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…

This wasn’t the first time Matt Bonner swung a Bucks-Spurs game in favor of his team.  Last November in San Antonio, Bonner hit six threes and scored 23 points to help the Spurs down a surging Bucks team playing without Andrew Bogut. He’s been in the league long enough and had enough success that he shouldn’t have been a surprise then and he certainly shouldn’t be a surprise now.

For whatever reason though, be it a failure to understand the scouting report, arrogance about defending him or maybe just all that skill Bonner possesses, Milwaukee couldn’t stop Matt Bonner in the second half of Wednesday night’s loss to the Spurs.  The 3-point specialist scored 17 points while only hitting three long range shots in the second half.  The mere threat he poses from deep was enough to keep Milwaukee off balance though.

Time after time, Bucks defenders were left standing and watching after closing out too hard to prevent a long range shot from Bonner.  If Milwaukee closed hard enough to make him uncomfortable shooting a three, he’d just fake and drive right.  Post game, Scott Skiles talked about his team’s struggles with Bonner, noting that every time he got the ball, he pump faked and went to his right.

Despite apparently preaching about this to his team in preparation for Wednesday’s game, the Bucks seemed clueless about how to defend Bonner’s moves.  I should say move as he only used one.  To his credit though, that move worked over and over and he knew when it was time to shoot and when it was time to fake.  That’s a lesson Milwaukee could certainly stand to learn.

Bonner’s simple game, 3-point shots and drives to the hoop, illustrated why the Spurs offense operated so much more effectively than the Bucks in the second half.  While the Bucks launched long twos or difficult shots in the paint, the Spurs filled it up from outside.  San Antonio hit six threes in the second half while the Bucks managed to connect on just one.  That 15 point difference in outside shooting success goes a long way towards explaining how the Spurs turned an eight point halftime deficit into a seven point margin of victory at the final buzzer.

This time though, it wasn’t only the Bucks shoddy second half offense that deserved the blame.  A lack of attention to detail will derail virtually any team against a squad as talented as the Spurs.  When the Bucks traveled to San Antonio earlier this season, Manu Ginobili was allowed left on his final shot, a game winner that was well defended, but too comfortable for him.  Wednesday night Matt Bonner, not unlike Ginobili before him, was given access to lanes using his strong hand over and over.  He’d make the Bucks pay by the end of the night for their lack of attention to detail.

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

A lot of negative things can be taken out of this one.

Virtually every weakness the Andrew Bogut-less Bucks have was exposed in their 112-98 loss to the San Antonio Spurs Monday night.  Without Bogut, the Bucks had few answers for Tim Duncan inside and had to resort to double teams on him more often than not.  In turn, the Spurs were able to work the ball around, find the open man and hit open three after open three.  Sans Bogut, the Bucks struggled to keep the Spurs off the boards.   Coming into this one, the Bucks were out-rebounding the Spurs 45.8-42.8.  Sure, Bogut was gone, but the Bucks have still looked sharp on the boards even without the center.  The Spurs absolutely crushed the Bucks on the boards (more on this later).

The Bucks certainly haven’t seen a team like the Spurs.

The Bucks have faced a pillow soft schedule thus far, fattening up on the dregs of the NBA.  Bobcats, Grizzlies, Nets and Knicks are all no Spurs.  They offer little in the ways of crisp ball movement.  None of the teams the Bucks have been able to knock off has had a go-to guy like Tim Duncan.  So a logical question to be raised after this particularly brutal defeat is, are the Bucks close to being as good as their record indicates? Read more…