Recap/Box Score/Enemy

For more than a little while Sunday night, the Milwaukee Bucks were playing some pretty good basketball.  They had their share of struggles, but they fought back.  They played hard and it appeared they might make enough of those timely plays they’ve been unable to make so many times before this season to give themselves a shot down the stretch against the mighty Boston Celtics.

Then things went back to normal.  Late in the fourth quarter of the Bucks 89-83 loss, their offense broke down, they struggled to get good looks and then, even when they did get those looks, they couldn’t convert.  It’s been the story all season, so why should anything have been different against the Celtics?

The most glaring difference about these Bucks versus the team that was so effective last year has come when plays have broke down.  Initial motion doesn’t always fail the Bucks.  Sometimes they are able to get players in the right places and they get high quality looks.  But it’s often seemed that late in games, that becomes infinitely more difficult.  And that makes sense.  With the game on the line, defenses are going to tighten up, they are going to want to make everything a little more difficult.

So open looks are harder to come by and individual creativity and skill become more important.  Last season, in this area, the post initial movement, someone has to make a play area, John Salmons really excelled.  He was the playmaker, the shotmaker, the guy who bailed the Bucks out so often.  This is where having a star is nice, and Salmons was that kind of guy for the Bucks last season.

He hasn’t been that kind of guy for the Bucks this season.  No one has.

After a Carlos Delfino three to tie Sunday’s game at 82 with 3:35 left, Milwaukee failed to convert on any of their remaining possessions.  Zero field goals the rest of the way.  The Bucks missed their final six shots and, for what seemed like they hundredth time this season, sprinkled in a crunch time shot clock violation.  Scott Skiles was asked specifically why Milwaukee’s guards had such a hard time operating out of pick and roll scenarios against Boston bigs that showed out time and again, and his response to that question seemed to indicate the various areas that are holding the Bucks back at the end of games, not only in the pick and roll, but just in general.

“Quickness, skill, creativity, vision, quick decision making, there’s a lot of stuff involved in it,” Skiles said.

A lot of areas where the Bucks just come up a bit short.

Offense

Throughout his first season and in his second season, it seemed like Luc Mbah a Moute was a jump shot away from being a really useful 30 plus minute player.  Forget the jump shot though, this guy is awfully useful right now.  Mbah a Moute has come a long ways since his rookie season offensively.  He attacks the rim very hard and uses his athleticism and touch around the hoop to finish as well as anyone on the Bucks.  He is always competing and finds himself in the right places more often than not when the Bucks have the ball.  His defense no longer needs much praise, its a given every night he’ll be a headache for the opposition, but his offense has really come along nice.  From 15-feet in, Mbah a Moute is as reliable as anyone on the Bucks.  He finished with 19 points against the Celtics on eight of 13 shooting.

• After a very rough Febraury, Brandon Jennings seems to be coming along in his recovery from a foot injury in March.  He led the team in scoring again on Sunday and displayed some very good vision early on in the game.  When his teammates are moving and getting into spaces, Jennings is capable of delivering useful passes that lead to scores.  So often his teammates are frozen as he dribbles about.  Jennings scored 23 points on eight of 19 shooting Sunday night, and made three of his seven three point attempts.

• What kind of guy has Salmons been for the Bucks this season?  The kind of guy who makes four of 13 shots and scores 11 points.  That’s a Salmons line that has no one flinching any more.  Just run of the mill stuff for last season’s hero these days.

Defense

There was no one area where the Bucks defense seemed to particularly struggle in against the talented Celtics.  Boston’s 51.5% field goal percentage seemed more a tribute to their ability to make shots than it was an indication Milwaukee was doing anything wrong at that end.  Time after time Bucks defenders would be closely defending Kevin Garnett, only to watch him cock back the ball in with that high release of his and loft it over that defender’s outstretched arm.  Not much can be done there.

• Rajon Rondo appeared to be sleepwalking through most of Sunday’s game, but still managed a key four points and four assists in the fourth quarter.  He’d finish with just six and eight respectively for the game, but the real indictment of his play was the eight turnovers he lost.  He was repeatedly lazy and nonchalant with his passes and Milwaukee isn’t the kind of team that typically allows for that.

• For all Rondo’s and his teammates’ turnovers the Bucks rarely capitalized: they scored just 11 points on 18 Celtics turnovers.

Final Thoughts

Another strong game against a more than worthy opponent left me wondering: are games like this an indication that Milwaukee’s problems have less to do with talent and more to do with something else?  I don’t know exactly what that something else is, it seems like it’s some sort of preparation issue, but whatever it is, it’s an internal matter.  If they can stick with the Celtics for most of 48 minutes and occasionally upset really good teams, only to lose to the Pistons and Wizards, that has to be more than a basic talent issue.  Late in games, sure, Milwaukee doesn’t have a guy who can step up, but they shouldn’t need one against those bad teams.

Is it better that Milwaukee’s problems may be more related to matters outside of talent?  Maybe.  Perhaps it’s easier to remove those who aren’t taking care of what they need to take care of than it is to rebuild the talent base.  This is a game that I’ll have in mind when the Bucks are making moves this summer.  This team probably isn’t that far away from being a sixth or seventh seed.  Of course they aren’t far away from being sixth or seventh in the lottery either.  It’s been a crazy kind of year.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com.  Follow him on Twitter.  Then become a fan on Facebook (in the sidebar).

Box Score/Recap/Enemy

Looking for more reasons to dislike Kevin Garnett, Bucks fans?

Almost universally, Bucks fans are bummed out after an incredibly hard fought, intense 105-102 overtime loss for the Bucks on Wednesday night.  And with good reason.  Some will say it was the refs fault, some will question a few decisions by the Bucks near the end of the game and some won’t be able to utter Kevin Garnett’s name without a swear word in the sentence for the next few days.  There are a number of things to be upset with after a loss like this.

Yet, I urge everyone to do their best to put on a happy face once again, because if this game is any indication, the Bucks are back.  Or at least close.

This was a squad that bore no resemblance (at least after the first quarter) to the group that limped into Boston 1-3.  Milwaukee got contributions from all over the roster in ways big and small Wednesday night and looked a lot more like the team many thought they were heading into the season.  The Bucks hung tough on the second night of a back-to-back against last year’s Eastern Conference champion and are probably feeling confident in themselves as a group for the first time all year.

Maybe it won’t go down as a victory in the record books, but does that really matter all that much here in the fifth game of the regular season?  The Bucks aren’t jockeying for position right now, they are simply trying to get a lot of players on a lot of different pages all to focus on the same few words.  In that regard, the Bucks looked successful Wednesday night.

Calls that could have gone one way or the other, Andrew Bogut’s early struggles, John Salmons slump extension (another dead legged 3-10 shooting night) and a three-point loss that set the Bucks back to 1-4?  Those are all small scale things.  Games decided by one possession can go either way in the NBA.  The better teams blow out the bad squads and eek out tight games on the road against other good teams.  Milwaukee’s getting there, they just aren’t completely there yet.  The big picture is that the Bucks were able to get rolling and can take some good feelings with them on the flight from Boston to Indiana.

Of course, all is lost again if they don’t show up against the Pacers on Friday night.  For now, I’m confident they will. Read more…

Milwaukee Bucks (Scott Skiles) 1-3
Inactive: Chris Douglas Roberts, Michael Redd, Darington Hobson

vs

Boston Celtics (Doc Rivers) 3-1
Inactive: Kendrick Perkins, Luke Harangody, Delonte West

Date: 11/03/2010
Game Time: 7:00 PM (CST)
TV: ESPN/FS Wisconsin

The Other Guys: Celtics Hub

Point Guard

Brandon Jennings vs. Rajon Rondo

Rondo is one of the worst outside shooting point guards you’ll ever see, but incredibly effective off the dribble.  With his array of shots, he’s pretty much unguardable if he gets in the paint.  His length, quickness and aggressiveness will give Jennings problems on the offensive end too.  Rondo plays with a real chip on his shoulder and seems like he’s out to prove that he’s the best point guard in the league every night.  With games of 17, 24 and 17 assists under his belt this year, it’s getting harder and harder to argue that he isn’t.  Jennings shot very poorly again against the Blazers, but didn’t force much.  So long as his 3-point shot is unreliable though, Milwaukee will struggle.  They don’t have enough outside shooters to absorb his inconsistencies.

Advantage: Celtics Read more…

With the Miami Heat emerging victorious (sadly and barely) from their last game of the season against New Jersey, clinching the fifth seed and leaving the Bucks to play the Hawks in the three-six matchup, it’s hard to get too excited about any of the positives that came from the Bucks Wednesday night win over Boston.

It’s merely evident now that Milwaukee’s jayvee plus team can defeat the Celtics freshman team.  And I think that was probably a safe bet already.  Milwaukee has pounded into us all season that they have good depth.  From one through eleven, Milwaukee can plug different guys into different lineups and compete with most starters and defeat most benches.

Once again Wednesday night, Milwaukee got productive games out of Luke Ridnour, Jerry Stackhouse, Ersan Ilyasova and even …

*gasp* Dan Gadzuric?

Yes, under the right circumstances even old Gadzuric can look good again.

But the circumstances will be much different in the playoffs now.  The Hawks have been a problem for Milwaukee all season.  Hell, they’ve been a problem for the majority of the league all season.  A group that’s been playing together for years now, Atlanta has the versatility, the star power, the defense and the offense to make a deep run into the playoffs and even scare the East’s top two.

If Milwaukee were about to embark on a playoff series with Boston, the questions would be how many games could Milwaukee win?  Would the Celtics lose their cool during the series, specifically Rasheed Wallace. Could Milwaukee capitalize on any of those moments and gain some momentum?  Basically, the questions about that potential series were full of hope and possibility.  It would still be a long shot, but Milwaukee would at least be on the verge of a series that was going to likely have some give and take.

Now I can’t help but ask questions like, how is this series going to look any different than Monday night?  Will Milwaukee shoot over 42% in any of the games?  How many points is Joe Johnson going to average?  My feelings of hope and excitement have withered away significantly.  I know asking the big “What If” about Andrew Bogut won’t do any good, but it keeps coming back to me and gnawing at me.

But I guess it is what it is.  The bottom line is that the Bucks are still going to be playing playoff games again this year, which is still a terrific feat.  And I’m glad we got this final game of the regular season out of the way.  Now, as Brandon Jennings so elegantly put it after Monday night’s game against Atlanta, we can just “lace ‘em up and let’s hoop.” Read more…

Between the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics, things are getting a tad chippy.

(For more on the Celtics, check out TrueHoop Network Boston Celtics blog, CelticsHub)

Well, I’ll give the Celtics one thing.  As far as a team the Bucks can learn from, they won’t be a bad playoff opponent.  It looks like it’ll make for an entertaining series to boot.

In another game that had a couple chippy moments, the Bucks lost a game that didn’t really mean all that much in front of a sold out Bradley Center crowd Saturday night, 105-90.  And when I say it didn’t mean all that much, I’m referring to the fact that it’s looking more and more like these two teams are going to end up seeing each other in the first round of the playoffs.  Atlanta won again Saturday, they’ll likely beat out Boston for the third seed and while the Bucks lost, they still hold a half game lead for fifth and have a tiebreaker over Miami.  But I think a few things in this one meant a little something.

Teams that play hard defense can occasionally rub their opponents the wrong way and both the Celtics and the Bucks do this.  Teams that have won a championship with a core that’s slipping off the top of its perch often give the impression to new challengers that they aren’t worthy.  Boston has won a title with this core.  Teams that haven’t made the playoffs in some time and are making their first run together often want to prove like they belong.  That’d be the Bucks.  So we’re looking at a first round series between the “Old Irish” and the “Young Bucks”, one on the way down, the other on the way up.  They’ll meet in the middle, chips on shoulders in tow.

So believe me when I write that the miniature dust-ups mean at least mean a little something.  No one wants to be disrespected in the NBA.  No one.

But the Celtics are a great first round opponent for tons of reasons.  Not just because they appear most beatable, but because the Bucks can learn lots from their guys.  They can see the intensity they’ll need.  They can feel the type of defense pressure that wins games in the playoffs.  They can see a star at work in fourth quarters in Paul Pierce, watch what he does and how he operates.

But not all the Celtics serve that purpose.  Some of the Celtics are in need of some learning themselves.  Frankly, on Saturday night, Glen “Big Baby” Davis looked like, well, pardon the obvious pun, but, a Big Baby.  His reaction to a hard foul by Kurt Thomas led to a technical for his time, an on court talking to by Celtics Coach Doc Rivers and … a flagrant foul on Thomas?  Perhaps Davis did know what he was doing.  It’s possible he was just working the refs.

Ah, working the refs.  Few skills seem more difficult to develop in the NBA or as valuable.  The Celtics are always reminding the refs which team has a title under the belt, though not so obviously.  Constantly, you’ll see a Celtic put their arm around the ref, scowl after a call or, in Rasheed Wallace’s case, scream “and one” every shot attempt.  This was a Michael Redd specialty and, truth be told, may be the area where the Bucks will miss him most during the playoffs.  But playing the masters of this craft will give the Bucks an up close and personal tutoring session on this ever so necessary skill.

Of course, Milwaukee will have plenty of time to watch and learn once this regular season gets out of the way and the playoffs start.  This was simply the appetizer before round one.  Hopefully Milwaukee was paying attention. Read more…