Milwaukee Bucks: Week 5 (0-4)

(sigh) Winless for the week... 7-12 for the season... Last place in the division... only better than the Wizards and Bobcats in the east.... (Sigh)

I can Hardly beleive the Bucks were not able to eek out at least 1 win. I will not beat up on my team though because, the truth is, there is a lot of upside to this Bucks team. We can not deny the impact of the injury to Michael Redd(who returned saturday against the Cavs); the adjusting to a new system under a new coach, Scott Skiles; and the 3 games Andrew Bogut has missed last week, hopefully he will return tonight against the Bulls). All this is compounded with the rather ruthless schedule thus far like: 4 game weeks all of November, playing 10 of 17 games on the road, and a 4 game road trip that ended with a back-to-back with later being a home game against the LeBrons Cavaliers. Excuses, excuses, excuses... Well the schedule will get a tad bit lighter and at least the Bucks will get to play consecutive games at home.

Mil @ Orl
Man this was a heart breaker. I was impressed with Andrew Bogut taking it to Dwight Howard scoring 16 point in the 1st half of play. I was thinking the rest of the crew would step up for the 2nd half but then Bogut went down as well as the Bucks chances for winning this game. Howard went on to pour on 20 second-half points, took over the boards and controled the paint for the duration of the game. Howard played free safety on Ramon Sessions and got to him every time he drove the paint in the second half - thus, 7 points on 3-14 shooting, but seesions did contribute 8 assist, 6 rebounds and 2 steals to circumvent his lack of scoring. We can through in that we already had not Luke Ridnour and no Michael Redd for the game too.

So we lost

Final 108-101

Mil @ ATL
Another possible win. Another attribute to the value of a 7-footer playing solid defense and rebounding the ball. No way does Al Horford go for 21 points, 9 rebounds, 3 blocks and 2 steals, if Bogut plays; But the the Hawks took advantage and fed the ball to the post heavily. Joe Johnson ran decoy all game atempting only 12 shots but dishing out 9 assist by handling the ball and drawing double teams. Mike Bibby hung around the 3 point line all game and when his defender went to help he knocked the shots down - 18 points, hitting four 3 pointers. Marvin WIlliams did the same except he was in the paint and was able to get to the free throw line 10 times and only miss once. Ronald "Flip" Murray ran around, like a chicken withhis head cut off, and put in 16 points.

Despite all that the Bucks still kept it close. Richard Jefferson dropped 25 points - but when you take 20 shots and get to the line 10 times thats kind of expected. Ramon Sessions also was a big contributor, while playing heavy minutes for a limited Ridnour, he dropped 21 points. Charlie Villanueva 19 points were well appreciated. What was not was his poor defense; I swear everytime Chuck took the bait on those double teams, which puzzles me because its not like he's going to block a shot. Dan Gadzuric earned some of the $6 mil that he's getting this year, and started for thte injured Bogut.

So the Bucks hung in there but did not have the muster to steal this on either...

Final 102-96

Mil @ Det
What a penalty for Allen Iverson not start against the Bucks for missing practice....

"We talkin' 'bout Practice... Practice!, Not a game, not a game... Not a game, but PRAC-TICE"

Anyway, it wasn't like the Pistons were going to need him much. The Bucks are Andrew Bogut-less, Michael Redd-less, and starting a gimpy Luke Ridnour. So, this game was wachable, though, because Iverson did play; Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, and Tayshaun Prince played too; Richard Jefferson shot the ball a lot, got a great dunk, and Sessions drove the lane and made some sweet layups.

AND

DAN GADZURIC earned some of that $6mil he's getting this year and dropped 10 points, grabbed 12 rebounds, swatted 3 shots and was a perfect 4-4 from the freethow line in his 32 minutes of play!

too bad the Bucks lost

Final 107-97

Mil vs Cle
Coach Skiles choose the following starting lineup...

C - Gadzuric
PF - Villanueva
SF - RJ
SG - Sessions
PG - Ridnour

Charlie Bell and Andrew Bogut were both out with injuries and Michael Redd made his return from his ankle injury. I can Imagine that Luc Richard Mbah a Moute did not start because Skile figured Redd would provide enough scoring from the bench. Thing is, Ben Wallace is going too punk Chuck V at the 4 spot (which he did) and it may have been better to bring in Chuck V against Anderson Varejao to draw some fouls and get to the line (Big Ben has never been foul prone).

The Bucks got Killed on the boards getting out rebounded 53-38. Zydrunas Ilgauskas dropped 23 points and grabbed SEVENTEEN ! (17) rebounds - another testiment to the void of having no Bogut leaves. I mean, Bogut is 6th in the league in rebounding with 10.9 per game. The Bucks never led at any point in this game. At Half time the Bucks were down by ten. Then at the end of the 3rd the got within 5 points. In the 4th they pulled within 2 point twice but anyway they lost.

Fan Story
The real sad thing about this HOME game is that they showed LeBron clips at the Bradley Center before the game started. Then when the Bucks were making a move in the forth quarter there was No cheering, No Rallying, No Chanting. IT WAS PATHETIC. It was nothing like the comeback game against the Wizards earlier this season. For that matter, its not even like what I remember from all the many many many times I went there from elementry to high school; From Terry Cummings and Alvin Robertson; to Todd Day and Eric Murdock; to Glen Robertson and Ray Allen (after that I moved from Milwaukee). I remember being there at the 2000 playoff when Reggie Miller broke out hearts and we lost game 5 at home (back when the 1st rd was only 5 game series); And next year, at game 6 of the ECF, when we pushed Allen Iverson and the 6ers to game 7.

Anyway, those teams equally sucked but we always cheered them on.

LOOKING FORWARD
Tonite we face the Bulls at Home and we need some "get back". They were able to pull one on us during te season opener but not this time. Plus they played last night and the Bucks had 3 days off - they should be able to run them out the Bradley center.The only other game this week is against the Bobcats Friday. The Bucks need these 2 badly becasue Sunday they start a 3 game West Coast Road Trip Starting with the Lakers, then the Suns and Finihsing up with the Warriors.

Being optimistic the Bucks can use the momentum from the Bulls and Bobcats to possible steal 1 from the Lakers. If we have All our starters for this week we should get at least a 3 game winning streak going



Snap and Roll I'm outta control!!!!