Recap/Box Score/Enemy

Every now and then, the Bucks show us all that they can still be pretty good.  There’s typically a catch though.

Raptors. Nets. Cavs. Wizards. Clippers.

Those are the last five opponents Milwaukee has defeated by double digits.  So maybe it’s not time to bust out the hot tubs filled with champagne just yet.  Still, it’s fun to see Milwaukee get a convincing win, and that’s certainly what Monday night’s 102-78 victory over the Clippers was.

As Coach Scott Skiles said after the game, “the Bucks were on another level” Monday night.  Their passing was crisp and the ball moved freely early.  Their defense rotated and helped as well as they have all season.  And, finally, they made shots while they were passing and defending well.  It was the perfect storm of Bucks basketball.  Skiles thought the ball movement was the key.

“Right from the start,” he said, “less dribbling around all over the place and more passing and that’s how we need to play.  As a result, we shot the ball well.”

The key early was shooting guard John Salmons dialing up his inner point guard.  When Salmons first came into the league, he did so as a big point guard, but eventually moved over to the two.  His point guard skills were on display Monday.  Salmons dished out four first quarter assists on his was to 12 assists.

When it was all said and done, the Bucks improved to 21-33 and the Clippers fell to 20-35.  Those aren’t numbers that should have anyone all that excited, but the more telling one is 4-21: the Clippers new road record.  Milwaukee was LA’s seventh stop on a 11 game road trip that goes on beyond the all-star break.  So, while it’s fun to see a convincing Bucks win, don’t be fooled just yet.

Read more…

Enemy: Clipperblog

Point Guard
Brandon Jennings vs. Baron Davis

It’s safe to say Davis cares again.  In seven February games he’s averaging 19 points and 8.6 assists on 44.1% shooting overall and 41.4% shooting from three-point range.  If Jennings put up numbers like that for a month in the next year, I’d eat a shoe.  Even for a guy coming back off an injury Jennings is struggling.  In his own set of seven February games, Jennings has yet to score more points than attempt field goals in a game.  His best effort was 10 points on 10 shots against the Pacers on Saturday evening.  It’s been a long month.  Oddly enough, despite their completely opposite efforts, both Jennings and Davis have watched their teams limp to a 1-6 month.

Advantage: Clippers

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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).

Recap/Box Score

Even if it was a game later than Bucks fans would like, the REAL Los Angeles Clippers showed up in Milwaukee on Tuesday night.  You know, the team that doesn’t (can’t?) defend, that takes bad shots and appears to go without an offensive strategy for significant portions of the game.  That’s the Clippers we’ve all come to know and love, that’s the Clippers that opposing teams love to see, that’s the Clippers Milwaukee got on Tuesday.  The results were predictable.

Using runs of 10-0 in the first quarter and 18-8 in the second, the Bucks never lost their double digit lead in the second half.  And that was before a dust-up renewed the Bucks interest in a game that they had been keeping at arms length.

That seemed to pique the interest of the Bucks and more importantly, drew the interest of a crowd that had been in and out of the game beforehand.  I’ve carried with me the vague memory of the Bradley Center crowd’s airline hangar noise level from the 2001 Eastern Conference Finals, but it’s hard to recall that.  That was nearly 10 years ago and rarely has there been much to get all that excited about since then.  So when a moment crops up that get the crowd more than just “involved” in the game, those are the best.  After the miniature dust-up, Squad Six began an “An-drew Bo-gut” chant.  Soon the whole crowd joined in.  Bogut noticed.

“That was pretty cool.  I haven’t seen the place rockin’ like that for a while, where the whole crowd got involved.  Hopefully we can encourage the rest of our fans out there to feel free to join in when Squad Six is chanting, it brings a great atmosphere.”

That atmosphere Bogut has been looking to recapture?  That’s called a playoff atmosphere.  It helped that Bogut’s Squad Six has been at it game in and game out, but Milwaukee has a history of stepping up in the moment.

And its basketball team is looking like they can play that game too. Read more…

Milwaukee Bucks (Scott Skiles) 40-32

vs.

Los Angeles Clippers (Kim Hughes) 27-46

Date: 3/30/2010
Time: 7:00 (CST)
TV: FS Wisconsin

Matchups

Point Guard

Brandon Jennings vs. Steve Blake

Baron Davis is not accompanying the Clippers on their road trip due to back spasms, leaving Blake at the helm.  This is significantly good news for the Bucks.  Davis is quite physically imposing and really played well the last time these teams met.  Blake is more of a fit in kind of guy, rather than a take over kind of guy.  He can hit threes and he runs an okay game, but he won’t be able to punish Jennings or harass him too much defensively.

Advantage: Bucks Read more…