(Probable) Inactives: Matt Bonner, Michael Finley and Marcus Haislip

at

Milwaukee Bucks (Scott Skiles) 12-15

(Probable) Inactives: Joe Alexander, Dan Gadzuric and Roko Ukic

Date: 12/26/2009

Time: 7:30 (CST)

TV: FS Wisconsin

Match-Ups

Point Guard

Brandon Jennings vs. Tony Parker

Parker has made a career out of blowing by defenders and finishing at the rim or in the paint.  Jennings has shown the ability to do the first part of that, but hasn’t quite mastered the second half.  Jennings is finishing on only 46 percent of his shots at the rim, whereas Parker has consistently finished between 64 and 65 percent of his over the past four years.  But it wasn’t always so easy for Parker.  He never approached 50 percent on overall shooting until his fourth season and, while I don’t have the numbers, it’s unlikely he was as successful at the rim early in his career either.  The NBA paint is a tough place for smaller players, especially younger ones.  But with development and smarts they can evolve, as Parker has.

Advantage: Spurs

Shooting Guard

Michael Redd vs. Keith Bogans

So we’ve seen flashes of the scorer Michael Redd, first in the Laker game and most recently against Washington.  Now the question is, can he do that on a night where either Jennings or Bogut have it going?  Getting points has never been an issue for the healthy version of Michael Redd, but killing the rest of the offense at the expense of his scoring has been.  Bogans continues to play defense and shoot at a decent enough level to make himself relevant.

Advantage: Bucks

Small Forward

Carlos Delfino vs. Richard Jefferson

Jefferson’s role with San Antonio couldn’t be any different from any role he’s ever had before.  He’s much more of a spot-up shooter these days and isn’t given the same leeway with regard to driving he was last season with Milwaukee.  Any time a player has to make such a shift in his game it’s going to take some time for him to get acclimated.  I’m sure San Antonio has little to no interest in Jefferson’s regular season numbers, he’s there to help them in the playoffs.  This season is about getting used to playing with Parker/Duncan/Ginobili as much as it’s about winning games.  San Antonio knows where they’ll be come April and May, it’s simply about preparing before then.

Advantage: Spurs

Power Forward

Ersan Ilyasova vs. Antonio McDyess

Ersan needed a day off as much as anyone when Christmas arrived.  In his last two, Ersan shot 2-17 and collected a mere eight rebounds.  Not his typical self for sure.  The Bucks will need his shooting to come around against the powerful front court San Antonio features.  McDyess has some Kurt Thomas in him: he’ll hit the open shots he’s given, he plays defense and acts like a veteran.  The perfect compliment to Tim Duncan.

Advantage: Bucks

Center

Andrew Bogut vs. Tim Duncan

Bogut missed the first meeting between these teams and Duncan capitalized to the tune of 24-12.  Of all the players I’d love for Bogut to emulate, Duncan would be number one on the list.  Duncan doesn’t get the easy dunks that a Dwight Howard might anymore, but still gets his with a wonderful array of moves and shoots better than 40 percent from anywhere inside 23 feet.  That’s absurd.  Bogut would have no business even attempting some of the 15 foot shots Duncan hits at a 50 percent clip.  At the point they’re two finesse big men, only one can extend his range out and the other can’t.  That has a lot to do with Bogut’s inability to get going some nights and general lack of scoring prowess.  He really has a fairly limited repertoire on most nights and leaves himself easy to defend.  That’s something that never could be said about Tim Duncan.

Advantage: Spurs

Bench

Charlie Bell, Luke Ridnour, Hakim Warrick, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Kurt Thomas

vs.

Dejuan Blair, Manu Ginobili, George Hill and Roger Mason

No Matt Bonner!!  He’s out with a broken hand, possibly from punching Bucks fans in the stomach after hitting six three’s in the last meeting between these teams.  That doesn’t make the Spurs bench much less dangerous though.  We all know what Ginobili can do and the Mason/Hill tandem is dangerous defensively and offensively on the perimeter.  Whether Blair or McDyess starts is irrelevant, because Blair will probably get the lion’s share of the minutes and rebounds.  Blair protects rebounds like a female bear protecting her cubs.  He’s that strong too.

Advantage: Spurs

Prediction: Spurs 98 – Bucks 96

The Bucks traditionally have had a bizarre amount of success against San Antonio, but that’s not all that important.  What is important, is that the Bucks seem to lose every home game against good teams by a small margin.  I’m not blind to this trend and wholeheartedly expect the Bucks to stick around and play this one tough … only to falter in the end in some heartbreaking fashion.  But that sure beats getting worked by the Wizards, right?

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A lot of negative things can be taken out of this one.

Virtually every weakness the Andrew Bogut-less Bucks have was exposed in their 112-98 loss to the San Antonio Spurs Monday night.  Without Bogut, the Bucks had few answers for Tim Duncan inside and had to resort to double teams on him more often than not.  In turn, the Spurs were able to work the ball around, find the open man and hit open three after open three.  Sans Bogut, the Bucks struggled to keep the Spurs off the boards.   Coming into this one, the Bucks were out-rebounding the Spurs 45.8-42.8.  Sure, Bogut was gone, but the Bucks have still looked sharp on the boards even without the center.  The Spurs absolutely crushed the Bucks on the boards (more on this later).

The Bucks certainly haven’t seen a team like the Spurs.

The Bucks have faced a pillow soft schedule thus far, fattening up on the dregs of the NBA.  Bobcats, Grizzlies, Nets and Knicks are all no Spurs.  They offer little in the ways of crisp ball movement.  None of the teams the Bucks have been able to knock off has had a go-to guy like Tim Duncan.  So a logical question to be raised after this particularly brutal defeat is, are the Bucks close to being as good as their record indicates?

Well, probably not.  But I don’t think they’re as bad as this game would indicate either.  They fall somewhere in the middle.  It’s easy to panic now that they’ve lost a game on the road to a good team.  It’s easy to look back and say the first 11 games were a mirage and the Bucks are as bad as everyone thought coming into the year.  And it’s even easier to say Michael Redd is killing the Bucks and needs to be shipped out on the next flight out of Milwaukee.  But those are all very reactionary responses.  We knew this road trip would be difficult with Bogut and even moreso without him.  Realistically, the Bucks ending this trip 1-3 is no disaster.  2-2 is terrific and 3-1 would be special.  I just urge Bucks fans (and Brandon Jennings fans who’ve begun watching the Bucks) to remain calm and recognize this is only one game and the Bucks can learn from it.  Not every team has Tim Duncan.

Offense

• Jennings is going to have games like this, like it or not.  Everyone has bad games, rookies, veterans, all-stars and role players alike.  No one is immune to a night where shots aren’t falling.  And that’s what tonight was for Brandon, a 12 point, seven assist, five turnover, 6-21 effort.  When a guy like Brandon has an off night like this one, it’s interesting to take a look at why he struggled.  Was he shooting bad shots and forcing the action?  Not really.  He was 1-8 inside the paint.  Coming into this one he was a 58 percent shooter on shots inside ten feet and while that may be a little high of a number to carry on, he’s certainly not going to go 1-8 in the paint on most night.  Very little that he did looked forced, a positive sign.

• I can already hear the cries for Michael Redd’s head.  In his 11 minutes Monday he was able to very effectively do one of the things the Bucks have been struggling with this year, get to the free throw line.  The problem though was his accuracy once he got there.  1-6 on the evening, a very atypical result for a career 84 percent free throw shooter.  This may have just been a case of him needing to knock the rust off and get his legs back under him, I didn’t even anticipate he’d be ready until Wednesday.  I encourage everyone to give Redd some more time before you jump on the “trade Redd for expiring contracts” bandwagon.

• When the Bucks were hanging around in this one, it was largely because of Ersan Ilyasova. 8-13 for 20 points with four steals to boot.  He grabbed a sub-par four rebounds on the evening, but it seemed like whenever he had position a long rebound went sailing over his head.  Ersan’s strung together a few nice scoring games together now and is looking like he’s grabbing a more permanent hold on that starting power forward position with each game.

Defense

• Sometimes pictures illustrate points so much better than words can do.  So with that in mind, I give you the third quarter:

• Some of them pile up on each other, but that’s 11 shots made inside the paint for the Spurs in the third quarter alone.  It’s easy to see why the Spurs turned a 50-49 deficit into a 86-74 lead entering the fourth quarter.  The Bucks had nothing for Duncan most of the game, but especially had trouble with him in the third when he had 15 points.

• The final rebounding numbers? 46-29 in the Spurs favor.  That’s even more gruesome than the 26-14 edge the Spurs had on free throw attempts and the 48-40 edge the Spurs had on points in the paint.  All of these numbers indicate largely the same thing: the Bucks had no answer for the Spurs muscle and aggressiveness inside.

• And when the Spurs weren’t getting to the line or scoring in the paint?  10-21 on three’s, led by Matt Bonner (that guy?) and his 6-8 effort from behind the arc off the bench.  Time and time again the Spurs found him wide open on the perimeter after a double team and good ball swings.  The Spurs put on a ball movement clinic and brutalized the Bucks when they attempted a zone to cut off the Spurs work inside.

This was the Bucks low point defensively this year.  Without Bogut it takes a heck of an effort all the way around for the Bucks to compete with teams that can score inside and they didn’t have that tonight.  Too often the Spurs were able to find open shooters after poor or lazy rotations by the Bucks.  It usually wasn’t the first pass, but that doesn’t completely excuse the Bucks.

I know this one was bad, but again, I urge patience.  Let’s see if the Bucks are able to compose themselves and either pull one of the next two out or at the very least drop in a couple respectable performances.  I don’t necessarily have problems with losses at this stage in the season, but 10-20 point losses aren’t a good sign.  A tip shot here or a tip shot there can decide a close game, but the Bucks were pretty thoroughly out-played for large portions of this one.  They’ll have to right the ship by Wednesday night defensively, or they could be in for another long one.

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(Likely) Inactives: Michael Redd, Joe Alexander and Andrew Bogut

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San Antonio Spurs (Gregg Popovich) 5-6

(Likely) Inactives: Manu Ginobili

Game time: 7:30 (CST)

TV: FS Wisconsin

Match-ups

Point Guard

Brandon Jennings vs. Tony Parker

Parker returned on Saturday after missing two games with a left ankle sprain.  Tony Parker on a sprained left ankle is more dangerous than most guards on two healthy ones, so it’s not like he’ll be an easy guard just because he’s had some injuries this year.  His numbers are down a little from a year ago when he had what was likely his best season ever.  The fact that the question can seriously be posed as to whether he’s taken the reins on this team from Tim Duncan says a lot about his talent.  Jennings has faced some talented point guards thus far, but hasn’t faced one with Parker’s scorer mentality.  He gets in the paint and scores more than most.  The back-and-forth battle between these two should be worth the price of admission, Jennings has been nearly unconscious all season long.  It’s very safe to say he’s outperformed Parker even.  In fact, this seems like the very type of game Jennings will bring just a little bit extra for.

Advantage: Bucks

Shooting Guard

Charlie Bell vs. Keith Bogans

Ahh, our old friend Keith Bogans.  Bogans is another guy brought on by the Spurs to shoot corner threes when Duncan gets doubled teamed down low.  The Bruce Bowen role if you will.  Bogans isn’t great in this role though.  He’s not as good a three point shooter as he’s often credited and is more of a guard than Bowen was.  He likes to try and do some dribbling, attempts at creation, usually without success.  Bogans is not a bad defender, but seems more wary of getting physical than Bowen did.  He’s also not dirty.  Anyway, Bogans is not the great role player Bowen once was, but is serviceable off the bench when the Spurs get healthy.  Actually, that’s a pretty good description of Charlie Bell too.

Advantage: Bucks

Small Forward

Carlos Delfino vs. Richard Jefferson

I do and I don’t get the Richard Jefferson thing.  On one hand, the Spurs got a guy who can give them 20 points a night, slash and hit threes.  Plus his deal expires in two years, giving them flexibility down the road and they gave up virtually nothing.  On the other, does he really fit in that well with this team?  Jefferson’s biggest strength is putting his head down and going to the hoop.  He doesn’t have Ginobili’s awareness and operates in the same general area (albeit in a different way) as Tim Duncan.  Is it that big of a surprise that he hasn’t played as well as usual so far?  If they tell RJ to hang out in the corner and hit open threes when Duncan’s in, doesn’t that belittle his value?  He can probably be more effective with Duncan out of the game.

Advantage: Spurs

Power Forward

Ersan Ilyasova vs. Tim Duncan

Happy as we’ve all been with Ilyasova’s rebounding, he still doesn’t measure up to Tim Duncan.  In an off year.  Ilyasova’s advantages over Duncan and the other Spurs he’ll be matched-up with are going to be his unresting hands in their faces and his three-point shooting.  Much like Jennings, Ersan continues to out-perform whatever expectations I have for him, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see him have a big game Monday night, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see him struggle against a very smart Spurs team.

Advantage: Spurs

Center

Kuran Gadzuromas vs. Antonio McDyess

I’d almost expect Kurt Thomas to get the start in this one after how well he played on Saturday.  Thomas and Gadzuric seem likely to exchange starting roles based on who the Bucks are playing in Andrew Bogut’s absence.  Thomas knows the Spurs well, having spent the last year and a half in San Antonio.  I’d go as far as to suspect he’ll be spending the majority of the evening as the Bucks primary defender on Tim Duncan.  His veteran know-how and strong base are a better fit on Duncan than Ilyasova’s annoyance.

Advantage: Spurs

Bench

Luke Ridnour, Jodie Meeks, Kurt Thomas and Hakim Warrick

vs.

Dejuan Blair, Roger Mason, George Hill, Matt Bonner and Michael Finley

Bench success has been a staple in the Bucks attack this year.  Warrick, Ridnour, Meeks and Thomas have all had their moments, with Ridnour being the star so far.  They blend seemlessly with the starters and work together to perfection.  Their ball movement has been the thing that’s set them apart from the Bucks of years past.  They aren’t the most talented bunch, but they offer different things.  In fact, they sound very similar to the Spurs.  The Spurs each and every year find reliable performers to come in and give them valuable minutes.  Blair has been the exact rebounder everyone suspected he’d be.  Naturally he fell to the Spurs in the second round.  Finley, Mason and Bonner all hit threes with reliability and Hill is a terrific defender.  The Spurs and Bucks can both throw a lot of different looks at teams, but the Spurs looks are a little more intimidating.

Advantage: Spurs

Prediction: Spurs 93 – Bucks 84

The Bucks and Spurs both rank in the top ten in three-point shots attempted and three-point percentage.  Something’s going to have to give though, because they’re both top three in allowing the three-point shot.  A lot of that has to do with effort, running out on shooters and pushing them off the line.  Two teams that want to be great defensively and occasionally succeed.  And while we know the Bucks allow a lot of free throws, the Spurs aren’t any better.  Through 11 games, the Spurs have allowed 308 free throws compared to 302 for the Bucks.  Perhaps this free throws allowed thing IS a sign of good defense.  The Spurs are rarely bad company to keep on that end of the ball.

This will the the Bucks biggest test of the young season, a road game against a long time Western Conference powerhouse.  If they can pull this one out, without Bogut, without Michael Redd and possibly without Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, it will be a blow to the argument that the Bucks aren’t good and can only beat bad teams.

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