”It’s personal so we are certainly not going to make it public, but Andrew needed to deal with it and will be mostly likely back on court in a couple of days,” he said.

Shoulders across Milwaukee are sagged in anticipation of another Milwaukee Bucks Brickfest without Bogut.

Sacramento offers the possibility of a more welcoming road venue though.  Through seven games the Kings rank 27th in the league in defensive rating, allowing 109.6 points per 100 possessions. The Kings defense could be the water the Bucks have needed so badly in this desert of missed shots their trip West has been.

Drew Gooden is coming off a productive if uneven performance against the Utah Jazz. Though he finished with a robust 24 points and 12 rebounds, Gooden makes a number of plays each game uncustomary of a player capable of such gaudy stat lines. The obvious fouls when he’s beat on defense. A three-point attempt. Desparate attempts to draw fouls 22-feet from the hoop that end in him airballing a shot. These are all typical Gooden moves that detract from his solid rebounding and scoring abilities.

He’ll likely get the nod at center again after an uneven first three games of the season. This season we’ve seen Gooden play poorly, get suspended, not play at all and post a very good stat line. Expectations for Gooden can’t be too high or too low coming into this evening. If the world were perfect, he’d seize this opportunity and turn in a more even performance with fewer mental mistakes, even if that led to fewer points.

When Bogut returns, a more confident, comfortable Gooden would be a nice asset to pair with him in the front court. Talent wise, that’s Milwaukee’s best best right now. But the luck it may require to have both of them functioning fully hasn’t hung around the Milwaukee Bucks organization much the past season and a half.

Watch This Guy Not Other Guys

• Marcus Thornton

Thornton, the recipient of a a four-year deal worth approximately $31-33 million over the past off-season, has been the Kings most consistent offensive player early on this season, only once failing to score at least 14 points and hitting a three in every game. After coming over in February from the Hornets last season, Thornton bumped his points per game average by better than 13 points and has kept pace this season. He doesn’t get to the line or pass a ton, but he can get points.

In this game, that might make him unique.

The Rest

The Kings shot 32.6% against the Nuggets yesterday and are playing their third game in three nights. John Salmons is some how worse than he was last season, but he still hasn’t been as bad as Stephen Jackson. It seems like it should be only a matter of time before that sentence isn’t true any more. DeMarcus Cousins may have earned back his starting spot after a big effort (9-12 FG, 26 points in 24 minutes) in defeat in limited minutes off the bench.

Joining Bogut on the injury list tonight will be Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Mike Dunleavy Jr. and possibly Beno Udrih (h/t Jim Paschke).

Check out TrueHoop Network Sacramento Kings blog Cowbell Kingdom for more, including a 3-on-3 with yours truly later today.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. Follow him on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

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Milwaukee Bucks	Team	Charlotte Bobcats
Scott Skiles	Coach	Paul Silas
29-43	Record	30-42
Ersan Ilyasova and Chris Douglas-Roberts	Injuries/Inactive	DeSegana Diop, Tyrus Thomas and Joel Przybilla
101.3	Offensive Efficiency	102.8
102.6	Defensive Efficiency	107.2
Date	March 28, 2011
Time	6:00 PM (CST)

• Last season’s Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans will miss his 19 consecutive game when the Kings take the court Wednesday night.  A Kings team that hasn’t been very good WITH Evans this season is even worse without him, having won just four of the 21 games Evans has missed this season.

• Sacramento is coming off an emotional home win Monday against the Los Angeles Clippers.  Kings fans united under the “Here We Stay” mantra, as they attempt to convince ownership not to pursue other options for the future of the team.  Once the league’s very loudest building, Arco Arena was sold out and rocking as the Kings fed off the fans and downed the visiting Clippers.  At the least, it seems unlikely Kings players will be able to capture that energy and bring it on the road to Milwaukee.  Sacramento is just 8-25 on the road this season.

• A bright spot for the team of late has been the play of recently acquired guard Marcus Thornton. In 14 games with Sacramento, Thornton has averaged 21.4 points per game while tallying a healthy 20.8 PER.  While it’s easy to write off his accomplishments as the ball hogging of a second year player on a sinking ship, it seems like Thornton’s scoring spree is a little more meaningful than that.  He proved in his rookie season with the Hornets that he was a capable bench scorer, not a role most rookies fit so naturally.  It’s tough to project that Thornton will be a 20-point scorer consistently in the NBA, but at the very least, he’s solidifying himself as a very good scorer off the bench.

• DeMarcus Cousins did not start in Monday’s win and was ejected in the game previous.  No word on whether he’ll start Wednesday night, but he’s certainly a player Milwaukee will have to watch.  He has the talent, and temperament, to impact every game one way or the other.

• In three of Carlos Delfino’s last seven games he’s made just two of 17 shots.  In the other five he’s connected on 28 of 45.  Which Delfino will show up against the Kings?  Thanks to Sacramento’s shaky defense, probably the second one.  And if things are going well for the Bucks, they may not even need another 40 minutes of that Carlos like they did in the past two.

Prediction: Bucks 106 – Kings 86

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

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• The Bucks aren’t great if they aren’t at full strength.

Sans Carlos Delfino against the Clippers, the Bucks couldn’t shoot the Clippers out of a zone on Wednesday night.  Charlie Bell is still ill-equipped to be a starter on a playoff caliber team and Jerry Stackhouse has shown some chinks in his armor.  When Coach Skiles sat Andrew Bogut for the majority of the second quarter on Friday night, the Bucks were again a shell of themselves, letting the Kings get whatever they wanted offensively, while relying nearly solely on Brandon Jennings’ three-point shooting to provide offense.

So the Bucks aren’t perfect.

They’re still pretty good, but they’ll need to stay healthy the rest of the way.  They simply aren’t good enough yet to survive any major blows.

• Defense DOES take a night off

It’s hard to ever harp on the Bucks defense, but it simply wasn’t there for long stretches of the Clipper and Kings games.  The old saying went “defense doesn’t take a night off” but that’s just not true.  For the Bucks to play the high level defense they typically play, they need quite a bit of focus and intensity.  Traveling out west to play two teams a combined 40 some games under .500 isn’t the best way to get maximum focus and intensity out of a team I’d imagine.  I’m not saying it’s okay that the Bucks didn’t have their best efforts against these teams; I’m just saying I can see how it happened.  They were lucky to win the Kings game and when you look back and see that they went 1-1 in these two, it’s hard to feel too bad about them.

All year Milwaukee’s been playing their best ball when they’ve played better teams and eventually they’ll only be playing the good ones.  I can live with that.

• Brandon Jennings is still an enigma

Eight threes against the Kings?  When he gets hot, damn, he gets hot.  Jennings showed once again that he can carry this team for stretches.  Obviously having Jennings carrying the scoring load is not the ideal situation, but his explosiveness is going to be important to keep teams off guard once the playoffs arrive.  At the very least, Jennings has shot much better over his last five games than he did over his previous 25.  This could be a sign that he’s figuring out his offense or maybe taking better shots.  Or it could just mean that he’s gotten hot again.  At this point, I’m not going to rack my brain too hard to figure out the offensive patterns of Brandon Jennings in his rookie year.  I’ll just hope he keeps hitting when he’s hot and passing when he’s not.

• Zones are still a problem

The Toronto Raptors first confounded the Bucks with the zone defense in late January and it’s been awhile since we’ve seen it bother the Bucks again.  But the Bucks had nothing for the Clippers zone on Wednesday and occasionally struggled when the Kings went to it on Friday.  Zones make it very difficult for the Bucks to get the ball inside to Bogut, which in turn makes it difficult for them to free up shooters for good looks.  I assumed the Bucks added firepower in the last couple months made them less susceptible to the problems zones create, but apparently they can still be had.  This could be something that comes back at them come playoff time.

• Ersan Ilyasova is important

While the rest of the Bucks bench has been struggling, Ersan had a big game on Friday.  Gritty players don’t take many days off and Ersan is no different.  He’s been getting inside and keeping balls alive all year and he was huge on Friday night.  The shocker of the night Friday was Ilyasova’s heave with six seconds left to tie the game in regulation.  Ilyasova hasn’t exactly been clutch in his two years in the league.  In fact, when I looked at his face after making it, I could have sworn he was emotionless, not because there was still work to be done, but because he couldn’t believe he made a last second shot.

But as games get more and more physical down the stretch, the Bucks may need more and more out of Ilyasova at the power forward spot.  Luc Richard Mbah a Moute just isn’t always a great matchup for opposing fours.

I Wonder

• Have the close games helped the Bucks and who gets it down the stretch?

The Bucks have played more games decided by three points than any team in the league and fared poorly at the start of the year in these contests.  But lately, they’ve turned things around.  Many Bucks, specifically Brandon Jennings, will say that the lessons they learned earlier in the year have helped them now, but I’m not certain I buy that.  Is it any coincidence that the Bucks started winning more close games once they became more talented?

The Bucks biggest flaw all year in close games has been the lack of a go to scorer down the stretch and that was evident again Friday night.  John Salmons does his best to fill this role, but no one is confusing him with a top-tier player.  Is there any question that the Bucks would have lost Friday if Tyreke Evans were taking the Kings last layup in regulation instead of Beno Udrih?

All year I’ve been wondering if Jennings would be able to be the Bucks guy down the stretch in close games and I’m still left to wonder.  His shaky mid range jumper doesn’t inspire confidence, but his overall improved accuracy of late gives me hope.  Come playoff time, someone is going to have to step up.

For now, it’s one thing that has me wondering what will be.

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