Recap/Box Score/Enemy

They survived so much.  All the dunking, all the lobs, all the spin moves, all the ferocity and all the violence.  The Bucks survived all that and were right there in the fourth quarter Monday night against the Clippers.

This is no small task.  L.A. had won eight straight at home coming into Monday’s game and featured a rookie who routinely posts “Kevin Durant in college” type numbers.  And he did his thing as usual.  But the Bucks were still there.  More than that: they were winning.  With 7:32 remaining in the fourth quarter, Milwaukee had the lead over the Clippers.

And then, of all people, the Clippers ground tethered backup power forward scored the last of his six straight points to put Los Angeles back in the lead.  The Clippers would never relinquish that lead.  Just over a minute later, this same backup forward drew the second of two fouls on Bucks forward Ersan Ilyasova and sent Milwaukee’s most effective offensive performer on this Monday night to the bench with his final foul.  Ike Diogu would head on back to the bench too.  It was Blake Griffin time again.  But Diogu had done his job.

The Clippers bench isn’t one filled with big names or very productive players.  They have some firepower and athleticism in their starting lineup that can rival a lot of teams in the league.  No one expected Milwaukee to be able to run and jump with the Clippers starters, but Milwaukee was supposed to take over against the Clippers weak bench.  They did in the second quarter.

After trailing 26-16 after one, Milwaukee stormed back into the game early in the second quarter.  Eight points from Brandon Jennings and a layup from Luc Mbah a Moute left the Bucks down just two by the 9:45 mark of the second.  Quickly the Clippers brought back in Griffin and guard Randy Foye. Later, when Milwaukee saw Griffin head to the bench and a deficit of just two points early in the fourth quarter, opportunity was figuratively knocking at the Bucks door.

But the Clippers made the plays they needed to just long enough until their stars could shine again.  Baron Davis and Foye led the Clippers home down the stretch and the Bucks could only watch as another chance at a start of something good had slipped away.

Read more…

Box Score/Recap

“Generally if anybody’s guarding someone I stick with them.”

-         Scott Skiles (Late 2009)

I don’t think Scott Skiles benched Brandon Jennings for the fourth quarter and overtime of the Hawks game to teach him a lesson, or because his defense was bad or for any other reason than Luke Ridnour was playing better.  It’s too late in the season for Skiles to be sending messages or do anything other than try to get wins.

But Wednesday night, Brandon Jennings looked like he took something out of it.

Jennings spent much of the first two quarters playing an aggressive pressure defense that he has rarely shown off this year.  Jennings is remarkably quick, his change of direction reminds me of a number of nimble insects, but that hasn’t resulted in much when he’s decided to pick up full court.  Wednesday Jennings was jabbing at the ball handler the way a boxer would when feeling out an opponent.  The Wizards point guards were taking them like body blows, staggering but never falling down as they committed just one turnover in the first half, despite losing their respective grips on a few occasions.

But in the third quarter, the Wizards point guards and the rest of the team for that matter, they went down.  Hard.  Looking tired from the hounding Jennings had been placing on them, Randy Foye, Shaun Livingston and Earl Boykins combined for six third quarter turnovers, including the ever so rare eight second call.  The Wizards themselves turned the ball over 11 times in the third and saw an eight point halftime deficit turn into a 17 point mountain that they would be unable to climb.

This was not one of Jennings finer offensive performances, in fact it ranks right up there with any as his worst when you factor his six turnovers into his 2-12 shooting performance.  Jennings ability to limit turnovers has been his saving grace as his shots have continued to fly towards everything but the bottom of the hoop.  Jennings seemed down trodden in the locker room, even when I mentioned the rarity of a forced eight second call in the league.

“Yeah, I mean, my offense wasn’t going so I had to fall back on something else and just went to the defensive end,” said Jennings.  “I didn’t have a good offensive evening and I was just trying to put pressure on the defensive end tonight.”

Skiles, who was visibly upset with his team’s performance (he referred to the game as “a step back”) stuck with Jennings in this one.

“We’re trying to win a game; that’s what we’re trying to do,” Skiles said after the game.  “Obviously he hasn’t had much luck finding the basket, but he was trying to apply pressure, he had good active hands.  He has his moments like that, he’s trying to find other ways to help and he did a pretty good job tonight.” Read more…

It’s hard to tell what was a more desperate scene: the Bucks launching three-point shots as time ticked away on their 109-97 loss to Washington or those in attendance attempting to navigate on the snowy Milwaukee streets after the game.

Neither was pretty, but both made me think about some things.

1. I hate snow.
2. I don’t want to return to 2007

You remember 2007, right?  That was the year Charlie Bell and Michael Redd combined to average 31 shot attempts each and every night.  Mo Williams often paired with these two to form one of the worst defensive backcourts in recent Bucks memory.  Needless to say, the Bucks lost a whole lot more than they won in 2006-07.  But I had been comfortably assuming for most of this year that those days were a distant memory.

Wednesday night served as some kind of horrific flashback though Read more…