As of today (Sunday) the Milwaukee Bucks have ten players averaging over 20 minutes per game, nine Bucks have not played in a game due to a coach’s decision, ten different players have started a game this season and just two players have started in every game they’ve played.

It’s been season long rotation roulette for the Bucks.

Is that merely the product of having numerous players with an equal number of talent and flaws or has coach Scott Skiles been tampering too much with a rotation that merely needs consistency to produce consistent results?  I got the chance to ask coach Skiles about this before the game on Saturday.

“When you’re searching like a lot of teams are and we are a little bit still with finding consistency sometimes a guy gets left out.”

So is the depth a good problem to have?

“Well it would be if we were 24-17 and not 17-24.  We do have any number of guys that can play different positions and are obviously NBA players and all that, but all of our guys need to become more consistent and play better.”

The question that arises then is would more minutes lead to more consistent production for certain players, or do they need to earn the minutes with steady production.  The case of Carlos Delfino is an interesting one to look at.

"I WANT MORE MINUTES IN THE NBA!"

Lately, Delfino has had as fine a stretch of basketball as he’s had in his entire NBA career.  Over his last six games, Delfino is averaging 17.7 points and eight rebounds while shooting 41.8 percent from behind the arc and 52 percent total shooting.  In a related matter, Delfino is averaging 36 minutes per game during that same stretch.  It’s easy to come to the conclusion that Delfino’s increased minutes have made him more comfortable on the court and resulted in the production boom.  But it’s not necessarily fact. Read more…

Recap/Box Score

This is the kind of game people have been longing for from Brandon Jennings for some  time.  I’ve been swearing that Jennings has been playing well the last few games, but haven’t had much data to back up me when pleading my case to anyone who hasn’t watched the games.  They’ve been looking at the box score and saying, “Hey, this guy couldn’t shoot a jumper into Lake Michigan from Bradford Beach, what do you mean he’s playing well?”

Okay, they didn’t actually say that, but you get my point, things haven’t looked pretty for a while when Jennings stats are glanced at the day after games.

Well we can finally look back at Jennings stats after a game and feel good now that Minnesota has again visited the Bradley Center.  They seem to spread good tidings wherever they go with their 3-19 record on the road.  That 19^th loss is courtesy of the Bucks by the way.

(Photo by Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images) Al Jefferson had that "Man how do we keep getting busted so bad?" look on his face for most of the game.

Jennings had a lot to do with the win.  The Bucks burst out of the gate with 12 fast-break points in the first quarter, or more than they’ve had on 25 separate occasions this year.  Jennings had eight assists in the first quarter (he’d finish with 18 points and 13 assists).  If you hadn’t already suspected that many of the points that were piled up in the fast-break first were assisted by Jennings by now, then shame on you, because they were.  The points, and by association the assists, came in all sorts of ways: three-point shots, dumps down to Andrew Bogut and even another alley-oop to the Austrailian center, but one play stood out to me as different than the rest.

After a miss by Damien Wilkins (he’s good for that) Carlos Delfino gained control of the rebound and took a dribble.  It appeared as if he’d take it up himself as he’s custom to doing, but that changed quickly.  Jennings barked at Delfino with some intensity and demanded the ball immediately.  On the catch Jennings burst up the court with some serious decisiveness, almost like he knew where this was going.  He must have seen something he liked.  He raced on an angle that drew a few defenders and just as he was running out of real estate and about to come to a halt six feet to the left of the hoop he threw a no-look pass to a wide open Bogut standing directly in front of the basket for an easy lay-up.

I assure you my words don’t do it justice.  That is the kind of play people like me are talking about when we say Jennings is the type of guard who can see ahead of the play and make passes most people can’t.  That is the kind of play that gets me through these extended shooting droughts Jennings has shone he’s prone to at this stage in his career.  That is the kind of play that excites me about the Bucks future.

Offense

Remember that Bucks team that got zoned for the majority of the second half against Toronto and responded with three made threes in the entire half?  That team must have missed the flight back to Milwaukee.  The Bucks connected on 11-23 from behind the arc in yet another piece of evidence indicating that, yes they are inconsistent.

• Delfino brought it to the table Saturday night and no one said “Not at the table Carlos.”  Zing.  In what was without question the finest game of his NBA career, Delfino flirted with a triple double and ended the evening with 24 points, eight assists and eight rebounds.  This is one night after chucking his way to a 4-15 performance in which he had the entire city of Milwaukee wondering how he could possibly be playing 40 minutes.

• The contributors to the onslaught were many: Hakim Warrick 18 points, Jerry Stackhouse recorded his first double figure scoring game with Milwaukee, dropping 14, Bogut had 14 and even Dan Gadzuric tossed in three points.

• The Bucks 36 assists were a season high and both Jennings and Delfino set new personal bests with 13 and eight assists.  Overall, the Bucks moved the ball about as well as they had a lot recently, except they were just able to knock down a lot more shots than they typically do.  Any time the Bucks are able to hit at a high clip they’ll rack up assist numbers, it’s just the first part of that sentence that has proven to be a problem.

Defense

Now that he’s started, is Bogut ever going to stop blocking shots?  Coming into Saturday night’s game, Bogut was third in the league in defensive plays per game (steals, blocks and charges combined) at 3.63.  That’s better than Marcus Camby, better than Dwight Howard and better than every other center in the league.  It’s getting harder and harder to talk about the best defenders in the league without mentioning what Bogut does every night.

• The T’Wolves shot just 38.4 percent on the night, largely because of good work by the Bucks big men, Bogut and Kurt Thomas. They didn’t make life easy for the T’Wolves horses, Kevin Love and Al Jefferson. The Wolves don’t have much shooting or anyone who excels at slashing, so if Love and Jefferson are shut down, it gets difficult for Minnesota to get the ball in the basket.

Final Thoughts

The Bucks have been taking care of business against bad teams and at home all year, so it was no surprise to see them beat Minnesota.  What was surprising was how thorough the beat down was and that the Bucks were able to string together two very good halves.  That’s the upside of playing against the Minnesota’s of the world I guess though.

After tonight’s game with the Raptors, the Bucks will have successfully (actually, typically not so successfully) completed 41 games.  Milwaukee sits one game back of the eighth and final playoff spot in the East, with 22 home games and 19 away games the rest of the way.  With that being said, there are some things that I’m especially interested in checking out in act two of the NBA’s season.

1.  The Integration of Stackhouse

How much does the veteran have left?  He looked terrific as a role player type on Wednesday, but that was in his first game in nearly a year, surely it isn’t a true indication of his actual current talent level.  After a few practices and games, it’ll be interesting to see what Stackhouse can bring to the table offensively.  At the very least, I like the idea of having Stack out there at the two spot simply for the extra size he gives the Bucks.  While Charlie Bell can look good at times, there aren’t many twos he can physically match-up with very well.

While I’m not sure the actual relevance of this as I haven’t been in enough NBA locker rooms to really know, it’s supposedly going to benefit many of the Bucks younger players to have another old guy around.  It does make sense to me in theory, he’s someone who’s been through playoff races before, he knows when to feel good and when to feel bad.  He ideally can help calm overreactions to losses and prevent overconfidence after wins.  It’s after the real emotional games that I imagine having Stackhouse should help the Bucks, especially someone as young an emotionally involved as Brandon Jennings. Read more…

Recap/Box Score

As long as Brandon Jennings has been struggling, the first excuse that’s been made for the struggles has been that he’s at least kept his turnovers down.  Sure, he’s been shooting 30 percent every night, but look, he only had one turnover.  And that’s all well and good.  On the priority list for point guards, taking care of the ball is often right up at the top with getting good looks for teammates.

But the best point guards eventually start to cut loose.  They can’t worry about keeping their turnovers down, they’re too busy making plays and winning games for all that.  So how do I feel about Jennings seven turnover outing in a win against the Warriors on Friday?

Terrific. Read more…

Recap/Box Score/Valley of the Suns

As the Bucks began their immediate fall and subsequent rise Monday evening I documented the journey on Twitter.  Unfortunately, Twitter limits the space in which we can document, so let’s take a closer look at some of my Tweets to break down Monday’s Bucks – Suns game.

It’s just frustrating knowing games are over before they start. I’ve prepped myself for it mentally, but it’s no less draining to watch.

This was a mid-first quarter Tweet as the Bucks did their very best to dig themselves a significant hole.  Jumpers were clanging (and sometimes missing everything as in the case of Brandon Jennings), Andrew Bogut couldn’t get his post game going, the Bucks trailed 22-2 in points in the paint and the Suns were more often than not hitting shots.  That is how a team gets down 20 points in the first quarter.

Knowing the Bucks are coming into many of these games with less talent than their opponents has me at least prepared for a loss before I watch, but it’s still frustrating to see open shots missed for Milwaukee and made for other teams. Read more…