Bulls were happy, Bucks were sad. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

The Bulls were very happy on Saturday night. They won by a lot and dominated all 48 minutes of the game against the Bucks. Also, the crowd was absolutely in Chicago’s favor. There were MVP chants for Derrick Rose throughout the night. There was a chant, an embarrassing one, for Brian Scalabrine as the game wound down.

Rose either assisted or scored each of the Bulls first 15 points. Luol Deng made a triumphant return to the lineup. The Bucks fouled the Bulls just eight times despite Chicago’s repeated trips into the lane to the hoop.

Everything was bad.

Momentum from that Miami win? Gone. Hopes right now? Low.

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

From tip to finish, there were virtually no surprises in Milwaukee’s 83-75 loss to the Chicago Bulls Saturday night.  Both teams represented themselves well on the defensive end, as you’d expect the second and fifth ranked defensive teams in the league to do.  Milwaukee shot under 40%, as they often do.  Luol Deng played well against the Bucks, as he often does.  It was a pretty run of the mill evening.

Until the game was over.

Post game, Brandon Jennings let loose with some of his frustrations after another subpar performance.

“It ain’t like last year,” Jennings noted after making just two of six shots in 28 fourth quarter-less minutes.  ”I’m not the go-to guy like I was last year. When I get the ball, I guess I’ve got to do something with it, because I know I probably won’t get it back.”

Jennings statements didn’t seem to be made with much malice.  Instead they were rather matter of fact admissions regarding things out of his hands that Jennings doesn’t appear to be thrilled with.  And while things obviously aren’t like last year across the board, it’s worth looking into how much weight his words hold.

Milwaukee’s young point guard is having virtually the same exact season he had last year, having replaced last season’s flaw of terrible finishing at the rim (up to 50.4% at rim from 42.7% last season) with worse three-point shooting this season (down from 37.4% last season to 33.3% this season).  He’s attempting less than a half a shot game less this season than he did last and has a nearly identical rate of possessions used (shots or turnovers per possession on court).

It’s after dramatic statements like the ones he made on Saturday night when it’s worth noting again that Jennings is 21-years-old.  He’s being asked to play an important role on a team full of bad basketball players, and the results haven’t been good this year.  His game hasn’t progressed as many hoped and the team has taken a big step backwards this season.  He’s frustrated, just like everyone else and while he and his teammates have spent most of the season attributing blame internally first before unto their teammates, eventually players are going to start looking around, that’s only human nature.

And after a game in which Jennings failed to so much as attempt a three-point shot for the first time all year, he looked around.  Most of Jennings threes come off drive and kicks from his teammates.  There weren’t many kicks to be had on Saturday, possibly because of the Bulls defense, possibly because Milwaukee’s wings just didn’t think it was ever the correct play.

Saturday, Jennings certainly didn’t seem to factor into the game, but that hasn’t been the story this season.  He’s often controlled the Bucks offense when on the court and it’s misguided to say the Bucks offense hasn’t run through their leading scorer this season.  He’s had his chances.  Saturday night was a frustrating experience for a 21-year-old searching for answers after another embarrassing loss, nothing more and nothing less.

Read more…

Recap/Box Score/Enemy

When a team is attempting to figure out how they’ll be able to manage without Earl Boykins, obviously that’s a sign of a rough night ahead.

But Milwaukee battled.  That’s more that could have been said about Monday night’s defeat.  With no Boykins, or Brandon Jennings or Drew Gooden or Carlos Delfino, the Bucks simply didn’t have the offense to stick with the Bulls Tuesday night in a 90-77 defeat at the United Center.  Somehow, despite making under 33% of their first half shots, the Bucks actually led by three at halftime.  For most teams, that would be cause of optimism.  Most teams would have figured there’s no way they could shoot that poorly for another half.  Most team’s luck would turn around and they’d ride a better second half to an easy win.

Most teams aren’t the Bucks.  Milwaukee’s poor shooting kept on keeping on and the Bucks finished a remarkable 32.1% from the field, marking the 16th time this season that they’ve shot under 40% (H/T Charles F. Gardner).

The loss leaves the Bucks at the dreaded six games under .500 mark.  Six games was the low light of Milwaukee’s season last year, a seventh would officially leave the Bucks in a worse position than they were in at any point during the last season.  A seventh game under .500 probably isn’t needed to further pound home the point that the expectations for this season dramatically out shot reality.  The reality now is that the Bucks are looking like a team that will have to use another second half surge this season to push them into the playoffs rather than to fight for better seeding.

The reality is that the Bucks are more capable of shooting 33% on any given night than they are of shooting 50%.  Read more…

Enemy: By the Horns

Point Guard
Keyon Dooling vs. Derrick Rose

Rose has been something of a monster this year.  He’s visibly improved in every aspect of the game, from defense to 3-point shooting to passing.  He’s looking every bit like a former number one pick and is a safe bet to wreak all kinds of havoc on the Bucks makeshift point guard unit of Dooling and Earl Boykins.  The shakiest part of his game offensively is the in-between space of 10-15 feet.  Last season he shot 50% from that range, but he’s down to just 31% this year.  Milwaukee has to run him off the 3-point line and keep him from getting all the way to the cup.  Defending Dooling will start with Dooling and end with Bogut.

Advantage: Bulls Read more…

(UPDATE:  Easy baskets were hard to come by in last night’s Bucks-Bulls game, so Sebastian Pruiti of NBA Playbook takes a look at the play that swung the game in the Bucks favor.  A Brandon Jennings to Ersan Ilyasova fastbreak basket.)

It’s a celebration. Take it away Kanye (more accurately, some kid lip-syncing Kanye).

Now everyone can take a breath.  The worst case scenario cannot come to pass.  The Milwaukee Bucks are officially going to be in the playoffs.

It was fitting the Bucks clinched in a game filled with errant jumpers, ball-control, defense and anything else that’s unsexy about basketball.  After all, this is a team that’s second from the bottom of the league in field goal percentage, has turned the ball over the fifth fewest times and has the third highest defensive rating.  “Fear the Deer” has been the team’s calling card of late, but Tuesday’s victory was certainly more the “Work Hard, Play Hard” variety.

Certainly, sub-40% shooting (36.4% on the night for Milwaukee) efforts will not strike fear into the hearts of future Bucks opponents.  But right now Milwaukee is anything but a finished project heading into the playoffs.  As nice as it is to sit back and enjoy the clinch, Milwaukee still has a considerable amount of work ahead of them before April 17^th.  Near the top of that list is figuring out how the remaining pieces fit together.

Milwaukee tried out some different lineups Tuesday and they’ll likely do some mixing and matching again Wednesday.  The playoffs will not wait until the Bucks are comfortable in their new roles, so there is no time for Milwaukee to wait to figure out who’s going to need to do what. Read more…