The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Last year the injury-riddled Bucks often played with as many as 4 starters sidelined. They fired their coach for underachieving. While having one of the best offenses in the conference (11th best offensive rating in the league — measured as points per 100 posessions) their defense was miserable (29th in defensive rating). They were outscored by 4.4 points per game, the second worst margin in the conference.

How could it get any worse?

They hired a new coach who brought a “defense and intensity” mantra. They got their starters back, having withstood only one major injury through half of the season. However, while their offense is worse (18th offensive rating) their defense has not changed (still 29th). Most damming, they are now being outscored by 6 points per game, still the second worst margin in the conference.

What’s the difference between last year and this year — the “season of defense”? Nothing, except that the Bucks are playing at a slower pace (getting the 19th most posessions per game this season, vs. the 10th most last year). So they are allowing three fewer points per game — because the opposition is getting the ball one and a half fewer times per game. But that doesn’t really help because they score 4 fewer points per game than last year.

There is one positive that has come from this season — the Bucks are a much better rebounding team. Last season their opponents outrebounded them by 300 boards, this year they are net-positive 30 and are actually one of the top offensive rebounding teams in the league. That’s good to see — there’s probably nothing more frustrating to watch in basketball than your team constantly getting pounded on the glass.

From a talent perspective, this team should be significantly better. Bogut is much improved. Mo Williams is slightly improved and much healthier. Michael Redd is slumping a little, but is healthier. Yi Jianlian is an improvement on Brian Skinner. The only difference has been small forward — Ruben Patterson was far superior to Desmond Mason even before Mason got hurt, and the “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” combination of Simmons, Redd and Bell has been brutal at the 3. But with all the injuries last year, Patterson played a lot of power forward, so that’s not really a direct comparison.

Especially without a true small forward (and the inability of Simmons to step up this year) then this team’s ceiling was probably never much more than 42 or 43 wins (so about 20 or 21 as of today). But is there any excuse for their point differential being worse than last year? And for their offense getting worse without the defense getting better? The spotlight for that falls directly on Larry Krystkowiak.

Say what you will about Terry Stotts — but at least he kept his team from getting blown out every time they faced a good opponent. On a team of offensively talented, defensively limited players, Stotts had them firing away. It didn’t work all the time, but the Bucks stole a few games (winning at San Antonio and Golden State last year) and kept some of them surprisingly close (at Phoenix). After getting manhandled twice by Detroit this season Andrew Bogut commented that he couldn’t understand why they had played the Pistons tough for the previous couple of years but suddenly don’t look like they belong in the same league as them. Well — the difference is that now they have the same players trying to play Detroit’s style. And that wont work when the Pistons are much better suited for the defense-first game.

This is a perfect example of why NBA teams shouldn’t hire college coaches — the only way to win at the highest level is to customize your coaching strategy to maximize the strength of your players. You can’t just run “your” system because that’s what you are most comfortable doing and hope the players fit in.

What are some changes that Larry Krystkowiak has to make?

Less Royal Ivey, more Charlie Bell. Defensive ability is so hard to quantify. I’ve become convinced that except in the case of erasers like Kevin Garnett or transcendant stars like Michael Jordan the way to get a reputation as a defensive stopper has less to do with ability and more with a willingness to get into a good-looking defensive stance and look frustrated with yourself after you get beat. The bottom line is that one of these guys has to play. Ivey has no offensive game whatsoever and not nearly enough defensive ability to make up for it. Now that Bell is shooting much better, he is a far superior option — as long as he’s playing point guard and guarding players his size.

Pick up the pace. The Bucks have so many players that can score that they simply must run more. If there are more shots available for everyone then it becomes easier for players to take good shots. The defense-first thing simply isn’t working, and there’s nothing about playing at a higher pace that means you automatically play worse defense. I’d use some full-court pressure as one means of speeding things up.

Play Villanueva, Yi and Bogut together. The Bucks are the first team ever to have three athletic 7-footers, two of whom have 3-point range and one of which once starred in a Nike commercial where after dunking over some Chinese guy he started flashing gang signs. It’s a truly unique combination. Why not throw these guys out there and see what they can do? At the very least you’ll get some highlight dunks. And it keeps Michael Redd in the backcourt, where he belongs.

Don’t be so afraid to use your timeouts! After excellent first halves against Golden State and New Orleans, the Bucks came out flat in the third (another indictment of the coach, by the way). The Warriors stretched a 1 point lead to 10 in four posessions and the Hornets erased the Bucks’ lead with an 11-2 run. The flat third quarter starts doomed the Bucks in both games. Both times Krystkowiak waited too long to try and stop the runs by calling time out. Look, why save timeouts for the end of the game when if you don’t use them early you’ll be down by 20 at the end? I learned this lesson by watching Pat Riley a couple of years ago. The Heat came into Milwaukee without Shaq and playing poorly, and early on whenever the Bucks would string together two baskets he would call time out. He simply refused to let the Bucks go on a run and open the game up. And it worked — by keeping it close then he was able to let Dwyane Wade do his “can’t keep me off the foul line” act in the fourth quarter.

The bottom line is that coaches don’t win games — players do that. But it’s up to the coach to put his players in a good position to succeed. Larry Krystkowiak has failed miserably at that job, and suddenly this season has more in common with last season than anyone would think.