Tweeted this during the Bucks-Clippers game Monday evening:

Milwaukee had just come out of a timeout, a full timeout, and ended up with one of the worst shots they’ve attempted all season.  Without question the worst one I’ve seen them produce after a timeout.  This is a team that ran one of the finest sets of the year earlier this season in Boston in a late game situation.  Milwaukee is certainly capable of running effective offense.  More often than not though, four players seem content watching one try and go one on one.

When Milwaukee is moving the ball and players are moving without the ball, they have success.  Shots open up that way.  Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t, but at least the offense is active and engaged.  The worst kind of offense is one where there is initial movement followed by stationary basketball and one on one play.

The worst kind of offense, is this right here.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com.  Follow him on Twitter.  Then become a fan on Facebook (in the sidebar).

Enemy: Hoopinion

Point Guard
Keyon Dooling vs. Mike Bibby

We’ve been over this a time or two.  Dooling: defense.  Bibby: offense.  Fortunately for Milwaukee, Dooling’s a better offensive player than Bibby is a defensive player.  Especially lately.  Dooling’s connected on 43.2% of his threes this month and 41.6% of his shots overall.  Injuries to Brandon Jennings and John Salmons have forced Dooling into a much bigger role over the past month and a half and for the most part, he’s responded well.  Defensively there are some players he matches up with better than others, but he’s always competitive at that end.  Earlier in the season his shooting was an adventure, but he’s normalized over the past month.  Dooling’s had plenty of criticism come his way this season, but he’s been more than adequate as Milwaukee’s number two point guard.

Advantage: Bucks

Read more…

Recap/Box Score/Enemy

Sometimes it’s just a quarter, sometimes a half, sometimes three quarters, but rarely this season have the Bucks been able to put together 48 minutes of their best basketball against good teams.  Wednesday night would be no different.

After taking a 51-43 lead into halftime, they made just 31% of their shots in the second half.  What’s unfortunate is how typical that’s been of this team.  A miserable third quarter in which they connected on just four of 17 shots wasn’t as shocking as it sounds.  After two strong offensive performances against the Heat and Nets and three days of rest thanks to the winter storm in Atlanta, instead of looking refreshed in the second half, the Bucks looked out of sorts and incapable of hanging with a determined Spurs squad.

When talking to reporters after the game, Earl Boykins aptly described the differences between the Bucks and Spurs.

“San Antonio, they’re one of the few teams that no matter what, they don’t have the peaks and valleys,” Boykins said. “They just play consistent basketball for 48 minutes, and we didn’t do that and it showed.”

Instead of “we didn’t do that” Boykins could have said “we rarely do that” or “against good teams we don’t do that.”  A blown lead against the Spurs qualifies as yet another moral victory though for the Bucks.  Give them that, they are really cornering the market on those.  But the time for moral victories has passed.  Milwaukee will not have another chance to beat a real good team at home until January 26th when the Hawks come back to town.  This was a shining opportunity for the Bucks to take a step towards re-establishing themselves as a feared home court team, but they were unable to put away the talented Spurs.

Milwaukee’s home record has dropped to 8-9, their overall record to 14-22 and their current position in the East to 10th.  This, hopefully, will be the low point of the season.  That’s actually the good news, as it means things will only get better from here on out.

Hopefully. Read more…

Recap/Box Score/Enemy

The one Saturday night that the Bucks aren’t in Milwaukee and they go and do this.  Figures.

But that was the only thing to complain about after Milwaukee’s 115-92 destruction of the New Jersey Nets Saturday evening.  Playing without Andrew Bogut (viral infection), Milwaukee displayed the same shooting ability they did in the latter parts of Friday night’s close loss to the Miami Heat, but this time combined it with care for the ball and four quarters of tough defense.

And another heaping dose of Chris Douglas-Roberts.

CD-R finished with 24 points on his 24th birthday, hitting nine of 14 shots (1-3 3FG 5-5 FT).  After a messy second season that finished with the Nets practically giving him away for nothing over the summer, CD-R was certainly playing his old teammates with some extra motivation.  The timing worked out well for him too, coming into Saturday night’s game after compiling a season high 30-points in Friday’s loss to Miami.  While CD-R’s good play carried over from one game to the next, some of the issues that plagued the Bucks didn’t.

After turning the ball over 23 times Friday, Milwaukee limited their turnovers to just 10 against a significantly less imposing Nets defense.  There was some concern that the Bucks would suffer a bit of a hangover after an emotional loss, but the strong effort against the Heat seemed to have reinforced the Bucks confidence instead.  Milwaukee stepped on the collective throats of the Nets immediately and never let them so much as gasp for air.

A John Salmons three put the Bucks up 5-2 and Milwaukee led the rest of the way, giving Milwaukee their most comfortable win since November 9th at home against the Knicks. Read more…

Bad players are bad.  Inconsistent players are inconsistent.  There’s a big difference.

Nights like Friday night illustrate that difference.

Chris Douglas-Roberts is by no means a bad player, neither is John Salmons. But for differing reasons, neither has been able to put together much consistent basketball this season.  Sometimes, they look bad and sometimes, they look good.  Sometimes they look good separately, sometimes they both look good, sometimes they both look bad.  It’s a crap shoot, it’s the Milwaukee Bucks.

Fortunately, with the best team in the NBA in town Friday  night, they both spent large portions of the game looking good. And again showed what Milwaukee’s offense is capable of when it’s firing on all, or most, cylinders. Read more…