Recap/Box Score/Enemy

Role players playing well and good guard play.  Monday night, in an 88-78 win for the visiting team, the Heat had it and the Bucks didn’t.

Obviously the Heat can count on Lebron James and Dwyane Wade. They certainly got things started with a bang, alternating high flying dunks and tap ins early in the game, but it wasn’t just the two of them dunking all game.  While the two of them were typically impressive, the play of lesser known Carlos Arroyo was key in holding off the Bucks.  As a good role player should do, Arroyo played to his strengths Monday.  He moved the ball, he found open spaces and he didn’t hesitate to shoot when he had an open look.  The Heat guard made all six of his shot attempts, two of which came from 3-point territory, and all of his four free throws en route to 18 points.

His play meant Miami saw most of their guards playing well and one of their important role players thriving in his role.

Milwaukee is still waiting on those two things.  Once again, the Bucks looked hesitant and unsure of themselves.  For a team that doesn’t shoot the 3-point shot very well, Milwaukee needs the players who are capable of hitting it to be aggressive and confident.  Their role players whose role is to hit 3-pointers have to be ready and willing to fire away.  But that wasn’t the case once again on Monday.

Time after time Ersan Ilyasova swung the ball away instead of shooting wide open threes.  John Salmons would catch on the perimeter with a good look and pump fake defenders that weren’t there and drive to the middle where multiple defenders awaited him.  Keyon Dooling always kept the ball moving crisply, but whenever Milwaukee needed him to shoot, he came up empty.  Sometimes it’s hard to blame Ilyasova and Salmons them for passing up on open threes though … like when they do actually shoot them.  Ilyasova short-armed his two attempts miserably and Salmons managed to air-ball one wide open look.  Such are the struggles of a team that shoots 34.6% on the evening.

As has often been the case this season, things didn’t go so well for Ilyasova, Salmons and Dooling, two players who meant a great deal to the successes of last year’s team and  a third replacing a player who meant as much.  For those wondering how things have spun so far out of control, so fast, checking out the play of these three would be a good start. Read more…

Enemy: The Heat Index

Point Guard
Brandon Jennings vs. Carlos Arroyo

Over his past five games, Jennings is averaging 25 points, 5.4 assists, 4 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game.  Not too shabby a line.  Best of all is his 43.7% from the field over that stretch.  Over the course of his young career, shooting percentage has often been a thorn in Jennings’ side.  One five game stretch doesn’t change that, and he’s still a touch under 40% shooting on the season (39.8%), but perhaps this is a sign that things are beginning to come around for Jennings.  He played in four of those five games without Andrew Bogut and in Bogut’s return had one of the finer games of his entire NBA career in scoring 27 points, dishing six assists and grabbing seven rebounds.  He even hit Bogut on the pick and roll a few times, something he’s been struggling with.  Arroyo is really a point guard in name only at this point, as James handles the majority of the play-making duties for the Heat. He’s been a reliable shooter though, hitting on 13 of his 27 3-point attempts this season.

Advantage: Bucks Read more…

Winning organizations don’t last in the NBA. Professional sports leagues are copycat clubs, and the NBA is no different. The Bucks dove into Detroit’s annual conference champion organization to get general manager John Hammond. Successful organizations lose key members all of the time, it’s the price they pay for their success.

So perhaps Milwaukee should see it as a compliment that rumors have placed Kelvin Sampson in both Cleveland and Los Angeles.

From Adrian Wojnarowski at Yahoo! Sports:

As the Cleveland Cavaliers sift potential coaching candidates, general manager Danny Ferry has made calls checking on Milwaukee Bucks assistant Kelvin Sampson, sources tell Yahoo! Sports.

and

The Clippers are also showing an interest in Bucks assistant Kelvin Sampson, sources tell Y! Sampson has relationship with Blake Griffin.

At this stage, it’s not clear how sincere or how high up on the Cavaliers and Clippers lists Sampson may be, but it was only a matter of time before the Bucks assistant coaches started getting feelers. With the exception of Adrian Griffin, every assistant on the Bucks staff has been a head coach at some level (Joe Wolf was a D-League head coach, Sampson college and Jim Boylan in the NBA). Sampson’s work with Brandon Jennings in particular seemed to garner him much notoriety, starting with Jennings’ surprisingly effective summer league performance under Sampson’s tutelage as head coach. But if Sampson were to get his first NBA head honcho gig of his career, I’d expect it to be Cleveland before the Clippers.

His relationship with Blake Griffin in cited by Wojnarowski on Twitter, but his connections in Cleveland run deeper.

After his dismissal at Indiana, Sampson worked as an adviser to the San Antonio Spurs, getting his feet wet in the NBA and bracing himself for a career after college. There are few betters ways to rehabilitate one’s career than with the San Antonio Spurs and their uber-respected organization. In fact, where did Cleveland’s last coach, Mike Brown, spend time as an assistant before his head job with Cleveland? You guessed it, San Antonio. General manager Danny Ferry spent the last three years of his playing career in San Antonio before working in their front office prior to taking the job as Cleveland’s general manager.

The roots are there for this deal to go down.

But the catch would be that Sampson may not be the big name coach Cleveland is looking to bring in to appease Lebron James. Sampson’s experience at multiple levels and impressive pedigree could be enough to persuade James that he can get the job done. This one bears watching as it develops.

Recap/Box Score

Another sign that the Bucks are moving in the right direction as the playoffs are nearing was Scott Skiles’ post game reaction to a question about whether or not he was happy with the team’s effort in a Wednesday night loss to Cleveland.

“It’s not that I don’t care about that right now, but we should have won that game.  We gave them that game.”

Moral victories no longer have a stall in the Bucks locker room, be it on the road or at home.  These days, the Bucks are only interested in actual, real life, concrete victories.  Citing a botched layup attempt rather than a dunk attempt and a missed open three, Skiles was clearly annoyed and it may have had to do with more than just his players’ execution.

The Bucks have had problems with allowing free throw attempts all year, but those numbers reached a new low Wednesday night.  The Cavs attempted 45 free throws to the Bucks nine.  The Bucks previous largest free throw attempt deficit this season was 22.  An exhausted and exasperated John Salmons looked none too pleased about it after the game.

“It’s a discouraging stat.  Nine to 45?  That’s got to be a record.  I don’t want to lose my money.”

Part of Salmons appeal to the Bucks has been his knack for getting to the free-throw line and he was at it again Wednesday, finishing 7-7 from the line.  The problem was the two free throws the rest of the team attempted.

The foul differential was silly, but I’m hesitant to throw out the “BOO STERN OMG THEY FIXED IT FOR LEBRON OMG!” card.  Milwaukee is generally a team that doesn’t attack the hoop a lot, except for Salmons.  And Salmons got his from the line.  Andrew Bogut scores the majority of the Bucks points in the paint and he is constantly drifting away from the hoop on his shots.  Most post scorers get tons of points from the line, but while Bogut is a classic post-up scorer, he doesn’t rely on fakes to get into his opponents.  His superior touch allows him  to glide across the lane moving parallel with the hoop, this doesn’t leave defenders crashing into him very often.

Milwaukee worked for everything they got and while it was valiant effort, they came up short.  Two years ago that would have been exciting, a year ago it may have been acceptable, but now it’s just a disappointing loss.  Welcome to the top half of the conference Milwaukee. Read more…

Milwaukee Bucks (Scott Skiles) 41-32

At

Cleveland Cavaliers (Mike Brown) 58-16

Date: March 31^st, 2010

Time: 6:00 PM (CST)

TV: FS Wisconsin

Matchups

Point Guard

Brandon Jennings vs. Mo Williams

Williams struggled mightily in the Cavs trip to Milwaukee in early March, scoring just seven points while shooting 3-17 from the field.  Even worse, he was dealing with a hot shooting and especially lippy version of Brandon Jennings.  Jennings, sporting a red Mohawk that had Lebron James calling him “The Rooster” torched the Cavs for 25 points and many more than 25 words for the Cavs typically chipper bench.  There was no dancing from Cleveland on that dark day in Milwaukee.  But Williams and the Cavs will surely be looking for some redemption, largely at Jennings expense Wednesday night.  Whether or not Jennings will be ready to back up the chatter from his last performance will be an interesting subplot.

Advantage: Cavaliers Read more…