The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

The play by play went like this:

12:00 – Start of the first quarter
11:49- Andrew Bogut fouled by David Lee

That’s all she wrote. Game over. I even said so at the time.

With David Lee picking up a foul on the first possession of the game then he had to dial his hustle/energy game back to stay out of foul trouble. Then, when he picked up foul #2 six minutes later then he was on the bench for the rest of the quarter.

Mike D’Antoni fell into my favorite coaching blunder of all time at that point — He sat Lee until the end of the quarter and then yanked him five minutes into the second when Lee picked up his third foul. D’Antoni played the matchups in the second half, using Lee for a total of 9 minutes, generally only keeping him on the floor when Charlie V was also in the game.

The result for Lee, a player who had averaged 14.5 points, 11 boards and 2 steals in the Knicks first two games? 3 points, 2 boards and 2 turnovers in 19 minutes. And only three fouls.

So by yanking Lee with two fouls, D’Antoni moved his best player to the bench — his only player who makes a living through hustle and rebounding; his only player who makes his living doing the things that help teams win basketball games. This meant that not only was he not on the floor helping his team, but he was also successfully staying out of foul trouble. He finished with 3 fouls! He wasn’t even in foul trouble at the end of the game!

When D’Antoni yanked Lee in the second quarter after picking up his third foul the Knicks had just concluded a 10-4 run that saw them take their final lead of the night at 37-35. As soon as Lee checked out the Bucks went on a 12-3 run to essentially salt the game away (the Bucks made no substitutions immediately before or during the run, except to take out Bell and insert Redd at the end of it). If D’Antoni had left Lee in he might have possibly played out the half without picking up any more fouls and potentially helped keep his team in the game.

Even if he had picked up 1 or even two more fouls in the half, he still would have been available for at least some second half duty. And then the second half might have actually been a game instead of about 22 minutes of garbage time. Lee only played 19 minutes last night. If he had been left in the game with three fouls after playing 10 minutes is it really likely that he would foul out in less than 19 minutes? Instead, D’Antoni did the Bucks a favor my keeping his own player off of the offensive glass — which was probably the Bucks’ #1 priority in last nights game plan.

Of course, the whole point is moot because of what the Bucks did at the start of the second half — roaring out of the gate with a 12-0 run. Good coaching! Good halftime adjustments! It feels so good to say that the team seems to be hitting the floor ready to roll in the third quarter this season!

Now, hopefully Michael Redd’s sprained ankle gets better very quickly.