The Bratwurst - Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Well, another day, another loss to one of the 5 worst teams in the league. Yet again, the Bucks couldn’t handle a Sacramento team that is missing 2 of its 3 best players.

And according to the Journal-Sentinel, after the game, Coach Krystkowiak was talking lineup changes;

“It’s frustrating,” Krystkowiak said. “All of a sudden, we go the last 17 possessions of the second quarter and they score one field goal. So they were 1 of 17 to finish the half. Maybe we need to get the defenders on the floor to start with. Maybe that’s what it boils down to. Obviously, we haven’t done a great job defensively to start games and it’s probably going to warrant a lineup change.”

Wait … the defenders? Who are the defenders? Do you even know who’s on your roster?

Oh no … don’t tell me you are thinking about starting Royal Ivey over Mo. Atlanta tried that in 2004-05 and while he might be okay defensively he’s such a non-factor offensively that they were outscored by 2 ppg more with him on the floor than off. Playing offense 4-on-5 almost never works, unless you’ve got Ben Wallace (circa 2002).

So who are the rest of the defenders? Not Gadzuric, considering he’s played 12 minutes in 8 games. Not Simmons, considering he only played 15 minutes last night in a game that Mason sat out the second half. Oh, I get it … Charlie Bell must be The Defender — he’s played 87 minutes in the last 4 games and shot 3-21 with no free throws. So it must be his stifling defense that’s keeping him on the floor.

You know the Bucks are second worst in the leage in opposing 3-point shooting percent? A big part of that is probably Bell’s defense, since at 6′3″ he’s not really big enough to close out on most opposing shooting guards.

The thing that seems to have Krystkowiak so steamed is that Sacramento opened the game making 11 of their first 12 shots. However, the Kings are still an NBA team and NBA teams will have hot streaks. It’s not like one defender was getting torched in the first 8 minutes, every King player scored and all of them except Mikki Moore had at least one assist. They played well for 8 minutes, good for them. Through all of that only opened a 10 point lead, and the Bucks got it down to one by the end of the quarter.

The problem wasn’t the Bucks’ defense — they only allowed 102 points, and but for the game ending 17-4 run by Sacramento, they were on pace to allow closer to 95. The problem was the substitution pattern.

Okay, so Mason isn’t available in the second half and Krystowiak hates Simmons (although it’s very possible that Simmons isn’t 100% and can’t go much more than 15 mpg). Krystowiak never uses Storey and Villanueva was not available. Against just about any other team I’d say, okay, now you have no choice but to finish the game with Bell or Ivey at shooting guard and, as much as I hate it, move Redd to small forward.

But this is Sacramento you are playing, and Redd at small forward means that you force Ron Artest to guard him — something you want to try and avoid (or at least, make Sacramento do goofy stuff to get the Redd-Artest matchup).

This was a time for some original thinking, not a time to throw out the usual sub-par lineup and pray that they could shut down the Kings the rest of the way. This was a night where you had one choice — try to outscore them.

The thing to do, with 5 minutes to go and the game tied, was to move Yi to small forward and play Gadzuric at power forward.

Then you force Theus to react. He had already gone small (Urdih-Garcia-Salmons-Artest-Miller) but if the Bucks roll out Williams-Redd-Yi-Gadzuric-Bogut then the Kings wouldn’t be able to get a rebound and Artest would have to leave his power forward spot to guard Redd. Theus would probably have to pull Garcia and bring back Moore or Hawes, clearing more perimeter space for Redd to work.

This lineup probably wouldn’t have worked, since Urdih was unconscious from deep late in the game, but it would have given the Bucks a better chance, instead of sending Krystkowiak to the film wondering why his invisible “defenders” couldn’t stop an inferior team yet again.