Bucks Buzz: Monday March 10th

Even though it has been a bad year for Milwaukee thus far, Mitch Pratt and Charlie Tritschler will provide you with a bi-weekly update on the Bucks ranging from recaps, links and other neat stuff.  

Hot Recap Takes

Thursday: Pelicans 112 Bucks 104  -  Spirted effort from Milwaukee's professional basketball team. They played the Pellies tough throughout the whole four quarters, but they could not get it done down in the Nola. A trend continued on Friday when Anthony Davis took Bucks' big man to the absolute woodshed with a 29 point, 14 rebound performance along with five assists and a couple blocks. He took full control inside plus they got a great game from Tyreke Evans with 25 points. Milwaukee got another great game from Jeff Adrien whom matched his career-high from the night before by having 20 points and 10 rebounds in a losing effort. Adrien is playing at such a high level right now, which now means he will get overpaid by this franchise. John Henson deserves some love too as he started for Ersan Ilyasova and had 12 points with six rebounds, one of his better performances of late. O.J. Mayo decided he did not need to play this one after shoving former Wisconsin Badger Greg Stiemsma in the throat/face area which got him ejected

Saturday: Wizards 114 Bucks 107 - If Milwaukee would have came to play in the first half, this might have been a different game. They gave up 75 points digging a 22 point hole at the break. Milwaukee came back from half to hold Washington to only 10 points in the third quarter, but could not complete the comeback getting their 50th loss of the season. Trevor Ariza continued his hot stretch of late having 28 points with five threes including seven rebounds. Additionally, Washington got five more threes from Bradley Beal as he dropped 23 points. If John Wall beats you, that's okay, but to have the other players take you down is a little disappointing. As for Milwaukee, their backcourt had a nice game with Brandon Knight filling it up with 25 points on 9/20 shooting with Nasty Nate Wolters adding 10 points of his own along with a positive PER.

Bucks and Fox Sports Wisconsin, how can it be fixed?
As some Bucks fans learned on Saturday night, the game was not on television. This disappointed a lot of people including yours truly as it would have been fun to see Milwaukee take on the Wizards, one of the best young teams in basketball.  I do not understand why they chose home games to get the ax. I could totally get them not wanting to bring their cameras to New Orleans as that matchup does not really drive up the needle, but for whatever reason, they felt Saturday's game was less important than Friday. There needs to be a better plan in place for this sort of things. Look at some of the perceived worst teams, and when Milwaukee visits them, give them the ax. I realize we are not getting 82 games of Bucks basketball because that's how it works with FOX Sports, but let's try to figure out a better balance with these games.  

Links
Journal Sentinel had a nice write up about Henson's struggles in his second year. I met John on Saturday afternoon as we were at the same event. Good dude honesty. Down to earth guy who does not think he is better than anyone else.

Nice look from the people of Bucksetball looking at the Gary Neal trade after about a month later. Ramon Sessions and Adrien have been special.

What to watch
I would look for the Bucks durability. This sort of runs into the schedule, but the Bucks play five games in seven days. Luckily for Milwaukee, everyone is off suspension and healthy.

Upcoming schedule
They play Orlando tonight, a team they have beaten this year and then they travel to Minnesota on Tuesday night. Bucks could get one of two here. Doubt they would take both of them.

Charlie.

Tapping The Keg Podcast Episode 77

Tapping The Keg podcast is back for another edition as Charlie and Mitch discuss all sorts of things in a nice 45 minute podcast.  We start off talking about the distinctive music tastes around the United States of America, Milwaukee Bucks talk ranging from Caron Butler's buyout to Jeff Adrien being a part of the long-term plan for the team. We move on to discuss about Johnny Manziel and the criticism around him. Mitch and Charlie do a non-Hank The Dog edition of talking about Milwaukee Brewers ranging from their over/under number, Spring Training get started and Yankees interested Rickie Weeks. Our discussion carries us to James Jones and his future with Green Bay. Mitch rants quickly about U.S. Hockey. We finish up talking Jason Collins and the culture of sports.

Charlie & Mitchell.

Bucks Buzz: Monday February 24th

Even though it has been a bad year for Milwaukee thus far, Mitch Pratt and Charlie Tritschler will provide you with a bi-weekly update on the Bucks ranging from recaps, links and other neat stuff.  

Hot Recap Takes

Thursday: Nuggets 101 Bucks 90 -   Pretty much from start to finish, Milwaukee received a beatdown again from Denver. They were outscored in the first quarter and the ball kept rolling downwards from there. Kenneth Faried had his way with Milwaukee defenders going 11/15 from the field and had 26 points taking Ersan Ilyasova's lunch money for the whole game. J.J. Hickson had a double-double with 14 points and 10 assists. Randy Foye had one as well with 12 points and 10 assists. Seven of eight Denver players had a positive PER while Milwaukee had only one player reach a zero PER with John Henson, the rest were in the negatives. Giannis Antetokounmpo filled up the box score nicely with eleven points, four rebounds and assists, three blocks and two steals. A nice game from Henson as well with 12 points and seven rebounds. But overall, a pretty putrid performance from Milwaukee.

Saturday: Pacers 110 Bucks 100 - This is one of those 'atta boy' games for the Bucks. They hung with Indiana for the whole game with an admirable comeback in the end of the game. Basically, their best players beat Milwaukee with Paul George and David West both having 30 plus points with Lance Stephenson adding 24 points. Given their struggles against big men, it was interesting to see Roy Hibbert have a marginal game with only four points going 1/9 from the field. Indiana was just too good for Milwaukee on Y2K night. As for Milwaukee, a game where you get really excited about Brandon Knight. He had 30 points and eight assists with no turnovers. He played great throughout the game and make people wonder just how high his ceiling is with Milwaukee and for his career. Jeff Adrien had a strong debut pulling down eleven rebounds off the bench. Good start to what might be his short career with Milwaukee.

Three Bucks land on Bill Simmons' Worst Contracts List 
This is a yearly column from Simmons and it was not very kind to Milwaukee. O.J. Mayo and Ersan Ilyasova definitely deserves to be there. Mayo is proving to just be a guy that wanted to cash a check and thinks it is a good excuse to be fat. Ersan knows he can mail it in and the owner will not take umbrage with his game. Milwaukee will be better place when he is off the team. Larry Sanders' addition to this is a little harsh. This has just been a bad season for Larry, but he is still worth that contract. Almost every team in the NBA would want Sanders if he was healthy because he is not as much of a problem as people like Simmons and others are making him out to be. Sanders had just started to come on with his season before breaking eye bone. He will be just fine next season. Biggest encouraging thing for Sanders which Simmons missed out on, he became a veteran leader for Giannis. If you want an example on why Mayo belongs on this list, see this Vine from K.L. Chouinard.



Links
Here the stuff on Ersan I referred to the previous paragraph. If this is true, it would be yet another red mark against Herb Kohl as an owner.

If David Kahn becomes involved with the Bucks, they should end the Save Our Bucks movement and start pleading with investors to take this team to Seattle.

For the Y2K night, the Bucks found the 'Light Em Up' video. Tim Thomas lit more up than baskets if you know what I am saying. Also where is the one with Mark Pope. We need that version.

What to watch
Milwaukee plays Philadelphia on Monday night and I feel like that could be social media's finest hour. Will people watch this game just to see how bad the effort will be from both teams? Will one team actually get blown out? Will I become legitimately concerned if the Bucks win?

Upcoming schedule
As I said, they play Philadelphia on Monday and then they play Indiana again on Thursday. Thanks NBA schedulers for two Indiana games in the span of a week, appreciate it.

Charlie.