gooden, PF 23 MIN | 4-10 FG | 4-5 FT | 6 REB | 2 AST | 13 PTS | -5 Gooden is so many things. Ridiculous. Polished. Aggressive. Complacent. Clever. Foolish. He’s all these things at once. It makes for a maddeningly frustrating player to watch and it was curious that he played so much of the fourth quarter. Yes, he has the ability to make a shot and his drives to the basket do often result in the free throws that Bogut never draws, but he’s just so damn all over the place. Despite the okay numbers, he had some costly defensive three second violations in the fourth. But hey, somehow he hit a three to tie it with a minute to go. I give up.
	Mike Dunleavy, SF 31 MIN | 6-15 FG | 5-5 FT | 3 REB | 1 AST | 17 PTS | +2 Dunleavy still didn’t hit a three. So he decided he could be useful in other ways. Instead of coming off screens behind the arc, he curled in an extra step and shot twos. His form is terrific, spin unreal and release the same every single time. But really, he needs to start making some threes too. A good time to start would have been the one he missed with Milwaukee down three and no one within five feet of him with 30 seconds to play. Also he turned it over on Milwaukee’s last important possession. Sigh.
	Ersan Ilyasova, PF 28 MIN | 3-7 FG | 4-7 FT | 11 REB | 0 AST | 10 PTS | -1 Ilyasova is very, very tough. He has to be leading the Bucks, if not the league in one handed rebounds that were tipped away from two or three other defenders. Jon Leuer has lost some playing time, a lot of playing time, lately, but be sure that Ilyasova is earning his share of what were Leuer’s minutes.

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The Bucks tag team of Bogut and Mbah a Moute: “Twice the mayhem!”

It’s easy to credit Andrew Bogut with the success of the Bucks defense. In the way that we give quarterbacks or point guards credit for wins, we often attribute the success of an NBA team’s defense to its center. He’s the quarterback of the defense. Maybe he’s like the middle linebacker then. If that’s the case, Bogut has been the Bucks version of Ray Lewis over the past two seasons.

When healthy, he’s blocked shots, rotated and taken charges as well as any center in the league not named Dwight Howard. There are numbers to back that up too. We see the big block numbers and the impressive charge totals and we can see that he’s doing things very few centers in the league do very plainly.

The numbers don’t paint such a clear picture when it comes to Luc Mbah a Moute.

He doesn’t have big block or steal numbers. He’s more like a corner back that doesn’t get thrown at. Those guys don’t pile up interception totals, but the guy they were covering all game ended up with just two catches for 17 yards.  There isn’t a statistical category that makes it plain for us to see how much Mbah a Moute matters, so he doesn’t get quite as much credit for Milwaukee’s defensive success over the past few seasons, even if he is acknowledged across the league as a standout perimeter defender. The perimeter defender is viewed as a one-on-one stopper, not as someone who brings his teammates to a higher level defensively.

But that Bogut and Mbah a Moute tag team absolutely drags everyone on the Bucks up a couple of notches on the defensive side.

The Bucks star defenders hadn’t played a game together this season before Friday. Consequently, Milwaukee’s defense had been more middling than anyone remembered before Friday. Bogut and Mbah a Moute went to work righting those wrongs this weekend.

In the six games previous to Milwaukee’s match-up with the Knicks on Friday, the Bucks had a defensive rating of higher than 100 every game with an average of 109. Scott Skiles must have been on the verge of bare knuckle boxing every player on his team. But Bogut missed two of those games and played less than 20 minutes in one. Mbah a Moute played in none.

In the games against the Knicks and Heat, Milwaukee’s defensive ratings were 86.9 and 88.2. The Knicks have a bad offense, but it’s always nice to hold a bad team down. The Heat, weary as they may have been (and I think that’s being overblown, it’s still early in the season and it was just a back-to-back. Have they never played a back-to-back before? My goodness. The way people are talking, you’d think the Heat ran four marathons as a team right before Sunday’s game.), are the league’s finest offensive team, with an offensive rating of 108.2. Milwaukee held them 20 points per 100 possessions below that mark.

You probably will believe this: Bogut and Mbah a Moute lead the Bucks with defensive ratings of 97 and 98 respectively.

So maybe the Bucks are on the way back. Back to what, we’re not sure. They could be back to mediocre, the kind of team that tosses in enough impressive wins to keep eyes on them, but enough bizarre losses to keep from achieving anything of consequence. Or maybe they are on the way back to 2009.

Either way, don’t hold your breath or onto those hopes for a top draft pick. It looks like these Bucks aren’t going to be that bad so long as they have their defensive tag team on the court.

Watch This Guy Not Other Guys

• Jeff Teague

Joe Johnson is the obvious choice here, but I find Teague a more entertaining player. He’s explosive, athletic and quick as hell, plus this season he’s hitting threes. With Johnson and Josh Smith taking the majority of the shots, he’s been left out a bit offensively, but he can do some big things when things line up right for him. Against the Wolves five games ago, he had 20 points and 10 assists.

The Rest

The Hawks of the past few years are kind of what the Bucks have been shooting for ever since the Hawks eliminated them from the playoffs two seasons ago. They are consistently relevant, but not very dangerous. We know they’ll be in the playoffs and we know they won’t win a title. But they get that sweet playoff revenue and occasionally they win a series and stay in the minds of NBA fans into late May.

This is essentially what the Bucks want this year’s team to be.

Game tips at 7 PM tonight at the Bradley Center. It appears nature will finally cooperate and deliver us roads that won’t be insufferable to drive on. So there’s that.

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

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Milwaukee Bucks

91

Final Recap | Box Score

82

Miami Heat

	Shaun Livingston, PG 39 MIN | 3-7 FG | 4-4 FT | 5 REB | 5 AST | 10 PTS | +11 One of Livingston’s biggest assets is his size, not only because it lets him post up smaller players on offense, but because Milwaukee can easily switch with him and virtually anyone else on pick and rolls. Against the Heat, with James and Chalmers and Cole and Battier all involved in the pick and roll game, it was useful to have Livingston able to defend any of them. He had another strong, multi-faceted offensive game doing a little scoring, dishing and rebounding.
	Andrew Bogut, C 32 MIN | 5-8 FG | 3-4 FT | 8 REB | 2 AST | 13 PTS | +1 Bogut’s offense is still touch and go. It’s difficult to project when he’ll play well and when he’ll be leaving hook shots a foot short. But with Luc Richard Mbah a Moute back, Milwaukee certainly looks to have their defensive tag team ready to regain the belt. The Bucks held Miami to their lowest scoring game of the season and Bogut played a huge role in that.
	Brandon Jennings, PG 35 MIN | 5-20 FG | 12-13 FT | 6 REB | 6 AST | 23 PTS | +9 Jennings wasn’t getting the same looks against Heat point guards Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole that he was getting against Iman Shumpert and Mike Bibby of the Knicks. Miami was forcing him to take more shots in the in-between area, not as many three-point looks and not as many looks in the paint. Jennings struggled to hit what three-point looks he did get, but he did his best to keep penetrating and keep feeding his teammates. He even chipped in on the glass, with no rebound being bigger than the one he grabbed late in the fourth quarter and put back in to basically ended the game.
	Stephen Jackson, SG 26 MIN | 4-13 FG | 0-0 FT | 4 REB | 1 AST | 10 PTS | +12 Jackson did not start for the second straight game, but he did play in this one. He started slow, but hit two big threes, one late in the third quarter and one to start the fourth. He’s a gambler on D and he was able to poke the ball out while helping on defense on a couple of occasions as well. He looked to pass and had a couple of pretty assists too. Jackson isn’t a lost cause, even if people have been writing him off after his latest mishap. He still has the talent to be a useful player, as he demonstrated against the Heat. And most importantly, this isn’t a guy who has quit on his teammates or anything like that. He’s still a competitor, and he’s still competing.
	Ersan Ilyasova, PF 22 MIN | 5-8 FG | 5-5 FT | 6 REB | 0 AST | 16 PTS | +7 Ilyasova came in quick for Jon Leuer and made it difficult for Scott Skiles to take him back out. He was terrific on the glass and from a competitive standpoint. This was a classic Ilyasova game, right down to the made three-pointer. It makes sense that in an ugly game, Ilyasova was one of the players to shine.

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Denver Nuggets

105

Final Recap | Box Score

95

Milwaukee Bucks

	Stephen Jackson, SG 17 MIN | 0-6 FG | 2-2 FT | 0 REB | 1 AST | 2 PTS | -20 Holy hell. It’s tough to say Collapsin’ Jackson’s season has been a roller coaster ride. It’s been more like that episode of The Simpsons where Homer is getting airlifted from the bottom of the gorge, and he gets up and then falls back down and then they keep hitting his head on the side of the cliff as they bring him up. That’s been Jackson’s season thus far. He fell back down tonight right about when Scott Skiles opted against playing him in the second half.
	Jon Leuer, F 18 MIN | 4-6 FG | 3-3 FT | 1 REB | 1 AST | 11 PTS | -8 Leuer still did well the same things he always does well against the Nuggets. He hit a couple open shots, finished around the rim and found open space on offense. He can’t make enough of a difference by himself to matter all that much in most games though. In spurs, sure, but Leuer making smart plays alone certainly isn’t enough for the Bucks. Like most Bucks, he’s a role player. He’s just better at it.
	Andrew Bogut, C 19 MIN | 1-5 FG | 0-0 FT | 5 REB | 2 AST | 2 PTS | -17 This probably wasn’t how Andrew Bogut envisioned following up his 20 and 11 effort in Philadelphia. The saga continues.
	Brandon Jennings, PG 38 MIN | 13-22 FG | 1-2 FT | 3 REB | 6 AST | 30 PTS | -11 It’s almost heart breaking to see the various pained looks Jennings wears on his face throughout a game like this. He wants to succeed so bad and when the Nuggets beat his teammates backdoor or bust out while four other Milwaukee defenders stand flat-footed after yet another miss, Jennings looks defeated. It certainly isn’t him giving up either. I can’t say that I blame him and I can’t say it seems like he’s being a bad teammates. Competitiveness isn’t something you can fake and it isn’t something you can turn off. It’s always on with Jennings kudos are well deserved for him for his second half effort (21 points, 12 in the fourth quarter).
	Tobias Harris, F 27 MIN | 5-10 FG | 4-4 FT | 8 REB | 3 AST | 14 PTS | +13 Chubby appearance be damned, Harris was running the floor and playing well Tuesday night. Brandon Jennings is often looking to run, but it’s not often he finds anyone running with him. Harris may have lost a pound or two in sweat on Tuesday simply by trying his best to keep up with Jennings. Better yet, Harris looked effective in the half court as well. His constant attacking efforts should serve him well … so long as no one ever steps up to take a charge on him. The eight rebounds and three assists were nice too, as sometimes it’s looked like Harris is a bit one dimensional. Defensively, he does look to have some work to do.

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So far, the Bucks have sputtered along with the league’s sixth worst offense. We’ve seen the same offensive droughts and shooting troubles. We’ve seen turnovers. We’ve seen inaccurate shooting from deep. We’ve seen a lot.

Occasionally though, there have been signs of life. There is reason to be hopeful that they’ll find a detour away from those offensive potholes that tripped them up last season.

To be frank, sometimes Stephen Jackson has been good and Milwaukee’s offense largely relies on that happening more frequently than it has.

Jackson, along with Shaun Livingston and Beno Udrih, was acquired over the summer to provide Milwaukee with another playmaker. The Bucks wanted more players around point guard Brandon Jennings that could create easy looks in an offense that largely left the Bucks with difficult jump shots last season.

The early return on Jackson this season has fallen in line with the return on the rest of the Bucks. He’s looked old, he’s looked slow and he often looked selfish. That’s just a description of Jackson’s road games though. At home, like the rest of the Bucks, he’s been a different player.

At home, Jackson has shot 48%. He’s averaging 20.5 points and five assists per game. Perhaps most importantly, he’s made 38% of his threes too.

On the road, Jackson has shot 32%. He’s averaging 11.8 points and 2.9 assists per game. Perhaps most importantly, he’s made just 26% of his threes.

The Bucks are 4-0 at home this season and 0-8 on the road.

For one of Milwaukee’s most important playmakers, Jackson hasn’t been able to make many plays on the road. It’s possible Milwaukee’s road heavy, travel heavy early season schedule played largely without Andrew Bogut has been the culprit. Jackson has told us all to wait. He’s said he’s working his way into shape and spent the early part of the season adjusting to an epidural shot he received prior to the start of the season.

Whatever the problem with Jackson has been on the road, it’s going to be crucial for Milwaukee that he figures it out.

After shooting less than 30% over his first five games, Jackson averaged 26 points and seven assists in two Bucks home games last week. He still took some questionable shots, but those shots are much easier to digest when he’s sprinkling in assists and getting his teammates easy looks that boost their confidence.

Jennings certainly has taken notice of Jackson’s diverse set of skills.

“Jackson, he causes a lot of confusion out there for defenders and gets a lot of attention,” Jennings said after Milwaukee’s 102-93 victory over the Pistons on Thursday.  “So once he gets going, a lot of guys are trying to stop him and then that’s when I’m able to make things happen for everybody.”

Most importantly, when the active and accurate version of Jackson has been on display, Jennings has been freed up to make things happen in the fourth quarter. Unable to contact his coaches, the Bucks young point guard spent the majority of the lockout summer playing pickup games and exhibitions that doubled as dunk contests with other NBA stars. But he did find time to chat with two time NBA MVP Steve Nash about what he needed to do to take another step forward.

“I asked him when he got that MVP two times, he said he just made plays down the stretch,” Jennings said. “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.”

Jennings is averaging 7.2 points in the fourth quarter this season, three points higher than his next highest scoring quarter. Even better, he has just three turnovers in the fourth quarter this season. With Jackson and other additions like the aforementioned Livingston and holdover Carlos Delfino helping to carry the offensive load, Jennings has taken a step forward this season despite struggles against the Mavericks and Sixers. His fourth quarter work has been crucial in his improvement, but his most significant improvements have come in his mid-range game and his ability to finish at the rim.

Jennings made just 51% of his shots at the rim last season. On 50 attempts this season, he’s connected on 59%. He shot just 38% on shots from 10-15 feet last season. He’s made 56% of those shots this season. We aren’t talking about the shy girl at the dance standing alone in the corner either. Jennings has led Milwaukee in field goal attempts per game in each of his three seasons with the team. When he’s making shots, the Bucks offense can go from comatose to vibrant.

So maybe things aren’t as gloomy on the offensive side of the ball as they have appeared thus far for Milwaukee. Sure, the home/road splits still haven’t been attractive and the three-point shooting is going to be inconsistent at best until Mike Dunleavy returns.

But road struggles don’t mean cement another depressing season. Defensively there is still reason for optimisim, despite a middling defensive rating of 103.8 . That number should improve if center Andrew Bogut can stay on the court. So long as the Bucks can land somewhere in the middle of the pack on offense, they’ll flirt with a .500 record and a playoff spot in the East.

Whether that’s the sort of future Bucks fans should be eager to look forward to is a separate discussion. For now though, it’s something the Bucks can realistically shoot for. And unlike last season, the shot just might go in this time.

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

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