(We’re counting down the best 20 Bucks since 1991 over the next few weeks. It’s something to do with the lockout sucking the life out of NBA fans. We continue with number 9. Mo Williams. My favorite Mo-ment was from a me-MO-rable victory that seemed like it could Mo-tivate Milwaukee (YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!).

Williams dramatic game winning in the video below capped one of the most memorable Bucks games I’ve ever been to in my life. Milwaukee was down 20-some points to a pre-brawl Pacers team that looked like a title contender. But, some how, they came back. Most of the arena had cleared out in the late third-early fourth quarter, but those of us left tossed our complimentary calenders given out at the door that day in the air like hats at a graduation ceremony when Mo hit that buzzer beater. Or at least whoever was at the game with me and I did. We’ll always have that, Mo. – Jeremy)

The best thing Larry Harris ever did as Bucks GM went largely unnoticed.

Associated Press:

MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Bucks acquired guard Maurice “Mo” Williams after the Utah Jazz did not match the offer.

Williams, a restricted free agent signed an offer sheet with the Bucks on Aug. 6.

Williams, 21, spent the 2003-04 season with the Jazz, where he appeared in 57 games and averaged 5.0 points, 1.3 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game.

Kudos to Harris. In fact, up to that point in his tenure, Harris hadn’t been too bad of a GM. From when he was hired through 2004, he waived Anthony Mason, re-signed Toni Kukoc, traded a disappointing Tim Thomas and nabbed the hilarious Zaza Pachulia in the 2004 draft. Sometime after 2004, Milwaukee’s beer fumes got to him and he clearly should have been issued a DUI.

But he’ll always have the Mo signing. Just the first one though. Mo’s second contract wasn’t that great.

Read more…

Last second victories are sweet.  They’re more exciting, fun to watch and dramatic.  They’re everything kids dream about as they grow up.

But are they the magic elixirs many hope they will end up being?

Common thought is that a win like the Bucks thrilling win over the Pacers last night gives the players something more than the average win does.  That thrill of, “hey, something finally has gone right for us”, carries over and helps the players grow more cohesive and play with more energy going forward.  When a struggling team wins a game like the one the Bucks won over the Pacers, everyone wonders, has momentum shifted?  Will things now turn around?

I’m inclined to believe it just isn’t that simple.  I’ve seen this movie before. Read more…

In honor of Thanksgiving (have a happy and thankful one by the way), a recipe for a typical Milwaukee Bucks game this season.

Ingredients

• 3 quarters miserable offense
• 1 average offensive quarter
• 4 quarters stingy defense
• 15 John Salmons‘ drives into heavy traffic
• One strong individual offensive performance
• A very, VERY light sprinkle of fast break points
• 50 (or so) rebounds
• A limited number of turnovers (no creating means no risking the ball)
• 10 Corey Maggette free throws
• 1 Maggette pass
• 10 maddeningly different looking Brandon Jennings shots
• 1 strong performance from a player on the other team

(This more or less sums up the Cavs game if you didn’t notice)

Directions

This dish can be cooked in a variety of ways.  Sometimes, Milwaukee has an average first quarter offensively and then uses the remaining three for their miserable ones, sometimes it’s the second and sometimes it’s the third.  Whatever the case may be, just know there won’t be more than one good looking offensive quarter.  In Friday’s 83-81 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers, things went pretty well in the third quarter offensively, thanks to their random strong individual offensive performance, this time courtesy of Keyon Dooling.

Unfortunately, Milwaukee had a rare poor defensive quarter at the same time, surrendering 31 points to the Cavs in the third, largely thanks to high screen and rolls that opened things up for Mo Williams to hit jump shot after jump shot.  Of course Mo Williams started hitting jump shots, because A. that’s all Mo Williams has ever done and B. every night someone gets hot and begins the Bucks demise.

Shannon Brown, David West, Thaddeus Young, Wesley Matthews. All of them have at some point gotten hot against the Bucks and played a big role in a loss that looked similar to Friday night’s.

Every game the Bucks lose lately seems to mix together the ingredients above in a variety of ways, but always with the same, low-scoring, depressing result.  It was fun to see Dooling get hot and finish with 18 points, but that doesn’t seem much more rewarding than seeing Earl Boykins get hot in Atlanta or Ersan Ilyasova do so against the Knicks. Milwaukee has had spurts of offense from a variety of sources, but isn’t getting any consistency out of anyone.  That’s a problem that falls back on the starters.

Jennings’ one for 10 effort against the Cavs was a disaster.  Players start in the NBA because, in theory, they are the better and more consistent players.  Jennings may be one of the least consistent Bucks I can remember.  He’s 21 though, so at least a little bit, that makes sense.  His age actually saves me from worrying too much about whether or not he’ll ever figure out how to shoot the same shot every time or create looks for his teammates.  It doesn’t help much in the short term though.

In the short term, the only positive that seemed to come out of Wednesday’s loss was a good effort out of Larry Sanders. He was active and plugged in often, blocking a 3-pointer, poking away a few other loose balls, finishing around the rim and generally using the tools he has for good.  He disappeared a few times, but he could have been gassed since this was his first extended look.  Seeing him post up, at this stage, is a disaster, but he has very nice form on his jumper and hit a couple mid-range shots that looked pure.  That’s something he can do.  It’s too early to say whether or not he can do it consistently, but having that threat is nice.

It’s good that something was nice Wednesday.

But today is a new day.  It’s Thanksgiving, so eat lots of food, enjoy time with your families and give thanks that, for now, at least the Bucks are still in Milwaukee.  Better days are ahead, they have to be.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com and likes extra gravy on his turkey.  Follow him on Twitter.  Also Facebook is to the right.

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…

Recap/Box Score

Fortunately, the NBA doesn’t decide standings with a poll that measures the strength of each win.

No, in the NBA, every win, regardless of who it’s over, the margin of victory or the location of the game, counts just the same.  So if anyone tells you that the Bucks wins over teams missing their star players (the Hornets without Chris Paul, the Heat without Dwyane Wade and now the Cavs without Lebron James) don’t mean anything, you can simply point to the Bucks current position in sixth in the Eastern Conference and inform them of their error.

A Cavs team sans James, Shaquille O’Neal and Zydrunas Illgauskas is a significantly weaker opponent than one with those three, or any of them for that matter.  In two weeks, Shaq will still be out, but James will surely be back in the lineup, Illgauskas will be back and the Cavs will again be a force to be reckoned with.  But that’s not important today.  What’s important right now is that the Bucks won another game and even better, it’s one that not many people had penciled in a day or two ago.  It’s important the Bucks are now two games up on Chicago for the sixth seed, it’s important the sold out Bradley Center had plenty of reason to cheer all night long Saturday and, most of all, it’s important that Brandon Jennings’ mojo finally returned.

Ben Gordon :: Trendsetter :: Brit

For just the third time since February 1 (17 games), Jennings topped 40% shooting, finishing 6-14 from the field and 5-7 from behind the arc.  Jennings finished with 25 points and had a season high number of “three-point monocles.”  Popularized in last year’s playoffs by Ben Gordon, the “three-point monocle” is an especially braggadocios celebration of a three-point shot.  Seeing Jennings break it out was especially joyful for me for a number of reasons.  First, it’s good to see Jennings having fun out on the court again, especially in light of his recent comments about packing in his shot for a while.  Second, I just love the trey monocle.  Jennings explanation:

I did a little mocking, a little dancing for (Lebron). Hopefully (Lebron) caught that, I think it got his attention.

That being said, it would have been nice to see just where the Bucks measure up against the NBA’s best team, especially with Jennings having it going. Read more…