The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Well, look at that … the NBA season is underway! In LaCrosse the Bucks beat the Bulls 93-88 last night, and there are a couple of interesting items to take from this game.

The first, not-so-interesting and not terribly worrying, either, is that Yi played 11 minutes, scoring 3 points, getting no rebounds and fouling out. Just the first of many nights that will be a struggle for him.

However, the rest of the frontcourt is another story. From what I heard on the radio it sounded like Andrew Bogut was very active offensively, and I’m glad to see him hit 6-8 free throws. The thing about Bogut is that for him to reach his potential he just needs to improve a little in every facet of the game (as opposed to, say, Eddy Curry), and should he get his free throw percentage up to the 75% range it will be a big help.

The Bucks started Dan Gadzuric alongside Bogut, which continues a trend from the open scrimmage. I always wondered why Terry Stotts was so resistant to playing Gadzuric at the 4, where his rebounding ablilty would be even more of a plus and he would defend players closer to his own size. Of course, Gadzuric had such a miserable year last season that he wasn’t very useful at any position, but it’s good to see that Kryskowiak is willing to take a look at some different personnel options. The stated reason was that he started Gadzuric and Mason because of the amount of energy they showed in practice, but lets hope that Mason-over-Simmons doesn’t become a habit.

There is some word going around that the Bucks are tinkering with installing the triangle into their offensive sets, which could actually work very well given the Bucks’ personell. It’s worth noting that the triangle-as-primary-offense has never succeeded in the NBA — the Jordan-era Bulls ran it early in games to conserve energy and always abandoned it in the 4th quarter, and the Shaq-Kobe Lakers almost never ran it for more than a couple of minutes, and often with Shaq on the bench. However, as an energy-conserving change of pace, it could make for a very efficient offense.

To run the triangle you need:

1) A center who can pass and hit the 15 foot jumper. Bogut’s passing is superior to his jumper, of course, but his passing is so good that it may make up for the fact that he doesn’t shoot from 15 feet very often.

2) A spot-up shooter. Typically in the triangle this is the role of the point guard, who initiates the sequence by getting the ball into the high post and fading to the corner. Mo can fulfill this role well, but his skills are better put to use as one of the primary scorers in the offense, but Bobby Simmons is deadly from the corners.

3) Two penetrators who can shoot and score off the dribble. Lost in the story of last season was the fact that Michael Redd started getting to the line a lot. He has really raised his ability to drive and, obviously his shooting is not a question mark. He almost never passes when he drives, which is a problem, but the beauty of the triangle is that it spreads the floor so much that double teaming is very difficult. Mo can also blow by most people guarding them, and shoots well enough to keep defenders honest. His driving ability is kind of the opposite of Redd’s; Mo passes out of the drive better but doesn’t get fouled often enough. However, Mo getting into the paint is generally a positive for the Bucks.

4) A “dirty work” power forward who rebounds and keeps his mouth shut. Here’s where it gets tough. Power forward is the most miserable position in the triangle, because you do nothing but stay out of the way and crash the boards. The only time you score is on the occassional back door cut and usually you spend most of the posession standing far away from the action to make it more difficult for your man to double team a penetrator. Charlie V and Yi are very poorly suited for this role and Danny G plays so out of control I can visualize him committing an over-the-back foul on every single posession. However, this is where signing Michael Ruffin makes a lot of sense. He doesn’t need, want or know what to do with the ball on offense, he rebounds hard, and plays good defense. He’s actually an almost perfect triangle offense power forward.

10 minutes a game of the triangle with a lineup of Williams-Redd-Simmons-Ruffin-Bogut? That might work.