The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

The Bucks-Hornets game on Wednesday was a very entertaining, generally well-played game by both teams. Lets be honest about this teams’ prospects — they aren’t going to the playoffs, so all there really is to root for are exciting, hard-fought games that go down to the wire. They took on one of the best teams in the league last night — an athletic team that matches up poorly against them — and made it interesting.

While the heat seems to fall on Michael Redd for not getting a better shot up with 5 seconds remaining, unfortunately it must be said that the real goat was Dan Gadzuric. His 8 shots were peppered with four missed layups and a blown dunk. Once again, I don’t understand why he is backing up Bogut. Wasn’t Voskuhl playing 20 mpg a few months ago? Without Villanueva available, Gadzuric should be playing his 10 minutes a game alongside Bogut so that he never gets any touches outside of offensive rebounds. I don’t really understand how Gadzuric can get the ball so much that he puts up 8 shots in 15 minutes (only one off an offensive rebound) while Bogut can only manage 8 shots in 33 minutes.

One logical explaination for using Gadzuric at center is that Krystkowiak wanted a better athlete matched up with Tyson Chandler, but Chandler was out of the game for 9 of Gadzuric’s 15 minutes.

But the bigger news is that the Bucks held a team meeting on Tuesday, and according to details posted on RealGM (and then on the Journal-Sentinel message boards), the results weren’t very pretty. The essence of the posts are that the Bucks aren’t very happy with Krystkowiak’s comments after the Knicks game, aren’t happy with Krystkowiak’s game management, and aren’t very happy with Mo Williams’ play or attitude.

First of all, with all due respect to the RealGm poster who goes by “Europa” and first developed this story, it’s important to take all of this with a grain of salt. It’s one thing to hear details about something from a reporter who has well-developed sources (and who should have confirmed his story with multiple people), and another thing from someone who puts something up on an anonymous message board. While the details that “Europa” posts may be accurate or true, there is no way to know. This meeting hasn’t been mentioned in any other media outlets — it may even have never happened. Since one would assume that a meeting like this would only be attended by players and coaches, then logically his source is a player, coach or one of thieir close confidants. This source may, for example, have some sort of a personal issue with Mo, and would try to portray him in a negative light.

But this meeting probaby did happen. What do I think of it? It’s great! I’m very glad to hear that the players understand that the teams’ performance has been awful and is mad about it. It seems like they realize that they have underachieved better than management does. And then they follow up this “horrible, divisive meeting” by losing by four to one of the best teams in the league? Wonderful! At least somebody seems to think that Krystkowiak’s coaching strategies are more suited to a college than a pro team. I’d much prefer that they get mad and start fighting versus simply becoming indifferent.

Look, no matter what walk of life you are in, whenever groups of people are involved in something that is going badly they start hating each other. Poorly-run businesses have politicking and back-stabbing all the time. Divorces happen in families that have had a run of bad luck. It’s normal. It’s part of life. And in professional sports (probably in basketball more than others, because the small roster size makes each individual more important) closed-door meetings and infighting happens with every single team when things aren’t going so great.

Portland’s turnaround has been credited to a single practice that had turned into a series of cheap-shots and fistfights. Just because a few insults are thrown doesn’t mean that teams are torn apart.

Thanks to my season ticket rep, my wife and I sat courtside in the corner by the Bucks bench for the Hornets game. I spent a lot of time watching the bench to see how much the team seemed to be in the game, and I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone (even Villanueva and Sessions, in street clothes) was paying attention for the whole game. After Gadzuric came out of the game in the first half (after missing four layups) several players came over to console him and tell him to keep his head up (leading me to crack the incredibly obvious joke, “I’m surprised he connected on that high-five”). I had a lousy view for the final play because the members of the bench kept on standing and walking onto the court to see it for themselves. It was clear that the team was working hard throughout the game at both ends of the court.

Even Mo’s much-maligned defense almost turned the game for the Bucks when he tied up Chris Paul at the end of the third quarter, leading a frustrated Paul to pump-fake throwing the ball at the official for not calling a foul (drawing a technical but probably deserving an ejection).

The Bucks didn’t lose on Wednesday because their effort was lacking, they lost because they played a better team that is exceptionally good at getting high-percentage shots. All the team meetings in the world won’t change that.