The Bratwurst – Milwaukee Bucks Blog

In March of 2007 I went to a Bucks-Bulls game and was treated to an incredible offensive display from Michael Redd and Ben Gordon. The pair combined to shoot 36-64 and scored 100 points between them (52 for Redd and 48 for Gordon) in a 126-121 Bulls win. But there was one play that has stuck in my mind ever since, and I found myself thinking about it more and more as this season went along.

At the end of a third quarter that saw Redd and Gordon pretty much match baskets for the whole time — neither of them could do anything to stop the other — the Bucks had a four point lead and the ball with about a one second game clock/shot clock differential. Mo Williams brought the ball up and stood at midcourt, dribbling the clock down so the Bucks would get the last shot. Redd, however, had other ideas.

With 20 seconds left, Redd had Gordon on his hip at the 3-point line and called for the ball. Williams waved him off, intending to run out the clock. Redd called for the ball again, Mo ignored him. Finally, Redd went over to Mo and literally took the ball out of his hands, faced up Gordon (from about 30 feet out) and tried to go to work on him. However, by walking over to Mo, it meant that Redd had also walked over to Mo’s defender, Kirk Hinrich, and it was obvious that considering the time remaining and what Redd had just done that he was never going to pass the ball. So basically Redd had just double teamed himself. Needless to say, he had no chance to shake both Gordon and Hinrich and to make matters worse, fired up a fadeaway 3 from about 30 feet with at least 6 seconds left.

The result was a long rebound that caromed out to Hinrich, who took off the other way and buried a running 3-pointer at the buzzer, cutting the Bucks lead to one.

I thought, “That was weird.”

At the time I kind of wrote the play off as the sort of thing that happens in a meaningless game late in a lost season. But then I saw the Redd-Williams dynamic on the court this season and started to think that maybe that play against the Bulls was a little indicator of a bigger problem. Maybe these guys are so afraid that by passing the ball they will never get it back, and that is unintentionally short-circuiting the offense.

Maybe they are both too talented offensively to play together.

Mo Williams ($7.75M, 0.852 IPM): It’s so trendy to bash Mo for a variety of reasons: “He shoots too much”, “His defense sucks”, and (my favorite because it’s ludicrous) “He’s not a “pure” point guard.” But all of that misses the point — Mo Williams has really become a terrific offensive player.

First of all, Mo Williams does not shoot too much. He averaged 15.4 shots per 40 minutes this season (pace adjusted) which placed him 12th among point guards who played over 22 minutes per game. He took 2 more shots per game than the #24 point guard on that list, Steve Nash. “Pure” point guards like Tony Parker, TJ Ford, Chris Paul and Sam Cassell all took more shots per 40 minutes than did Mo.

One shouldn’t really complain about Mo’s shooting because he converts them so well, as he made a career high 48% this season. In fact, according to 82games.com, Mo was one of only three players to shoot above 50% on 2-point jump shots this season (behind Kyle Korver and ahead of Steve Nash). Mo also spent his first season on his new contract setting career highs in just about every category — shooting percentage, 3-point shooting, free throw shooting, assists and blocks, while holding his steals steady and cutting his turnovers and fouls.

However, there is evidence that Mo’s defense is a real problem. Despite the fact that the Bucks had no other decent option as a backup point guard (since Ivey was horrible, Bell played three positions, and Sessions didn’t show up until April) the Bucks weren’t much better with Mo on the court as they were with him off. Part of the problem is Williams’ size (or lack thereof), and part of it is the lack of accomplished defenders he has as teammates. But his defense was a problem, and the coaching staff knew it. There was a rumored near-fistfight between Williams and assistant coach Tony Brown over Mo’s defensive effort, and after a game against Sacramento (in which Kings point guard Beno Urdih had run all over the Bucks) Krystkowiak made some veiled references to benching a player who he felt was slacking on defense.

It’s not that Mo doesn’t put effort into defense — I remember him tying up Chris Paul during a huge possession late in the Hornets game — but he seems to get frustrated if calls don’t go his way, because of his size he is easy to overpower and cannot close out on shooters if he leaves his man to double-team someone else.

Facts are facts: Mo Williams has improved every season he has been in the league and his team has done worse every season that his role has increased. Maybe there is something to the idea of being “just good enough to be a good player on a bad team.”

As it is currently constructed, this team is not a good place for Mo. There is too much offensive talent (making his shot-creation skills redundant) and not enough defensive help (exacerbating his shortcomings). He’s a bad backcourt partner for Michael Redd, and Scott Skiles has never been a head coach with a small point guard (he has had Jason Kidd, Stephon Marbury and Kirk Hinrich previously). Either Redd or Williams has to go this off season. Mo is young, has improved every season, and his contract is reasonable for his production, so he should be able to garner some trade interest.

Mo Williams is a very good player who was a very bad fit for Larry Krystkowiak’s system and is a bad fit for this roster.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 20%

Michael Redd ($14.5M, 0.838 IPM): It was an incredibly disappointing season for Redd, as he came into training camp in great shape and riding high from the Team USA experience over the summer. However, he started the season in something of a shooting slump (but posted some of the best rebounding and assist numbers of his career), and things never got better. After Mason got hurt, Redd spent most of the season out of position at small forward and seemed to be competing with his teammates to get his shots. He wound up with his worst IPM in several years, and only the third best on the team (behind Bogut and Mo).

It’s easy to blame Redd for concentrating on scoring seemingly to the detriment of his teammates, but look at it from his point of view for a second. The last time this team was any good, two years ago, the starting lineup included a player coming off of a major injury (TJ Ford), a rookie playing out of position (Bogut), a new player whose main offensive weapon was corner 3′s (Simmons) and a new player with not much of an offensive game (Magloire). If that group was able to win half of their games and make the playoffs with Redd taking every single big shot, then shouldn’t this group of ostensibly-more talented players be able to chip in an extra 10 points a night than the 05-06 crew could? Shouldn’t that be enough to make this team really good, without Redd doing anything differently?

Of course, it doesn’t really work that way. The 07-08 roster may be more talented than the 05-06 one was, but the collection of skills was less complementary.

Unfortunately, the effort to get Bogut more shots, the blossoming of Mo Williams into a highly-efficient scorer (and the attendant paycheck he started getting), and the presence of Yi Jianlian seemed to affect Michael Redd very badly — it was as though he feared becoming an afterthought in his own offense, and seemed to feel that if he got the ball he had better shoot it because it wasn’t ever coming back to him.

This led to a season of incredibly poor shot selection from Redd. Horrible, awful flat-footed 20 foot jumpers, where he would just stare at his defender and then fire away with a hand in his face. He would regularly ignore his post players when they called for the ball, doing it so often that I questioned whether he was intentionally freezing out Yi.

Larry Krystkowiak noticed it as well, and said as much to the Journal-Sentinel in a postseason interview:

“One player Krystkowiak did not communicate well with was guard Michael Redd. An uneasy relationship existed between the coach and the star guard during most of the season and Redd admitted after the season that there had been no chemistry between them. Redd did add, though, that they had gone about their jobs in a professional manner.

Asked about Redd, Krystkowiak said, “I understand the chemistry of a team and I know that there’s a lot of issues with shot selection and taking bad shots. I tried to get our team to play together and I came to the realization that it really wasn’t going to happen.”

Krystkowiak said a big part of the problem from his perspective was that Redd and his teammates played well together in practice, but then reverted to a more solo mentality in games.

“There was a different mind-set in practice than there was in a game,” Krystkowiak said. “It was like two different types of teams so we could never address sharing and moving the basketball because we did a decent job of it in practice. It was in games where it didn’t happen. . . . Things became very focused on scoring points and that’s Mike. Truly great players make the players around them better.

“A lot of times in practice he would defer and wouldn’t be as scoring-minded and so I don’t know how you’re supposed to get better as a team when . . . practice was different than games.”

This statement is a perfect example of why Larry Krystkowiak is no longer the coach of this team — the whole idea of “great players make other players better.” That’s not true — great players are great because they are better than the players around them.

You can’t take your best scorer and try to tell him to score less because that will give more opportunities for other guys. That doesn’t make any sense. This is the sort of thing that cost the Bucks some wins and cost Krystkowiak his job — sending Redd out there to play small forward when he’s not strong enough defensively to handle bigger players and expecting his best scorer to defer his scoring to his teammates.

With a bunch of efficient scorers on his team, Krystkowiak should have pushed the pace to get as many shots as possible in the air every night. That would have been the only way to keep everyone happy. He can’t expect players to give the ball up just because someone else will get upset without it.

I know that it sounds like I’m being too soft on Michael Redd here, and I probably am, but I just feel that Larry Krystkowiak was being unrealistic to think that he could tell his players to just change their games around in order to fit into his team concept. The NBA doesn’t work that way. You know how they say that great players make the worst coaches because they expect the game to come as easily to everyone as it did to them? Maybe the opposite was Krystkowiak’s problem as coach — he saw the game from the perspective of a journeyman who had to tailor his game to fit into a team concept, when in reality good players need the concept set up to help maximize their own strengths in order for a team to win.

In the meantime, while it has become popular to blame Redd for the Bucks’ problems, forget it — he’s not going anywhere. His salary makes it almost impossible to get fair value back, and he cannot possibly be traded along with one of the Bucks’ bad contracts in order to clear some cap room. Fortunately, with a coach better able to put him into a position to succeed and make the offense flow, Redd should bounce back next season just fine. But he’s never going to be a very well-rounded player.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 35%

———————–
Other installments in the Season In Review:
I Need One to Play the Three!
Stop the Danny G Experience! I Want to Get Off!
The Aussie and the Flintstone
The Men of Mystery
The End of the Bench

Now that this season is finally over, it is time to recap the contributions of each player. I’m not a big fan of giving letter grades, especially since when you consider that the Bucks’ record this season was actually worse than last years’ injury-marred one, everybody associated with this team pretty much deserves an “F-”. Except for my season ticket rep, Nick. He has been great this season, always accommodating and helpful.

So I’ve decided to grade each player on how responsible they were for Larry Krystkowiak getting fired.

I’m going to review each player over the course of the next several days in reverse order of their salary, and also am giving their final IPM (data for all players available here). As you may know, typically an IPM greater than 0.9 is borderline all-star level, over 0.8 is that of a solid starter, above 0.7 is a useful player, and below 0.6 means you were probably hurting the team more than helping it. Also, because it is a per-minute measurement, it becomes much more accurate the more minutes you play , so take Ramon Session’s ranking with a grain of salt. He’s not really the 33rd best player in the NBA.

Ramon Sessions ($427K, 0.931 IPM): Thank you Larry Harris for this wonderful parting gift. Sessions was the lone bright spot of the end of the season, as he provided a boost with his pass-first game and eye popping statistics, highlighted by 127 assists vs. only 36 turnovers. The knee-jerk reaction is to jettison Mo Williams and turn the point guard spot over to Sessions, but let’s not get too excited just yet.

The red flag about Sessions is that his impressive play ran counter to his career style. In college and the NBDL, Sessions was a ball-dominating scorer who was hard to keep off of the free throw line, but once coming to the NBA he concentrated on passing first and shooting second. The results, when accompanied by some less-than-intense defense on the part of the Bucks’ opponents, were some excellent box scores (45 points, 38 assists, 15 rebounds and 5 turnovers on 18-29 shooting in the final two games). One has to wonder what will happen next season when he plays against teams that actually want to play defense against him.

The only reason for the Bucks to go into next season with Sessions as the starter is if they win the draft lottery and take Derrick Rose, but Sessions will clearly be a valuable reserve next season. Just think , a bench player who can actually create an offensive set and draw a foul once in a while!

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 0%

David Noel ($687K): Lost for the season to a shoulder injury, we will never get to see what Noel might have brought to the table this season. With the signing of Awvee Storey, Noel would most likely have been in the D-League or wearing a suit on the bench all season, anyway.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 0%

Awvee Storey ($770K, 0.647 IPM): I can only see one reason why Storey was given a guaranteed contract in the first place: because Storey’s agent Mark Bartlestein is Mo Williams’ agent as well, and by helping out another client Larry Harris was trying to enlist Bartelstein to persuade Mo to stay in Milwaukee rather than head for Miami. How’d that one work out, Larry?

After an embarrassing 2006-07 season which saw Storey kicked out of the D-League for putting a teammate into a coma (and then breaking an opposing players’ rib while boxing him out in a German League game) it was amazing that Storey simply wasn’t blackballed out of the league in the first place.

The signing sort of made some sense at the time , Storey was veteran insurance in case Bobby Simmons couldn’t go after missing the previous season and/or the Desmond Mason signing turned out to be a bust (which it would have been had Mason played as poorly as he did with the Hornets). But why, then, give Storey a guaranteed contract? By the time his deal would have to be picked up the Bucks would have known what they had in their top two small forwards. They could have then released Storey before his contract became guaranteed and had an open roster spot to audition young players who may have been worth a shot (such as Nick Fazekas, the Mavericks second round pick who became Sessions’ top running mate for the NBDL’s Tulsa 66ers. Fazekas was released by the Mavs, signed by the Clippers, and would put up a 0.88 IPM in 26 games for them). Oh yes, he was given a guaranteed contract because of his agent.

But it seems that Krystkowiak couldn’t stand Storey’s game anyway. After Desmond Mason got hurt and Simmons simply sucked, instead of inserting Storey into the rotation Coach K continued to trot out Charlie Bell and Michael Redd at the small forward position. Storey wound up only seeing action in 26 games, with 90% of that coming after the season was long lost.

Probably the most pathetic thing is that Storey finished the season with the Bucks’ 6th best IPM, behind only Sessions, Bogut, Williams, Redd and Villanueva. The guy doesn’t even belong in the league and he was their best per-minute bench player this season!

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 0%

Royal Ivey ($798K, 0.548 IPM): Iveys’ reputation as a great defender sure got him a lot of playing time this season, and what a waste that was. Ivey must have really shut down Dee Brown and Scoonie Penn in his Bucks tryout, because despite all evidence to the contrary, Coach K kept on using Ivey as his “defensive stopper.”

There were two problems with that strategy , even if Ivey’s defense was absolutely awesome, there was no way it would make up for his own putrid offense (he actually finished with the lowest IPM on the team). However, there is no evidence whatsoever that Ivey’s defense was any good, either. According to 82games.com, the production of the player that Ivey was guarding averaged out to double that of what Ivey produced himself.

I don’t understand how any team could expect to win more than about 26 games if they are giving Royal Ivey 20 minutes a night. Yet, Coach K kept going back to him, probably because his “energy in practice” and “defensive intensity” (meaning: he looks really disappointed in himself when he gets beat) were there.

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 12%

Michael Ruffin ($1.0M, 0.610 IPM): I really liked the idea of signing Ruffin, because I felt that a team with so much offensive talent on it could use a defensive banger like him. Ruffin is the most inept offensive player in NBA history, but has carved out a nice niche for himself as a guy who comes in, throws his body around, gives some hard fouls, grabs some boards and stays out of the way of the talented players. He’s useful.

The Bucks even played a little better with him on the floor than off, being outscored by 8.4 points per game without him but only 2.2 ppg with him. Ruffin did his job. He won’t help you win, but he doesn’t help you lose, and he makes it all look pretty ugly.

Ruffin, however, was the centerpiece of the Play That Probably Sealed Larry Krystkowiak’s Fate As Bucks Coach. After blowing a 17 point third quarter lead to the New York Knicks, and with the Bucks trailing by one with three seconds remaining, Krystkowiak inexplicably left Ruffin in the game for the final play. Even Isiah Thomas realized this and started coaching long enough to tell the Knicks defense to leave Ruffin open in order to deny everyone else the ball. Ruffin was then left to miss a 6-foot finger roll at the buzzer.

Michael Ruffin has scored 4.2 points per 36 minutes in his nine year NBA career, and Larry Krystkowiak put him into a position to take the final shot in a game. And now Krystkowiak is looking for a new job. Need I say more?

Responsibility for Coach K’s dismissal: 3%

Next up: The mysteries known as Charlie V, Jake V, and Yi.

In possibly the least surprising development imaginable, Larry Krystkowiak has told the Racine Journal-Times that he has been let go as coach of the Milwaukee Bucks.

He’s a good guy who was stuck in a bad situation — he was given a flawed roster and he wasn’t ready for the job.

Krystkowiak seems to me like a good person and someone well-suited to be a very successful college coach. I’m sure he would do well in an environment where teaching and preparing kids to become better adults are as important as winning, but the pro game just wasn’t a good spot for him. In the pros you have to coach your talent, for better or for worse. You can’t try to make that talent into something it isn’t, and with the Bucks he had a group of talented guys who were ill-suited for the style he wanted.

I’m sure that he will be best suited as a mid-major college coach, and years from now will be able to take pride in a long, successful career.

But this wasn’t the place or time for him. It probably wasn’t the place or time for anybody.

Since it’s a foregone conclusion that the Larry Krystkowiak era has one game remaining, Peter Vecesy reported in the New York Post that John Hammond is already charging ahead with searching for his next coach.

According to Vecesy, Hammond has checked in with Larry Brown, but “Don’t let that fool you,” a second source underlined. “John is considering either (Scott) Skiles or (Rick) Carlisle, no one else.”

The problem with Carlisle is that he is apparently the #1 candidate for the Bulls job as well.

Skiles presents a different issue — his hard-driving style gets results, but grates on players after a period of time causing them to tune him out. Skiles basically quit as coach of the Bulls this season because he felt he had lost the team and did the same thing in Phoenix in 2001-02 (although, in his defense, I would have quit too if my team had just traded Jason Kidd for Stephon Marbury).

A Skiles detractor would call him a quitter, a Skiles defender would call him a realist who understands the limits of his coaching style. I’d call him a very good coach who is probably better at building a team than carrying it to the finals. But that’s what this team needs.

Meanwhile, before Monday’s pickup game that passed as Bucks vs. Bulls, Larry Krystkowiak (whose eyes are clearly wide open regarding his job status) made an interesting comment to Tom Enlund of the Journal-Sentinel about his tenure as head coach:

Krystkowiak was asked if he thought he’d been given the chance to coach the team the way he wanted to do so.

After a 16-second pause, Krystkowiak said: “Let’s put it this way. If I had to do it over again, things would be different. Some of that was self-inflicted and some of that was external. But beyond that . . . no sour apples here. I’m going to focus on as much of the positives as I can and chalk a lot of stuff up to experience. Maybe someday down the road we can revisit some stuff. But I don’t think now is the time.”

I’ve been hard on Krystkowiak all season for coaching his system instead of something more complementary for the players he had, but this quote makes is seem that Krystkowiak is well aware of that — but also coming into the season believed that he and Larry Harris would have more ability to control who was on the roster.

Of course, if that’s what he thought then he was kidding himself.

Anybody who took an objective look at this roster at the beginning of the season would have realized that it had better be good because there wasn’t much that anybody could do to change it. As newly signed free agents, Mo, Mason and Bell were ineligible to be traded. Charlie V and Simmons were untradeable because they were coming off of major injuries, and Gadzuric was untradeable because he sucks at the game of basketball. Maybe Harris had sold Krystkowiak on the pipe dream that they might be able to lure Chauncey Billups or Gerald Wallace to Milwaukee, but that was never happening.

For all of my complaining about Krystkowiak, ultimately he was submarined by his own players. Yi was not nearly as good as advertised, Simmons had a wasted season, and Redd and Mo spent the whole season in some sort of strange “I’m Mr. Big Shot” battle. This team simply wasn’t very good.

Now, at the end of his run with the Bucks, Krystkowiak is doing the right thing by not publicly burning any bridges and letting himself fade away, heading back to a college job where he belongs.

According to the New York Daily News, the Bucks (and the Knicks) have been pursuing Indiana Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh to join the front office next season.

This would be a good hire, as Walsh was the architect of the Pacers’ run of success dating back to the early 90′s, but considering that there are other teams in the mix and that he is 67 years old, I’d guess that his actually coming to Milwaukee would be a long shot. The more important story is that it signals the end for Larry Harris.

Reading between the lines, it has been pretty obvious that Harris was about done. Their failure to make any moves, the rumors about the ridiculous Zach Randolph, and Kohl’s silence about extending Harris’ contract were signals, but if they are now actively pursuing a replacement, it’s a done deal. And it’s time, too. Harris assembled this team and now it needs changes. Those changes are tough to make if you are emotionally invested in bringing the current pieces in.

I know that money talks and the Knicks can offer far more money than the Bucks can, but honestly Milwaukee would probably be a more appealing destination for Walsh.

Consider the pros and cons:

Knicks

Significantly higher salary.
Seemlingly unlimited roster budget.
Money no object for hiring coaches and assistants.
Ridiculous roster makes it impossible to make major changes until 2009/10.
Roster contains three players who would have any trade value (Lee, Balkman, Robinson).
Walsh is from New York.
Owes a future first round pick to Utah.
Horrible, insular working nvironment and culture at Madison Square Garden.
Owner is completely insane.
Highest paid player is completely insane.

Bucks:

Limited cap manuverability until 2010.
Five potential trade chips in case of a major overhaul (Redd, Williams, Bogut, Yi, Villanueva).
Location is closer to Indianapolis-based family.
Payroll limited to below luxury tax.

Money aside, the Bucks job is far more appealing. Would you honestly want to work for James Dolan? Would you really want to take on a complete organizational housecleaning at 67 years old? Wouldn’t you rather have the Bucks’ relatively inexpensive core to work with over the Knicks’ completely disjointed one?

Anyway, I’m sure that the Knicks checkbook will carry the day in this battle, while the Pacers’ current VP of Basketball Operations, David Morway, might be the Bucks’ consolation prize as their next GM.

Meanwhile, I attended my first Bucks game in a couple of weeks last night against the Heat, and I came away thoroughly perplexed.

It cannot be overstated just how bad the Heat are right now. They dressed nine players. They are missing their three best projected opening night starters (Wade and Haslem out, Shaq gone). Marion was a nonfactor, playing 28 minutes and with the Bucks outscoring the Heat by 10 with him in. They were so starved for wins that their bench was acting like it was game seven of the finals. Jason Williams actually looked interested!

Clearly the Bucks should have won this game going away, but that isn’t the only thing that has me confused. The season is now lost, so at this point shouldn’t learning a little about your team be a goal, instead of tossing out the same old lineups that haven’t worked all season?

Instead, after the game, Krystkowiak talked to the Journal Sentinel and vaguely blamed his players.

“We’ve talked about just about everything,” (Krystkowiak) said. “I’m not afraid to repeat some stuff but it’s frustrating. We need to be self-starters. We’ll look at the plan . . . what broke down as far as the tactical approach. . . . We’ll see as coaches if we can fix that and not put ourselves in the (same) position.

“Players have to take more responsibility. We all have to. Everybody has to step up a little bit here. It’s not a time for speeches and a lot of talk. It’s getting out and playing.”

I don’t really understand what Krystkowiak is trying to say here. I guess he’s decided that his players aren’t doing what he wants them to for whatever reason. But who is that really an indictment of? Doesn’t that reflect back on him?

I think that this was a veiled shot at Mo Williams’ defense, specifically his complete inability to get through picks and keep Jason Williams from getting open 3 after open 3. It got so bad that eventually Krystkowiak switched Mason onto Jason Williams (which didn’t stop Chris Quinn from getting 3 open 3′s himself in the 4th quarter).

But my real problem with Krystkowiak in this game was my usual complaint about him — lack of imagination. It’s time to realize that some new lineups — for a few minutes at a time — are necessary. Just a couple of adjustments might have given a little insight into the team, and maybe even saved the game.

Two examples:

When the Bucks were cruising along with a 13 point lead in the 3rd quarter I turned to my friend and said, “Now’s the time to bring in Yi for Mason.” Yi looks awful right now, and seems to be moving at half speed, but he did an okay job against Marion in the first half and that would have moved Villanueva to the 3. This was a perfect situation to try a big lineup out. How would Villanueva have looked matched up with Ricky Davis? What would Pat Riley have done? If it doesn’t work and Miami runs off a quick 6-0 run, then take Yi out.

In the fourth quarter, when the Bucks were in the process of blowing the game but hadn’t quite lost the lead yet, Krystkowiak gave Mo a rest and trotted out a lineup of Ivey-Bell-Mason-Yi-Ruffin. How, exactly, is that supposed to work? Who is supposed to score? With Yi in such a funk, not one of those players is remotely capable of creating a shot. Not surprisingly, that lineup was on the floor while Miami would take their eventual lead. Why not use Sessions in that situation? You would get a real point guard in there, someone who is bigger who might be able to defend a pick-and-roll a little better, and he would be matched up against a relatively poor defender (either Jason Williams or Chris Quinn). Don’t you want to see what you have in Sessions, even if it’s only for a couple of minutes at a time?

Either way, it is clear: from his actions during the game and his comments after it, Krystkowiak is missing the point: winning is still the goal, but the time has come to accept that what you have done to this point hasn’t worked. It’s time to think up some new options with an eye toward the future. If you are going to lose to Miami anyway, it’s pointless to lose to them by doing the exact same things that have carried you to 43 other losses this season.

It was almost exactly one year ago when Larry Krystkowiak had his home debut as head coach of the Bucks. They played the Spurs and after Mo Williams got kicked out of the game for arguing calls, Lynn Greer came in and inspired a rally which propelled them to a win over — and season sweep of — the eventual NBA champions.

Last night, though, was different. The Bucks had a 7-point lead when Mo blew his top, arguing a foul call against him (which was an accurate call, by the way) until he got one technical. Exactly why he got the second one is an open question, but the fact remains that Mo was still standing near the offical at the time. Ime Udoka makes both free throws, the lead is cut to five, and the next thing you know the Bucks lose by two.

After Mo went out, credit the Spurs for adjusting. Bell replaced Mo and the Spurs turned up the defensive heat, pressing the Bucks into submission. Milwaukee went several minutes barely able to get the ball across half court and the ensuing 15-0 Spurs run would wind up giving them the game.

So how is the loss to be blamed on Larry Harris?

Because he’s the one who put together a team with only four guards on it. You’ve got to hand it to the Spurs — Popovich realized that once Mo was out, he wanted to force the Bucks to go small. So he gave Duncan a rest and moved Oberto to center alongside Parker, Ginobli, Finley and Udoka. Instant 8-0 run against Bogut, Villanueva, Mason, Redd and Bell. When Krystkowiak had to rest Redd and go small by pulling Villanueva he had to get significantly weaker by bringing in Simmons and Ivey. The Spurs extended that run to 15.

Statistically, the Bucks have had the worst bench in the entire league this season. A large part of that is that they get no offense from their backcourt. At least last season they had Greer on the bench behind Blake/Boykins. Between Ivey and Bell, there just isn’t enough help on the bench. So as soon as Mo takes a seat, a good defensive team realizes they are easy pickings.

Sorry I haven’t posted much recently — in addition to some family obligations, I’ve been starting my NBA Draft preview. I have, however, found time to update IPM and Power Rankings. The surprise of the rankings: I had no idea the Sixers had been playing so well over the last month (7th best Eastern team). Maybe they are the team that wants to jump up and grab the #8 playoff spot.

Now that the Bucks have run off a 3-1 stretch against playoff teams, capped by the spectacular ending to the Cleveland game, you have to wonder — has this team actually underachieved all year? Should this team actually be closer to 35 wins right now than 25?

Well, that’s pushing it — they are getting kind of lucky.

Going back to the New Orleans game before the all-star break, the Bucks have caught some favors from the schedule makers. The Hornets, Pistons and Nuggets were all coming into the Bradley Center in the second games of back-to-backs, while the Cavaliers were using only one player (LeBron James) who had been a starter for them just one week prior. With Ilgauskas out sick and Daniel Gibson injured, the rest of their starting lineup was made up of two new players (Ben Wallace and Delonte West) and two bench players (Anderson Varejao and Devin Brown — although Brown was quickly replaced with Wally Sczcerbiak). Lets just say that the Cavs weren’t very familiar with each other, kind of like a pickup team.

The good thing about this run is that they are now back on pace to grab a playoff spot, as I wrote earlier this month. After blowing two easy wins (Knicks and Clippers) I wrote them off for dead, but they have come back to win two games I had marked as losses and won one “toss up” game (five games which I felt they needed to go 3-2 in). Meanwhile Atlanta has slumped despite adding Mike Bibby and New Jersey and Chicago are struggling. The Bucks still have a shot at 34 wins, and that still might be good enough to get in.

If there is one huge compliment I can give Larry Krystkowiak it is this: after all the blowout losses early and after after the supposedly-contentious team meeting before the New Orleans game, this team has not given up.

But is Krystkowiak doing anything differently?

The first thing I thought is that Redd and Williams are getting more shots and the Bucks are playing at a faster pace. That’s not true at all. Redd and Williams may be getting a few more shots but they are playing more minutes as well — as a whole, the backcourt is still putting up about 40-45 shots per night. The Bucks haven’t picked up the pace, either. Their pace seems to be pretty consistently dictated by the team they play — not surprisingly the Denver game was the highest-paced Bucks game of the season, and the Cleveland and New Orleans games were relatively slow.

The biggest difference is that he seems to have said, “screw the front office, I’m not playing Yi any more.” It was as plain as day that Yi’s prolonged slump since New Years had been killing them, and the team is much better with Charlie Villanueva starting and paying attention for 35 mpg than floating through 20. I’m sure Yi isn’t complaining, either — with Yao out for the season and unlikely to be full strength for the Olympics, Yi will now be the centerpiece of Team China this summer. He’s going to have to work harder this summer than he ever would in the NBA — the rest of the Chinese National Team started practice for the Olympics a full three weeks ago. The only way Yi gets rest before next season is to get it now.

Krystkowiak has also decided to go for broke and bury his entire bench. This is an excellent move. There is plenty of statistical evidence to show that the Bucks’ bench has been the worst in the entire NBA this season, and remarkably as players like Bell, Ivey, Gadzuric and Simmons play less the Bucks record improves. Against Cleveland the entire bench played only 45 minutes and took three shots.

However, this no-bench strategy begs one question — how long can they go before exhaustion takes over and Redd or Williams’ shooting arm comes flying off? That’s why I’m still nervous about their playoff chances. Don’t get me wrong, I think that riding Redd, Williams and Bogut as far as they can take you is the right thing to do (since everyone else has proven that they can’t shoulder the load). But I don’t know how long you can go by playing Redd, Williams, Mason and Bogut between 37 and 47 minutes a night.

The bottom line, though, is I’d rather they lose by running and gunning with their best players on the floor, not by using “defenders” who can’t defend. And if they can keep shooting themselves into games and steal a few more wins this way, all the better.

Honestly, I wonder how the Denver Nuggets can ever lose a game. It seems like they have it all — dynamic scorers, a shot-blocking defensive presence, talented players coming off of the bench, and one solid power forward between the combination of Kenyon Martin and Nene.

But they do lose one out of three games. And thanks to a spectacular comeback by the Bucks, one of those losses came Saturday night.

I suppose it’s only fair for me to point out that on this night Krystkowiak proved me wrong about almost all of my compaints about him. These would be:

Slowing the game down to play a “defense first” game. This might have had more to do with Denver forcing the tempo and the Bucks having to fight back from a 23 point deficit, but the Bucks finally have started running an offense that puts the ball in the hands of their best offensive players — Redd and Williams — and lets them run and fire away at will. If any of their teammates want shots they have to hustle to keep up. This type of offense wont win championships and will sometimes lead to ugly losses when Redd or Mo never heat up but keep firing away. But it gives the Bucks the best chance to win any given game — and it means that they are never all the way out of a game. Maybe this is a result of the rumored team meeting before the All-Star break, or maybe Krystkowiak opened the offense up on his own initiative. Either way the results are clear — a 2-2 record in their last 4 games against 3 playoff teams.

Never playing Gadzuric and Bogut together. When Villanueva struggled mightily in the first quarter, I was happy to see Krystkowiak bring in some rebounding help for Bogut with Gadzuric instead of the knee-jerk move of subbing Yi in. I have a feeling that Coach K was most interested in avoiding a Yi-Kenyon Martin matchup than thinking about Gadzuric’s position, but no matter what the motivation it was the right move. In that stint, Gadzuric played nine minutes, grabbed 4 rebounds, blocked 2 shots and only took 2 shots. Perfect.

Using Charle Bell as a late-game “defender”. Even as the Bucks were charging back into the game I was telling everyone around me that Krystkowiak had to get Bell out because he wouldn’t be able to stop Carmelo Anthony one-on-one. On this night, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only did Bell do a great job on Anthony (holding him to two shots and 3 turnovers in the final 6:30, despite touching the ball on every posession), he also hit the 3-pointer that gave the Bucks their first 4th quarter lead. I still don’t think that using a 6’3″ player to defend small forwards is much of a percentage play, but it worked great on Saturday.

Is it time to get excited about a playoff push? I don’t really think so. Lets wait until the Bucks beat up on a few bad teams first. But you have to like what we’ve seen recently.

Also, one other thing I noticed during the Nuggets game — Kenyon Martin sits on the bench with his arms splayed out over the backs of empty seats on either side of him, and refuses to make room for teammates checking out of the game. Seems like a really good guy, doesn’t he?

With 29 games remaining, Bucks fans can pretty much forget about a playoff run, especially now that Atlanta has brought in a real point guard in Mike Bibby and it appears that the Jason Kidd trade has fallen apart for New Jersey. I suppose that it’s possible for this team to run off a long home winning streak (they do have 18 home games left), but to think that they can leap over four teams is a bit of a long shot.

So what else would I like to see over the rest of the season?

Choose an offensive identity and stick with it. All season long, I have expressed my frustration with Krystkowiak’s strategy of slowing the game down in an effort to improve the team’s defense. Of course, the net result is that the Bucks’ offense has gotten worse while their defense has stayed equally bad. There are indications that Krystkowiak now wants to open up the offense more, leading to more shots for Mo and Redd at the expense of Bogut. As far as I’m concerned, the faster a pace the Bucks play the better — if they are blessed with anything it is several high-percentage scorers, as their top five players all shoot better than 43.5% (and Redd is uncharacteristically low at that number). I’d much rather see this team trying to outscore teams rather than beat them with defense.

Rest Yi. Yi Jianlian has clearly hit the “rookie wall” and needs a break. The problem is that with Olympic duties looming this summer, Yi isn’t going to get much rest this summer. I wouldn’t mind if Yi comes up with a “sprained ankle” or “sprained shoulder” that keeps him out of a few games. Let him get some rest now, because the last thing we need to hear in training camp next season is how he’s tired from the summer.

Lots of playing time for Charlie Villanueva. Either at power forward or small forward, Villanueva needs to be in the starting lineup, playing big minutes, and showcasing himself for an offseason trade. Not counting the game in which he sprained his ankle, Charlie V averaged 17.6 points and 12 rebounds in his three starts. He is never going to start at power forward for this team (Yi is too important to the financial future of the franchise to ever be moved) so either we have to see if he can play small forward or move him. He’s about the most desirable trade chip this team has, so if he puts up big numbers in the final two months of the season he should garner some interest around the league.

Get Michael Redd some better shots. For any number of reasons, Redd has been suffering through a poor shooting season by his standards. To the casual observer it looks like he takes a ton of bad shots, but I think the problem is that he has been having trouble getting open. I believe that part of this is that he has been spending far to much time at small forward — where his size is negated by his lack of strength and quickness. But the rest of the offensive strategy has to bear some blame for not getting him open as well. You would think that the Bucks would run a steady diet of pick-and-rolls with Redd and Yi (only with Yi fading for a jumper than rolling to the basket).

But this brings me to something else I have noticed all season — is it possible that Redd is freezing out Yi? While Yi does not post up enough, I don’t think that I’ve seen Redd toss a post entry pass to Yi all year, and I’ve definitely seen Redd pass up on feeding Yi several times. I hate to think something like this about somebody like Redd, but could he be refusing to involve Yi because of jealousy over Yi’s profile in the recognition? Does Redd have a problem with not being the face of the franchise as he used to?

I’ve noticed this all season, but really started to wonder after the December 22 game against Charlotte, when Yi scored 29 points on 14-17 shooting. Yi had 25 after 3 quarters, and suddenly Redd started firing up shots from anywhere in the fourth, taking nine shots to Yi’s four. You could almost hear Redd saying, “No way this guy’s leading us in scoring tonight.” And while the Bucks led that game by 22 late in the third quarter, Redd’s decisions to pull the trigger early in the shot clock so many times contributed to the final victory margin only being four points.

It pains me to suggest this, but it does remind me of the 2002 Bulls when Jalen Rose openly refused to pass to Jay Williams. There’s absolutely no evidence to support what I’m saying, but it bears watching — I think that Redd’s next post entry pass to Yi will be his first.

Either extend Larry Harris’ contract — or don’t. For all of the complaints about how Harris has done as GM, the truth is that he has done about as well as he could in running a franchise that had been short-circuted by the mismanagement of Ernie Grunfeld (as he had traded away the Bucks’ 2004 first round pick in 2000 and had somehow managed to trade their 2003 pick along with Ray Allen for a two month rental of Gary Payton). Now Herb Kohl has a decision to make — either let Harris try to continue building the team, or to hand the reigns to someone else. My guess is that the answer will be someone else — and if the Bucks are silent on the trade front between now and the deadline, it will be a stong sign that Kohl has tied Harris’ hands and that he will be gone before the NBA draft.

Stop getting blown out by good teams! As the Dallas and New Orleans game showed, there was no reason for the incredible early-season run of 20+ point blowout losses to good teams. This is probably the single biggest indictment of Larry Krystkowiak’s coaching philosophy — good teams have chewed up his gameplans in minutes. This team may not be a championship contender, but it also has no business getting blown out at a pace similar to that of the worst teams in NBA history.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask for. I don’t want them to tank games for draft position (this years’ draft looks to be full of busts to me). I just want this team to play hard, not to quit on their coach, and to be competitive through the end of the year.

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.