Ersan Ilyasova

Continued to scrap
One of the walking wounded
Lost his long ball touch

Every NBA player needs a card to play that makes him unique.  Ilyasova’s appeared to be his combination of scrappy play with a solid touch from three-point range.  After last season, Coach Scott Skiles talked of his hopes that Ilyasova would turn into a 37-38% shooter from three.  That didn’t pan out.  Ilyasova took a step back as a shooter, falling to sub-30% from deep.  Going forward, that’ll be where Ilyasova must straighten himself out.  He was among the team’s leaders in charges taken, but he’ll never be the defender Mbah a Moute is at the four, and his rebounding is no better than average.

Brandon Jennings

Question of import:
Did his development stall?
Most pressing issue

Watching Chris Paul terrorize the Lakers is frustrating as a Bucks fan.  Size wise, Paul is no bigger than Jennings.  Maybe he’s a bit thicker, but he seems to have a sense ingrained in him about what to do and when to do it.  Jennings may not have that, but he could still be an effective player.  Some are jumping ship on him already, others are giving him a bit more string.  But after his third year, we’ll probably have a fairly good idea about whether or not Jennings is the right guy at the point guard position for the Bucks.  This will be a huge off-season for him.

Corey Maggette

On a losing team
Designated driver was
Pulled over as well

Brought in to even out the Bucks free throw numbers, Maggette largely did his thing.  Per 36 minutes, he attempted 8.4 free throws per game — in line with his 8.7 per game numbers per 36 for his career.  But he had trouble earning consistent minutes down the stretch, as Skiles went largely exclusively with John Salmons and Carlos Delfino at the wings.  Maggette had his moments before that — the game at Golden State comes to mind — but for whatever reason, he could never earn his coach’s trust.  Milwaukee may look to move him this summer, but it doesn’t appear that he’s pressed the issue just yet.  He was largely regarded as a positive teammate and got praise for just being a good guy.  In the NBA though, that’s not enough.

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It’s never easy for a player to join a team on a 10-day contract.  There are new plays to learn, teammates to adapt to and a coach you may have never played for before.  Oh, and there’s the pressure of trying to do enough to stick around and earn a second one or, if things go really well, a spot on a team for the rest of the season.  It’s a challenge.

But Garrett Temple has been through this before.  Judging from his play, that was obvious.

Temple was cool and calm as he played all but a few seconds of the fourth quarter for Milwaukee against the Atlanta Hawks Wednesday night.  It all looked so very simple for him too.  He competed on defense.  When he was open, he shot.  He made two corner threes in the quarter.  When he was covered, he passed it.  He once skipped the ball across the court for a nice assist to a wide open Carlos Delfino. Not exactly rocket science, even if it was a pressure packed situation.

“I don’t wanna not take those shots, I think that hurts the team more,” Temple said after the game.  “I feel comfortable shooting that corner three and I was able to knock a couple down.”

If the pressure of a 10-day contract gets to most players, Temple has certainly gotten past that.

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Recap/Box Score/Enemy

If you only have been watching Bucks games this season, you’re certainly aware of the three-point shot, but you may not have known how quickly it can turn a game around.

Now you know.

The simple way to explain Milwaukee’s improbable comeback from down 11 points to begin the fourth quarter is like this: they got hot.  Hot enough to outscore the Atlanta Hawks by 19 points in the fourth quarter on their way to a 98-90 victory in Milwaukee Wednesday night.

It started with Carlos Delfino.  Having struggled miserably in his first three games back from injury, some were calling for reduced minutes, or at least reduced shots for Delfino.  At least until he started making shots again.  Things can turn quickly in basketball though and Delfino appeared to have found his form early Wednesday night.  Delfino had made two of four threes heading into the fourth quarter.  He then hit another on Milwaukee’s first possession of the fourth quarter to cut Atlanta’s lead to eight and by the time he made his third and final three in the period, he was putting the Bucks up five.

He didn’t do it all by himself though.

Former D-Leaguer Garrett Temple sprinkled in a pair of timely threes and Earl Boykins went on one of his patented shot-making sprees to key a Bucks offense that had been lifeless throughout the game.  Defensively the Bucks kept after the Hawks and Atlanta did little to put pressure back onto a surging Milwaukee team.  The Hawks had been moving the ball well enough to get good looks and got solid play inside from Al Horford for three quarters.  But when things fell apart in the fourth quarter, the team started relying on Josh Smith jump-shots to get them back into the game.  Predictably, that failed miserably.

And on every miss the Bucks had a little more energy and countered with the plays they needed to make.

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Jack Moore is a contributor to RidiculousUpside.com, SBNation’s D-League blog.  In addition, he writes for FanGraphs.com and is the founder of DisciplesofUecker.com, the SweetSpot Network’s Milwaukee Brewers blog.  You can follow Jack on Twitter for more on the D-League, Brewers and Wisconsin Badger sports.  He’s a smart guy.  And here are his thoughts on the Bucks newest addition, Garrett Temple.

With Brandon Jennings not quite ready to return and John Salmons’s short-term future in question, the Bucks dipped into the D-League to reinforce the guard position. The D-Leaguer in question is former LSU Tiger Garrett Temple, whom the Bucks added on a 10-day contract.

From Scott Schroeder’s report at FanHouse, we have this scouting report on Temple.

”Stats are not his thing, he is a team player who is not a volume scorer,” the scout said. “He can defend his position, make open shots, and moves the ball to the open man, which is exactly what many NBA teams need from role players. After maybe a little bit of an NBA hangover, his stats and production will climb back to his normal high standard after he gets acclimated to his new team.”

His D-League stats agree completely with the scouting report. Temple has a respectable but unimpressive 13.4 PPG, 4.8 RPG, and 3.3 APG in 32 minutes per game. Much of his production comes at the three-point line, where Temple has made 39% of his 106 attempts this year. Despite an overall FG% of 42%, Temple’s true shooting mark of 55.6% is just over a percentage point higher than the league average. Temple shows a decent handle and ability to move the ball as well, with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.43. Although it’s hard to quantify defense, it is worth noting that, on top of his 1.0 SPG, both of Temple’s D-League teams (Erie and Rio Grande Valley) are near the top of the league in defensive efficiency.

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It was easy to forget, considering the madness that was ensuing off the court with regard to the trade deadline, but the Bucks had a game Wednesday.

Actually, it’s important to check with sources at this time of the year.  So … let me … okay …

Yes … yes  I’m getting confirmation from numerous people close to the situation that the Bucks did indeed play on Wednesday night.

They just didn’t do it very well.

Possibly a bit rattled from speculation that each and everyone of them was about to be heading in a different direction, though don’t tell Scott Skiles that (more later), the Bucks took a snowball of a lifeless defensive second quarter and turned it into an avalanche of defenselessness in the third in an embarrassing 127-99 home loss.

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