The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Two games against one of the best teams in the league. Two completely different results. What does the last two games agains Detroit tell us about this Bucks team?

On Wednesday, the Pistons were ripe for the picking. With three players having played in the all-star game and coming off of a blowout loss the night before, the Pistons were tired and lifeless. The Bucks, reversing a season-long trend of not playing well against teams that they should hammer, jumped all over the Pistons early, salting the game away enough that a 16-point lead with 4 minutes remaining was enough to withstand a game-ending Pistons rally.

Friday nights game was closer to what one would expect from a Bucks-Pistons game, as a beautiful first quarter in which neither team could miss gave way to a slugfest second quarter that featured 17 Piston free throws and Detroit runs of 13-0 and 12-0.

It’s funny how two games against the same team can give such different results, and it’s also interesting how both games highlight what the Bucks need to address this upcoming offseason:

It’s clear that this team needs more athleticism. You can talk about strategy, effort and “playing within the system” all you want, but the bottom line is that talent wins. In addition to having the most stable starting five in the league, the Pistons can depend on boosts from bench players like Jason Maxiell and Amir Johnson. The Bucks, on the other hand, have a hard time figuring out which bench player will be able to score on any given night. Athleticism makes fluke plays go your way, and that turns games. Given the choice between two equally good players, I’d always go for the more athletic one. I think that is why the Bucks have had so much trouble with poor teams this season — those teams are likely to have a lot of great athletes who aren’t necessarily great basketball players. But against the Bucks the one-on-one skills of players on teams like the Knicks and Sixers are allowed to shine.

Another thing that would be nice — but isn’t the most important thing — is to become better at getting to the line. On Friday night, when the referees had a quick whistle, Chauncey Billups was able to get to the line on seemingly every trip down the floor. Nothing new there, he’s the best in the league at that. But the Bucks had a hard time answering at thie other end, getting only five free throws in the second quarter to the Pistons’ 17. The Bucks only have one player who is particularly good at getting to the line, Michael Redd. That’s not enough. The beauty of being able to draw a foul when you really need to is that it upsets the other teams’ offensive rhythmn and stops them from going on runs, as well as extending your own runs.

I took a look at how many free throws everybody in the NBA takes, and the results were interesting. Among the Bucks’ major players (Bogut, Yi, Villanueva, Mason, Simmons, Redd, Williams) only Redd excels at getting to the line (7th best shooting guard), while nobody else is in the top 25 at their position. However, if each player got to the line one more time per game (adding two free throws) they would all be propelled into the top 20 at their position, with Williams and Bogut into the top 10.

One thing that I found interesting is that there isn’t all that much correlation between free throw rate and winning. I summed the free throw rates of each teams’ 8 players who play the most and the results were interesting (on second page of file linked above). Of the five teams who shoot the most free throws, only two (Utah and Washington) are currently in the playoffs (the others are New Jersey, New York and Sacramento). The bottom five include non-playoff bound teams Milwaukee, Seattle, Indiana and Minnesota but also New Orleans. Clearly it is nice to have players who are great at drawing fouls, but it’s not the most important thing to try a build a team of foul-collectors across the board. If one Bucks player — specifically, Yi — was to become much better at drawing fouls it would be a huge help. But it’s not like the Bucks need a new point guard because Mo draws a below-average number of fouls.

It’s pretty clear what this team needs (you don’t need me to write it). An athletic small forward who can draw fouls. Those type of players don’t come by every day. But that’s the key to the long-term improvement of this team.