UPDATE: Drew Gooden has been suspended for tonight’s game due to Monday’s flagrant foul, according to Sam Amick.  This could result in more minutes for either Jon Leuer or some minutes for Jon Brockman.

After dropping their opener Monday night, the Milwaukee Bucks are back at it 7:30 PM Tuesday evening with their 44th home opener against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Wolves took both pre-season games from the Bucks this year, one decisively and one thanks to a late run against the end of Milwaukee’s bench.

Both teams sit 0-1, the Bucks after a frustrating loss to the Charlotte Bobcats and the Wolves after an encouraging defeat at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Both the Bucks and Wolves had one point leads at some point in the fourth quarter. The Wolves can chalk up letting theirs slip away as meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Hell, they might have two franchise guys and those guys are learning to win together.

Meanwhile the promise of a new season has already given way to pessimism among many in Milwaukee. Logically, it was a grand reach to assume this Bucks team would be something special, something beyond slightly above average. But the summer has a way of building up hopes that players are suddenly going to transform into something they haven’t been. Monday served as a realization that this city’s two stars probably aren’t really stars at all. Still. And if they aren’t, this team becomes dramatically less interesting.

It’s amazing how different 0-1 can look.

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With the number 10 pick in the TrueHoop Network Mock Draft, I’m predicting the Milwaukee Bucks will select Alec Burks, the athletic shooting guard out of Colorado. Hopefully the Milwaukee Bucks can safely arrive at the same place I have come Thursday or at least arrive in the same general area. Klay Thompson, Jordan Hamilton, Marshon Brooks, any of the prospects Milwaukee has seen its name connected to would be justifiable in one way or another.

What would not be justifiable? The actualization of the insane rumor that’s been floating around the past few days.

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Recap/Box Score/Enemy

Over the years, the NBA trade deadline has been blamed for a lot of bad basketball.  A great example of this phenomenon came roughly a year ago, right here in Milwaukee.

At that point, the Bucks hadn’t started that second half surge that birthed the Fear the Dear mantra.  They wouldn’t acquire John Salmons until later that night.  It was actually his rumored deal that seemed to have some players on edge. With rumors swirling about, Milwaukee had one of their worst performances of the season when they lost to the Houston Rockets 127-99.  After the game the talk was of the possible Salmons trade — who would be heading out, which draft picks would exchange hands — not the loss that seemed out of place after a strong run of games by the Bucks.

NBA players are human beings, susceptible to the same lapses in focus that any of us are.  That was the explanation on trade deadline eve last season, and it seemed more than reasonable.  Especially after the Bucks played so well for the remainder of the season.

Fast forward a year (and five days).  With very little trade talk surrounding the team, there was no indication that any key players for the Bucks were too concerned about being shipped out, though you wouldn’t know that from the Bucks performance.  The same problem that has plagued the team like a bad virus all season followed the Bucks back to Milwaukee after the All-Star break.  This time it invaded during a win though, so face was largely saved.  But for the 24 time this season, Milwaukee failed to shoot better than 40% in a 94-88 win over the T-Wolves Tuesday night.

This is more than likely the team that will be in Milwaukee the rest of the season, bar a minor move.  Honestly, the plan appears to be to hope that problems this same team has dealt with all season take care of themselves.  For the last few weeks the lines in the locker room have been the same: “we need to make a run”, “it’s time to turn it on”, “now is our opportunity to gain some ground”, all that good stuff.  Coach Scott Skiles said them again before Tuesday’s game:

“We’ve got a chance to go out and start playing well and prove that we’re the team that people thought we were going to be in the beginning of the season.”

The chance has always been there, but the Bucks have yet to seize it.  It was business as usual Tuesday night, a lackadaisical win over an opponent that walked on the court with a 13-43 record.  But the Bucks entered the fourth quarter tied.  That’s hardly the statement about the kind of team they are that Skiles was looking for.   At this point a win may be a win, and surely the Bucks need every one of them they can get if they intend to stay in the race for the final playoff spot, but this team that played Tuesday night won’t be one that scares anybody in the league come April.

The Bucks are betting that this team isn’t the one that will show up in April.  Same faces, sure, but different performance.  Right now, the odds aren’t looking good on that bet.

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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.

The point guard match-up fizzled.  Heck, the game itself had very little sizzle in it.  But what’s most important, is that the Bucks pulled out the win in Minnesota Friday night, 87-72.  Even more important?  For the first time this year the Bucks were not “The Brandon Jennings Show”.  Other people scored!

The Bucks did it with defense and yet another strong third quarter performance.  Hakim Warrick scored 11 of his 12 points as the Bucks won the third quarter 31-14.  Aside from Andrew Bogut, the Bucks had shown little spark before halftime, so Warrick’s strong third was crucial to the Bucks success.  Up 12 heading into the fourth, Luke Ridnour scored nine points to keep the Bucks in control for the entire fourth quarter.

While it’s encouraging that the Bucks put some room between themselves and the true bottom feeders of the NBA by picking up the win, it’s still concerning that they’ve yet to put anything close to a full game together.  Against the Pistons they used a similar strong third quarter to set themselves up for a win after a poor start.  In Chicago, the Bucks came out hot and had an 18 point lead early in the third quarter before wilting down the stretch and blowing a great opportunity.  If the Bucks hope to battle for that eighth seed this season, they’ll need to string together four quarters at a time rather than just one or two.  Against Minnesota, two quarters will do.  Against the Bulls or the Heat or the Hawks?  It’s not the recipe for success. Read more…