The line has been drawn in the sand.

In the Eastern Conference, there’s really good teams (Boston, Miami and Chicago), good teams (Atlanta, Orlando) first round playoff exit teams (New York, Philadelphia, Indiana, Charlotte, Milwaukee and Detroit) and then the really bad teams (New Jersey, Toronto, Washington and Cleveland).

With only four really bad teams, that means three of the first round playoff exit teams won’t even make the playoffs this year.  Detroit is a likely candidate for the outside looking in and right now, Milwaukee’s out too.  But the Bucks still have a chance at a playoff spot and it’s a better chance than the one they have at really good draft pick.  That bottom half of the East?  None of those teams are going anywhere.

During Milwaukee’s 92-74 thrashing of the Raptors Tuesday night, it seemed clear throughout that the Raptors wouldn’t be catching the Bucks in the standings this season.  Neither will the Nets or Wizards.  And the Cavs may never win again, so rule them out too.  If Milwaukee isn’t going to sink below any of these teams (and they won’t fall below the Kings or Wolves in the West either), the best they can do is have the seventh best shot when the lottery is done in May.  Those aren’t good odds.

Odds are another middling draft pick, and if that’s the case, the Bucks may as well try and get back on the playoff track.

They certainly defended like a team that wanted to do that Tuesday night.  Milwaukee limited a very good Raptors offense to 36% shooting from the field, after having allowed four consecutive opponents to shoot better than 50%.  Milwaukee’s defensive reputation won’t be re-built in one game against one of the league’s worst teams, but if Milwaukee can string together a few performances like this, they could have something again.

Offense

Reinserted into the starting lineup before the game, John Salmons had his best game since returning from a hip injury.  One of Salmons’ biggest issues this season has been getting shots to fall; he had a few of his hanging shots in the paint that finally went down for him on Tuesday.  These aren’t simple shots we’re talking about, and their difficulty seems amplified by Salmons’ waning athleticism and the toll taken on it by injuries this season.  Tuesday he was able to get a couple to go down.  He finished seven of 18 from the field, one of three from three-point range and scored 18 points.

• Another strong numbers game from Corey Maggette, 16 points and nine rebounds.  This is all I have to say about that.

• Brandon Jennings attacked slightly more than usual against the Raptors, but was also the beneficiary of some gift layups from their defense.  Jennings did a nice job of cutting to get himself open around the rim for two easy lay-ins, but regardless of how much he cuts, he won’t often get those looks against most teams.  Even when the Raptors weren’t giving him layups, he got into the paint for a couple good looks.  His jumper is still missing in action though.  He was five of seven at the rim and made one floater in the paint, but missed all six of his jump shots.

Defense

Before the game, Coach Skiles spoke about the importance of holding opponents to under 43% shooting.  He said when the Bucks do that, even with the worst shooting offense in the league, they are 10-8.  Make it 11-8 now.  Without question this is a team built on defense and they showed that Tuesday.  Jennings was applying full court pressure early and often on Raptors point guard Jose Calderon and forced him into a few turnovers by really attacking his dribble.  Bogut was protecting the basket as well as ever against an attacking athletic group of wings, blocking five shots.  When those two are in and at their best on defense, Milwaukee looks like a different group.

• Calderon’s two for 15 outing and Andrea Bargnani’s nine for 21 effort left the Raptors with quite an obstacle to get around.  Two of their better offensive players shooting so poorly left them without much else.  Calderon seemed to just be having an off night with his shot, but Bargnani took a litany of terrible, weak shots.  Ersan Ilyasova and Luc Mbah a Moute split the duty on the Raptors center.  When Bargnani had Mbah a Moute on him, he would often take him to the post, only to realize he wasn’t strong enough to back down the Bucks forward.  He settled a number of times for turnaround jumpers or fadeaways that had little chance.

Final Thoughts

It wasn’t a complete and dominant effort out of Milwaukee, but they suffocated the Raptors so thoroughly defensively that they didn’t need their best stuff across the board.  Milwaukee won’t beat many teams that way, not this season.  But this could have been a step in the right direction.  Milwaukee has another one of the Fumbling Four of the East Wednesday night in Washington, another chance to tighten up their game.

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

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Enemy: Raptors Republic

Point Guard
Brandon Jennings vs. Jose Calderon

Jennings is searching for anything positive right now, while Calderon is possibly being showcased to entice bidders looking for a point guard.  Quite a match-up in Milwaukee Tuesday night.  You have to think eventually Jennings will regain his form and toss a bunch of points up on the board, right?  The Raptors, with their friendly defense, seem like a good team for Jennings to recapture his mojo against.

Advantage: Bucks

Shooting Guard
Carlos Delfino vs. DeMar Derozan

After a rough first month of the season, Derozan has begun to come into his own a bit in Toronto.  Six times in January Derozan scored better than 25 points and for the month he averaged 18.5.  His athletic gifts are on par with the league’s best athletes and he’s learning how to put them to good use.  He’s still not much of a complete player; his rebound rate has dipped this season and is far lower than it should be for a player with his leaping ability and his assist rate isn’t very good, though it’s improving.  He is certainly a player on the rise though, something that can’t be said about many Bucks.

Advantage: Raptors

Small Forward
Corey Maggette vs. Sonny Weems

Weems has struggled with injuries a bit this year, which may be the cause for the dip in his field goal percentage.  He seemed on the verge of becoming a reliable scoring option off the bench last season, making better than 50% of his shots, but this year he’s fallen to 44% shooting and hasn’t made up for that elsewhere.  As a scorer, Weems has some skill.  But that skill isn’t strong enough to stand alone.  If Weems wants to last more than a few more years, he’ll have to patch up the various holes in his game.  Athletically he could be a shut-down wing defender, but that would require a pretty dramatic shift.  It seems unlikely that will happen.

Advantage: Bucks

Power Forward
Ersan Ilyasova vs. Amir Johnson

Johnson has slowly, slowly, very slowly, learned how to limit his fouls a bit so he can stay on the court long enough for his impact to be felt.  He’s down to 5.1 fouls per 36 minutes, improvement for a guy who once averaged 6.8 per 36.  He’s scoring a career high 10.4 points per game on a solid 59.6% shooting.  Johnson plays to his strengths and doesn’t often try and do too much.  Ilyasova had a very good shooting January, and while his accuracy has eluded him in two of his past three games, he’s been consistent as a rebounder.  Against a glass cleaner like Johnson, Ilyasova will need to contribute on both ends.

Advantage: Bucks

Center
Andrew Bogut vs. Andrea Bargnani

Bogut’s still dealing with a sore knee, elbow, body – insert whatever part you’d like and it probably hurts on Bogut – but he had a very strong first half against Detroit.  Shots didn’t come as frequent or with the same success for him in the second half though.  Against a power forward playing center like Bargnani, Bogut should always been a featured option throughout the game for the Bucks.  Bargnani had 30 points against the Wolves in Toronto’s last game, but that total came on 26 shots.  The masses seem to be losing patience with “El Mago” thanks to his defensive deficiencies and pathetic rebounding numbers.

Advantage: Bucks

Bench
Luc Mbah a Moute, Keyon Dooling, John Salmons, Larry Sanders and Chris Douglas-Roberts

vs.

Julian Wright, Ed Davis, Trey Johnson and Alexis Ajinca

Milwaukee’s rotation was shortented dramatically in the loss to the Pistons Saturday.  Sanders, CD-R and Earl Boykins only entered mid-fourth quarter after the starters showed virtually nothing for an entire game.  Whether Coach Skiles will attempt to keep it short again remains to be seen.  Much like the starting unit, the Raptors bench has some serious athleticism, but not much else.  Johnson, a D-League call-up, could be a spark.

Advantage: Bucks

Prediction: Bucks 108 – Raptors 102

I told the guys at Raptors Republic the Bucks would win, so I’ll stand by it here.

But I’m not super confident.  Toronto tossed a big monkey off of its back when it beat Minnesota to snap a 13-game losing streak four days ago.  The team bonded over bowling in Milwaukee last night and could be feeling loose enough to get out and run effectively on the Bucks.  If Toronto is able to do that, they could steal one in Milwaukee against a reeling Bucks team.

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

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I know the Bucks have been inconsistent this year, hell, I write about it every game.  So glancing at a box score and seeing some shaky performances doesn’t really faze me anymore.  But they took inconsistency to a whole new level in Friday night’s loss to the Raptors.

(Photo by Ron Turenne/NBAE via Getty Images) The Bucks were far more interested in getting it outside of the paint in the second half Friday night.

After playing what I thought was their best half of basketball all year long in the first half, the Bucks went away from everything that had been working for them and resorted to chucking up three-point shot after three-point shot against the Raptors zone defense.  The more they chucked, the better Toronto felt, because Milwaukee ended up 5-26 from downtown, including a 3-15 performance in the second half.  And, as has been the case often times this year, once the Bucks offense gave out their defense soon followed suit.

Quickly, the Bucks double digit lead became a single digit lead and then it was a one possession game and then the Bucks were trailing.  It was a slow and painful deterioration, but that’s only because Luke Ridnour wouldn’t let the Bucks bungle their terrific first half any sooner than they did.  Remember those three threes I said the Bucks connected on in the second half — all Ridnour, all in the fourth quarter.  The Bucks scored 23 fourth quarter points, 18 of which were Ridnour’s.  So, when looking back on why the Bucks were unable to translate some of their best ball of the season into a W, we can safely agree that we needn’t look in Ridnour’s direction.

Offense

I’ve covered Ridnour: he was awesome.  In the second half, he was all there was as the Bucks had little other offense to speak of, but like I said before, half one was a different story.  Half one was the story of Andrew Bogut.

• With Andrea Bargnani out, the Bucks pounded it inside to Bogut from the get-go.  Actually, I don’t think it would have mattered whether or not Bargnani was in or out, he didn’t really have anything for Bogut on Wednesday night either.  It was clear the game plan centered on getting the ball to the center for Milwaukee early Friday evening.  Bogut finished the first half with 17 points on 6-8 shooting.  Unfortunately, Bogut scored just five points on 2-5 shooting in the second stanza.  I can’t even explain in words how bad the Raptor zone made Milwaukee’s offense look, so I encourage you to take what you will from knowing that after Bogut completely dominated half one the Bucks would go on to get him just five shots in the second half.

• In the first half, Bradon Jennings took six shots, on two of them he was successful and on two others the Bucks were able to grab the offensive rebound and get a basket.  He was attacking the rim just as I had hoped he would and even found Bogut off a pick and roll with a sweet alley-oop.  In the second half, he was getting good looking midrange shots, but he’s just not very good at those.  He wasn’t getting to the basket as much, thanks in large part to the uber-effective Raptor zone.  If I’m not mistaken, I remember him getting to the basket just one time and he was fouled getting two free-throws. 

Defense

With 5:47 left in the fourth quarter, the Bucks were up 82-77 and still had a great shot at winning this one if they could figure out the Raptors zone or at least hold them off defensively.  Well they didn’t figure out the zone and they sure didn’t hold on defense as the Raptors went on to score all of the rest of their points on dunks, layups and free-throws.  The Raptors would score 10 of their next 24 on layups and dunks while the other 14 came from the free-throw line.  Simply put, that won’t get it done.

• Bogut once again was able to block three shots, he’s done that at minimum in his last five games and is now averaging 2.14 blocks per game on the season.

• Jarrett Jack finished 7-9 from the field and 11-12 from the line for 27 points, nearly all of them coming by pounding it by Jennings and getting to the rim.  One way or another, Jennings has got to find a way to cut off penetration, especially if he’s not getting any himself.

Final Thoughts

Considering how the Bucks have played on the road this year, I didn’t expect a win coming in, but when it’s so close you can feel it, it hurts.  It was like someone flipped the road switch or reminded the Bucks they aren’t at home at halftime.  Actually it was just that zone that did the Bucks in.  I’m still a little in shock about just how poorly they played when faced with a zone defense, considering these are NBA players.  They’ve all seen zone one time or another in their lives, but they weren’t able to get anything into the high post or even look inside more than once or twice.  They attempted to shoot the Raptors out of it and that blew up in their face.  Whether or not they’ll learn from their mistakes may be important, because the more Andrew Bogut plays well, the more likely it is other teams will resort to this tactic to slow the Bucks.

Hopefully next time the result will differ.

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If we can be certain about anything regarding an inconsistent Bucks team through 39 games, it’s that they’ll be putting on a good show at home.

In their first home game in 12 days, the Bucks withstood a career night (44 points) from one of the most discussed players in the league these days, Chris Bosh and for once got the right bounces in the end of a 113-107 home victory Wednesday night.

Sometimes in these few possession games, that’s what it’s all about, a bounce here and a bounce there.  Sure, it’s awfully important for a team to keep it close the rest of the game to give themselves a chance at the end, but once two teams get down to business in the last few minutes, it’s often a flip of a coin that decides who pulls it out and who doesn’t.  To this date, the Bucks haven’t been on the lucky side of the coin very often this year as evidenced by their 3-9 record in games decided by three points or less.

But a pair of offensive rebounds by Ersan Ilyasova, one coming on a one handed snag of a ball seemingly heading out of bounds, and a ball ricocheting off the Raptors out of bounds that eventually led to a Milwaukee basket finally allowed the Bucks to pull this type of game out.  Oh, and the 6-7 performance at the line in the last five minutes didn’t hurt either.

Offense

Much in the same way the Bucks didn’t have much for Chris Bosh on Wednesday, the Raptors couldn’t handle Andrew Bogut. Bogut attacked the undersized front line of the Raptors all night and everyone was eager to get him the ball from the get-go.  Bogut finished 6-6 at the rim and 5-8 inside ten feet.  For those of you who hate math, that equals out to 11-14 (78.5 percent) on all shots inside of ten feet, which is very good.

(Photo by Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images) Have I really heard recently that Bargnani might be better than Bogut?

When Bogut has his touch so zeroed in on the hoop, it bodes well for the Bucks when they are feeding him the ball and encouraging him to be aggressive.  And when the other team doesn’t double team or comes late with it?  That’s like open season for Bogut.  He finished with 27 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks, or what I call a terrific night.

• Brandon Jennings could have used some of Bogut’s touch on Wednesday.  Jennings finished 5-21 and was only 3-7 at the rim.  On the plus side, he led the team in shots at the rim and did have a pair of nice layups in the third quarter as the Bucks were making a charge.

It hurts to look up and see Jennings with such a brutal shooting line, but if we look further into it, it isn’t quite as bad.  On two of Jennings missed layups, the Bucks were able to get tip shots at the rim after the defense collapsed on him, so while they are misses, they created shots for other players.  That’s why it’s so important for Jennings to attack the rim, even if he misses it can have a positive result and it did on half of his missed layups Wednesday.

• In a moderately anticipated debut, Jerry Stackhouse looked better than I expected.  What stands out about his three point, five rebound and four assist effort was specifically the way he got those rebounds and how it reflected his play.  Stackhouse finished with four offensive rebounds, an amount that’s borderline lucky for a guard, but it didn’t appear to be luck in the way he got them.  Sure, anyone can hang around the perimeter and jump for a long rebound caroming his way, but that’s not what Stack did.

He worked his way inside while shots were in the air and grabbed three of his rebounds directly under the rim.  That’s all effort and strength, two things the Bucks need from their shooting guards (they’ve got the effort, just not the strength).  Stackhouse played a very unselfish game and seemed to be looking to set guys up without going out of his game to do it.  Everything he did looked natural.  His thoughts:

I think with the players we got I’m not going to have to force the issue.  If I can command attention just from having the ball I’m going to try and do what I did tonight and get the ball to the other guys.  I feel good, I got the ice bags going, hopefully that’ll combat any ills I got.

• And for a third consecutive game, the Bucks got a stellar performance from Carlos Delfino. As a matter of fact, over his last five games, Delfino has hit 14 of 28 of the threes he’s attempted and averaged 15 points a night.  He worked his way into the starting line-up Wednesday and suffered no drop off, which had to please coach Skiles, a man who’s been looking for any sort of consistency from his wings this year.  Skiles take on Delfino’s play:

He seems to be back more like he was in exhibition when he was knocking down perimeter shots.  Every game we have a free-throw deficit and one of the only ways we can make up for that is by making threes.

Defense

Bosh was a difficult guard for Bogut; he’s awfully quick and when he’s hitting some mid-range shots it’s hard for Bogut to stick with him.  But, while Bosh may have gotten his, but the Bucks did a terrific job in limiting opportunities for everyone else once it was clear Bosh was on fire.  The rest of the Raptors shot just 23 for 59 or roughly 39 percent.

• Luke Ridnour specifically made a few big defensive plays in the third quarter.  The pressure on an inbound pass by Ridnour and Francisco Elson combined for a sloppy turnover by Jose Calderon that Ridnour turned into a short jumper for two.  Later, with time winding down on the third quarter, DeMar Derozan was coming at Ridnour hard and fast on the break in a three-point game.  Ridnour did what he does best and attack Derozan right before he was able to get the ball in a shooting position and ended up forcing a jump ball.

Ridnour reminds me of David Duchovny’s character on Californication: he’s kind of unassuming looking but he can flip the badass switch rather quickly and punch someone out.  Only Ridnour isn’t punching people out on the court, he’s crushing anyone who thinks they are getting an easy layup on a fast break while he’s around.

Final Thoughts

The Bucks needed this win at home if only to remember what it felt like to get a win against a healthy team.  As they travel to Toronto on Friday they can feel good about having beat the Raptors twice this year because they’ll need all of their confidence and effort if they’re going to be the Raptors on the road.  If Bogut can put together another night like this and Chris Bosh comes back down to Earth a little bit, Friday will be a prime opportunity to steal one on the road.

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Enjoy.

Milwaukee Bucks (16-23)

(Probable) Inactives: Francisco Elson and Joe Alexander

vs.

Toronto Raptors (21-21)

(Probable) Inactives: Pops Mensah-Bonsu and Reggie Evans

Dates: 1/20/2010 & 1/22/2010

Time: 7:00 (CST) & 6:00 (CST)

TV: FS Wisconsin & None (Boooo)

Match-Ups

Point Guard

Brandon Jennings vs. Jarrett Jack

Jennings is coming off a statistically aesthetically pleasing game against the Rockets.  This is no small feat, as he hasn’t done a lot of fine box score work in the past month or two.   It will be fun to see how he performs against a larger guard coming off a strong game.  Jack checks in at 6′3, 202 pounds and has taken the reigns as the starting point guard in Toronto after the team’s upswing under his guidance with Jose Calderon out for a while in the last two months.  Since the start of December, Jack has been up around 50 percent shooting and hitting nearly 40 percent of his threes.  He also provides more defense than Calderon, who has never been known as a lockdown defender at the point.

Advantage: Bucks

Shooting Guard

Charlie Bell vs. DeMar Derozan

Bell may be hearing footsteps and if he’s not now he could be soon.  When Scott Skiles was first asked about Jerry Stackhouse he said he’d be active immediately and was brought here to play.  Now, he didn’t say Stackhouse would be starting or anything like that, but given the meager production the Bucks have gotten out of their two guards and Bell’s in and out of the rotation leaps this year, who knows what will happen by next or even this weeks’ end.  When Bell is playing to his strengths (catching and shooting and not dribbling the ball) and afforded a good match-up (teams with small shooting guards or the slower type if they are sizable) he can be effective.  The problem is, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for him to flourish on both sides of the ball for lots of minutes.  DeRozan is a difficult match-up for Bell, athletic, long and attacking when he’s involved.  This could prove difficult for Bell.

Advantage: Raptors

Small Forward

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute vs. Hedo Turkoglu

Much like most of the Raptors, Turkoglu struggled mightily against the Bucks in the Raptors last venture to the Bradley Center in early December.  I like to attribute at least some of those struggles to LRMAM, who may be the perfect defensive counterpart for Turkoglu.  Mbah a Moute is as lengthy as Turkoglu and equally as quick.  If stopping Turkoglu is an important part of shutting down a potent Toronto offense, then the Bucks have an early lead on slowing them.  Tukoglu is a very good distributor and meshes well with a shoot first point guard who certainly will never be known as a world class ball distributor.

Power Forward

Ersan Ilyasova vs. Chris Bosh

There certainly is some mystery to Ilyasova’s nine minute performance on Monday.  He didn’t play bad or good, he was just there and I guess that’s not enough to earn playing time these days, especially with Hakim Warrick’s recent resurgence.  Whether Ilyasova or Bogut defend Bosh will probably dictate how he operates, he’ll likely head inside more on Ilyasova than he would on the stronger and larger Bogut.  Bosh has a terrific mid-range game and is having a career year in terms of scoring and rebounding.  He’s also getting to the line nine times a game and hitting 78 percent of them and, if you haven’t heard, the Bucks have a problem with allowing that sort of thing.

Advantage: Raptors

Center

Andrew Bogut vs. Andrea Bargnani

Bogut may have an issue chasing Bargnani around the three-point line, but he should be able to muscle up the Italian for some easy buckets inside.  I guess this is going to be an interesting battle between flawed number one picks not capable of carrying teams by themselves.  The difference between these two is one is proficient offensively with consistency and the other gets it done on the glass and defense every night. Personally, I’ll take the Bucks end.

Advantage: Bucks

Bench

Hakim Warrick, Luke Ridnour, Carlos Delfino, Kurt Thomas and introducing … JERRY STACKHOUSE

vs.

Jose Calderon, Amir Johnson, Marco Belinelli and Antoine Wright

The Bucks powerful bench is among the highest scoring units in the league thanks largely to Warrick and Ridnour.  Whether or not Stackhouse can shore up the wing deficiencies they’ve had sans Mike Redd. Calderon is as good of a shooter as any player in the league and could probably still be starting in the league for a good team so long as it was the right one.  Johnson isn’t blocking as many shots as he used to, but he’s still fouling at an insane pace.  Neither Belinelli or Wright can get their shooting percentages over 40, which actually makes them perfect candidates for a job with the Bucks any day now.

Advantage: Bucks

Prediction(s): Bucks 107 – Raptors 105 & Raptors 111 – Bucks 98

No team needs a home game like the Bucks right now, given the pains they had on their marathon trip out West.  That alone should be enough to get them a W against a fairly average Raptors squad, right?  Given the inconsistencies the Bucks have endured for the large part of this season though, I wouldn’t take that for granted.

The road may yet again prove to be a different story though.  The Raptors traditionally have a very supportive home crowd and their typically solid home win totals reflect that.  13-6 at home this year and 8-15 on the road tells the tale of this year’s Raptors.

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