I was out of town this past weekend, so I didn’t catch Friday night’s Bucks-Pistons game or Saturday night’s Bucks-Cavs game.  Even when I’m away, I try and keep an eye and a half on the game, just in case something major happens.  I hate missing games entirely, especially home games.  There’s always that chance something really cool might happen, something that makes you say, “Ah, I wish I saw that.”

Especially in April.

In meaningless April games, the court becomes wet with opportunity.  Rookies who typically wouldn’t be playing find themselves thrust into action, given a chance to show what they can do and veterans get the opportunity to either rest or work on parts of their games that they don’t showcase all year.  More importantly, guys get to gun for stats.

If a player gets even a whiff that he may be able to do something cool, you better believe he’s going to try and make it happen in April.  For everyone saying these games are meaningless, you’re half right.  In the grand scheme of things, yes, they are.  But in the small picture, they are huge opportunities for players to do outrageous things.

Being a Bucks fan has taught us that much.

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Recap/Box Score/Enemy

If only Ramon Sessions had been bottled up a bit more, Milwaukee really would have had a night to boast about.  I guess teams shouldn’t really boast about beating the Cavs though, regardless of how lopsided the affair is.

Regardless, Milwaukee had a statistical advantage across the board against Cleveland.  More rebounds, more assists, fewer turnovers, a better shooting percentage, you name it, Milwaukee did better.  Except for free throws.  The former Buck Sessions made sure Cleveland held their own there.  They had to do well somewhere I guess.

But in Milwaukee’s 102-88 victory in Cleveland Friday night, there was never much of a doubt.  The Bucks led from start to finish and squelched any possible Cleveland runs in a hurry, the start of the fourth quarter being a good example.

Cleveland made up ground quickly as the third quarter wound down, going on a 10-0 run that spanned the last 2:13 of the period.  Milwaukee saw a 19-point lead shrink to nine and Cleveland’s crowd had suddenly awoke again.  But the Bucks were having none of that when the fourth quarter started.  They had been waiting patiently, suffering through Heat game after Magic game after Heat game to get some easy games on their schedule.

Milwaukee forced misses on the Cavs first six shots of the fourth quarter and an Andrew Bogut hook shot with 8:51 to play in the fourth built Milwaukee’s lead back up to 18, putting the Cavs hopes to bed early again.  But for as much as this game was about an easy win for a team that needs as many as they can get, it was about the return of a glue guy.

Carlos Delfino checked in with 3:49 to play in the first quarter and would play 13 minutes before the first half was done.  Scott Skiles said he planned to limit Delfino to 10 minutes for the game, but Delfino was so active for the Bucks, cutting through open lanes, keeping the ball moving and launching threes, that he ended up logging 23 minutes.  He made just one of seven shots from 3-point range, but it was good to see him back anyway.  His chemistry with teammates on the court and comfort in Milwaukee’s offense is always evident when he’s on the court.

Milwaukee’s hoping the wins follow him back.

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Enemy: Cavs: The Blog

Point Guard
Keyon Dooling vs. Ramon Sessions

It saddens me that Sessions can’t find a good situation.  Year after year he’s shuffled off to worse teams, constantly backing up a point guard without a future.  Whenever Sessions has enjoyed the luxury of significant minutes, numbers follow.  But the one thorn in Sessions’s side has always been his defense.  This season, Sessions ranks 368th in the league in points per possessions according to Synergy Sports.  Sessions is allowing 1.07 points per possession on defense.  Much maligned Bucks backup-turned-starter Keyon Dooling on the other hand, ranks 24th, allowing just .75 points per possession.  Some of this has to do with the Bucks being a very good team defense and the Cavs having terrible team defense.  But a lot of this has to do with Sessions having never been a good defender and still trying to figure out just what the hell he’s doing on that end.

Advantage: Bucks

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Another game, another loss that I’ll attempt to rationalize.  I shouldn’t even say attempt, because these pre-season losses are all easy to shake off and ignore.  And Thursday night’s loss to Cleveland is probably the easiest to ignore of them all.  Thursday night the Bucks played Andrew Bogut and Drew Gooden together for roughly 15 minutes, the most game action those two have seen together.  Wait a second, you may ask, if Bogut and Gooden got a lot of minutes together, then why did the Bucks lose the game?

Well, there’ s a big difference between playing the two of them together to get experience and playing them together to try and win.  Bogut total 21 minutes, while Gooden finished with 22, so we’re not exactly talking regular season minutes for these guys.  Both ended up wit a +5 plus/minus on the evening and each of them was swatting shots with a vengeance.  Bogut finished with four blocks, while Gooden tallied three.  The three blocks give Gooden seven now for the pre-season, a tidy average of one per game, significantly higher than his .3 career average.  Even if he doesn’t block shots at a career pace, he’ll still help out down low.  The plus five each of the Bucks big men had tonight indicates that they are on the road to getting comfortable.  And comfort is the Bucks focus right now, not beating teams with healthy rosters in meaningless games.

So I’m okay seeing the Bucks drop a game to the Cavaliers 83-78 five days before the regular season starts. Read more…

Recently, the TrueHoop Network’s D-League blog D-League Digest polled the network to see what respective blogs thought about their team’s usage of the D-League as a development tool.

As far as the Bucks are concerned, I gave them a D.  Here’s a sample of my thoughts on the matter:

It’s tough to criticize the Bucks when talking about developing young players. Brandon Jennings and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute have been getting minutes from day one as draft picks of John Hammond. But why the Bucks didn’t use the D-League more with Joe Alexander or Meeks is a curiosity.

You can read more here, but I’m now wondering if I was too harsh.

Can I blame the Bucks for wanting to keep closer tabs on their young players instead of shipping them away and hoping for more development?  Milwaukee may feel that their coaches and system can offer better development than coaches who have little to no knowledge of the Bucks system and very little at stake with the players they are receiving.

Matt Moore made the point in the review that the Bucks use the D-League as a banishment system.  When they no longer have use for a player, they ship them to the D-League, never to hear from them again.  This is obviously a nod to the Joe Alexander experience.  After proving that he knew little about playing the game of basketball in his rookie season, Alexander mysteriously broke down with an injury at the start of camp last season and then played a few games in the D-League while still on the Bucks roster before his trade to Chicago.  Milwaukee wanted no part of him and sent him away not for development, but for the sake of separation.

But they’ve had success before, albeit with a different regime.  Ramon Sessions was a star in the D-League and Ersan Ilyasova was passable in his first go-round there.  I made the point on D-League Digest that Jodie Meeks could have used some regular shots that the D-League could have provided, but he did provide the Bucks with athleticism they did not have elsewhere in the early parts of last season.  Milwaukee often sees space and use on their roster for rookies.

This coming season should be the first when they have little space and use for their second-round-pick and will be an interesting test of their faith in the D-League system.  If Darington Hobson heads down and improves, this D could improve drastically and quickly.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com