Tag Archives: Charles Barkley

NBA Playoffs: Coaching, Discipline, Rebounding and 50/50 plays . . . Bucks vs. Celtics Game 2 . . . Sterling Brown does not have slow feet . . . Bledsoe becomes twitter fodder

2nd Chance Points after two games of the Bucks-Celtics series: Boston 42, Milwaukee 13.

The Celtics have hauled down 20 offensive rebounds in all, plus four additional chances on team rebounds, converting 17 of 24 total opportunities. How do you score 42 points on 17 made shots? Three-point plays — which means the soul-crushing reality of Games 1 and 2 is that on 8 possessions the Celtics made the Bucks poor rebounding pay out big with and-ones and 3-pointers.

(Click HERE for the Game 1 official scorers’ report, and HERE for the Game 2 report).

The Bucks in Boston relied heavily on their starting front court — John Henson, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton. Giannis has been on the court for all but 13 of the 101 game minutes in the series, while Middleton and Henson have played 78% of the available playing time at small forward and center, respectively.

Giannis has grabbed 22 rebounds on his own.
Middleton and Henson have come up with 12 boards apiece, with Henson’s 10% rebounding rate a lower than low number for a starting NBA center.

What else is there to say? The Bucks’ need for help in the middle for the playoffs shouted at Bucks GM Jon Horst all season long and every time down the stretch the Bucks ran into a team with a good center. It’s too late now, and the Bucks are in dire need of professional help, perhaps divine intervention from the basketball gods. The editorial board at Bob Boozer Jinx recommends the following instructional video by the legendary Red Auerbach.

There you have it. Only shooting the ball is more important, yet the Bucks have outshot the Celtics 58% (eff. FG%) to 54%, only to fall into an 0-2 hole. The rebounding problem has been that bad, and the Celtics too opportunistic for the Bucks to beat.

The reliance on Henson has been curious. Henson has played 74 of the 101 total minutes of the series, unheard of playing time for the J-Hook, who’s career per game playing time average is 20.4. This season he played 25.9 mpg, and the Bucks should go back to this — the “10 more minutes of someone not John Henson” strategy.

Interim coach Joe Prunty has all but benched Tyler Zeller, the undersized big man Horst managed to acquire before the 2018 deadline. Zeller wasn’t the best option by any means, and he’s more of a power forward who doesn’t shoot threes; but the trade — for little used 2015 draft bust Rashad Vaughn — was a good one.

Thon Maker, the Bucks tree-like, still-developing project, has been benched. I had hoped Thon would see some minutes in the series, at least for the experience and the extreme hustle Thon busts into the game.

Are these lame-duck coaching decisions by Prunty or the dictates of the front office and GM Horst? Bucks fans may never know. What we do know is that it isn’t working.

Sterling Brown is not slow-footed

In the 8:47 Sterling Brown played in the 4th quarter Tuesday, Brown impressed (as usual) with his defense, quickness and foot speed on the wings. The latter — the foot speed — viewed in juxtaposition to Tony Snell and Malcolm Brogdon in the first three quarters, was a good lesson on what ails the Bucks defense. If this series has emphasized how soft the Bucks are in the middle, it has also exposed the slow feet of the Bucks rotation players on the wings — and this includes Middleton.

The long arms and good shooting are great. But if they’re not blocking shots (they’re not) and slow off the bounce, getting beat to the spots on the wings, what then? The result is the poor defense that has plagued the Bucks for three seasons now — and open shots and drives for the Celtics quicker, more athletic wings, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Hopefully, we’ll see more Sterling in Milwaukee.

Then there’s THIS. The natives are restless in Milwaukee. Eric Bledsoe‘s being outplayed by Kyrie Irving‘s backup, Terry Rozier, and the world is letting him know all about it. Charles Barkley, too.

Charles Barkley helped remind Eric Bledsoe exactly who Terry Rozier is pic.twitter.com/StkoeodCr9

— NOTSportsCenter (@NOTSportsCenter) April 18, 2018

Ouch.

J.D. Mo’s gotta run, not much time to dwell on the Bucks this midweek. The truth about this Bucks-Celtics series holds — the Bucks only needed to win one game in Boston to win the series. The one win could have happened in Game 1 as the Bucks headed to overtime; it can come in Game 5 or Game 7.

But the Bucks cannot lose at home. Game 3 in Milwaukee Friday is MUST-win or the season’s all over and done but for the angry tweets. Here’s more from Red: “Did you see that rebound?”

Sourcerole

Official Scorer’s report, Bucks-Celtics Game 1, 4/15/18 –http://www.nba.com/data/html/nbacom/2017/gameinfo/20180415/0041700111_Book.pdf
Official Scorer’s report, Bucks-Celtics Game 2, 4/17/18 –http://www.nba.com/data/html/nbacom/2017/gameinfo/20180417/0041700112_Book.pdf
Series Box Score and Advanced Boxscore at Basketball-reference – https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/2018-nba-eastern-conference-first-round-bucks-vs-celtics.html

The “Ginobili rules” of the West don’t put the Spurs in title contention

Leave a reply

He took the ball on a bounce after a sloppy, tipped inbound. He held it too long, allowing precious seconds tick away, robbing his team of any chance for an offensive rebound if his final shot missed. He advanced then toward Luc Mbah a Moute, one of the best defenders — if not the best defender — in basketball. He drove hard left but Mbah a Moute was there first. He pushed Luc off with his right arm but not far enough — Mbah a Moute stayed right on him as he planted a pivot foot. He had no time and no choice but to jump full back, with both feet — traveling — and tossed up a 20-footer that barely lofted over Mbah a Moute’s outstretched hand.

No whistles. The jumper poured through the hoop at the buzzer, giving the Spurs a 92-90 win over the Bucks.

“He” is Manu Ginobili, Charles Barkley’s second favorite player. How about Charles’ boy this week?

“You mean that he travelled?” – Sir Charles doth speaketh. “… That’s a travel. In all 50 states, that’s a travel.”

Not in San Antonio, Texas, on a Wednesday night in December — and not when the 10-13 Milwaukee Bucks were on the verge of pulling off a Texas sweep of the teams with the best records in the West. Are the Spurs and Mavs truly title contenders? Maybe. But no, not if Boston and Miami continue playing the way they’re playing, not really. Not if they’re struggling — and the Mavs failing — to beat the Bucks in Texas.

It’s been two-plus seasons since Ginobili, Parker and Duncan made the West Finals but the story seems to be that this summer they “banded together” for a title run in 2011. It’s an improbable story when you consider that they haven’t really been close to a title since 2007 when they last won; and it’s not a story everybody’s buying into — the Denver Nuggets certainly didn’t on Thursday night. FoxSports “In the Paint” NBA analyst Marques Johnson this week qualified his take on the Spurs and Mavs as “the best in the West” with a telling … “for now.” And he says it twice for emphasis.

Marques (1977-1984) was the greatest forward to ever wear a Bucks uniform, the only Buck not named Kareem or Sidney to be a 1st team All-Pro. It’s always strange to see Junior Bridgeman‘s #2 up in the BC rafters (though they on the court together for roughly half the game, Bridgeman was Marques’ backup) while Marques’ #8 is still in circulation, worn by rookie Larry Sanders (heck, I’d wear it too if I were a Bucks rookie). Like Barkley, Marques is more keen on the Mavs chances — probably figuring that Dirk Nowitzki is the one player whom none of his contending Bucks teams would have had a defense for. The Spurs? “The Spurs are the Spurs,” Johnson shrugged.

But the thing that’s going unmentioned in the NBA this week by Marques, Barkley or anybody is that neither the Spurs or Mavs looked like championship contenders against the Bucks — a concession perhaps to the idea that the Bucks have the unluckiest 10-14 record in basketball and are so-under-the-radar in terms of contention that you need sonar to track them. The Bucks haven’t backed away from any challenges since Andrew Bogut came back into the lineup, including the Heat, but that’s not the point — nobody’s going to talk about the Bucks until they start putting the ball in the basket with more regularity, go on a winning streak and actually beat the Heat, which they’ll get two chances to do the first week of January.

The point is, the Bucks were screwed in San Antonio — no other way to put it. The refs didn’t just eat their whistles on Ginobili’s buzzer beater, they were loathe the entire game to call fouls on the Spurs starting five. That isn’t going to happen if and when the Spurs meet Kobe, Gasol and the Lakers in the playoffs.

Here’s the foul story: One on Manu, one on Parker, one on DeJuan Blair and three on Tim Duncan, who was guarding Bogut most of the night and basically humped his arm with the score tied 90-90 and the Bucks trying to feed their All-Star center in the post. No fouls on Richard Jefferson. That’s six fouls in 150 minutes played by the Spurs starters — or an astounding one foul per 25 minutes played, which means the refs were not about to whistle even 5 fouls on the Spurs starters per 120 mins of available PT in a half.

Brandon Jennings was hacked all night by Tony Parker and battered to a 4-18 shooting night. Yet the Bucks, with John Salmons and Corey Maggette all but benched for the game and Carlos Delfino still recovering from a head injury, had the ball with the score tied at 90 and 30 seconds to play.

The following night in Denver it was more of the same for the Spurs, playing at full strength against the Chauncey-less Nuggets. Duncan fouled out two or three times by my count but was only whistled for four, even as his counterpart, Nene Hilario, was fouled out. Parker — who fouls everybody in sight — was caught for all of one foul playing 37 minutes. In the end it was Manu twisting for a layup to give the Spurs the lead and then saving the game by leaping into Carmelo Anthony‘s path to draw a charge as time expired — taking the winning points off the Denver scoreboard.

Was Ginobili there, planted in position in time? It was close, too close not to question — but it was Manu. Of course the call went his way, whether or not what he did was to jump — leap, literally, both feet in the air from the weakside — under Carmelo as Carmelo (31 pts in the game) was gathering to lift to the rim.

But hey — it was Manu. Tough luck, Carmelo. “Bullshit,” said Nuggets coach George Karl. The Spurs are now 22-3, the best record in basketball and they’re playing at full strength in December. It’s the fastest start in Spurs history. But I watched the Spurs lose twice this week, and so did you — only to see the refs award them the wins. No, the Spurs are no title contender — they don’t have the muscle in the paint to help Duncan and truly contend, and no amount of magical refereeing will allow the Manu and Parker and RJ show to carry them to the finals.

Call the Spurs a lucky 22-3, as lucky as the Bucks 10-14 mark has been unlucky and injury riddled. As lucky as the Bears 9-4 record atop the NFC North (oh, that’s probably stretching it). The luck of things in the NBA have a tendency to even out over the grueling 82-game schedule — let’s not go ahead and crown their asses yet. Remember, against the Bucks, the Spurs were posterized in the 4th quarter by, of all people, Drew Gooden.

********************************

“I still don’t think he’s a center” — Kevin McHale on the Hawks Al Horford — who is not a center despite the Hawks insistence (under Mike Woodson anyway) that Horford is a 6’11″center. In Boston, Horford had just hit an early 18-footer against the Celtics, and McHale noted that Horford’s improving 18-footer was the thing that “separates him from other big forwards.” Al Horford, power forward. Too small to start against Andrew Bogut and other centers (that task goes to Hawks big man Jason Collins), and too small at 6’9 to appear on center ranking lists. Hopefully, commentary like McHale’s is a sign that Bogut will be making his All-Star game debut in Los Angeles in February.

*************************

Bogut since his return against the Magic Dec. 4: 19.8 pts – 14.2 rebs – 4 blks – 1 steal – 2.3 assists per game. Add in the possessions that he turns over by taking charges and the result is a center playing better now than Dwight Howard. Overall, Bogut leads the NBA in blocks per game (3.1) and has the 3rd-best defensive rating in the league (96.5 pts allowed per 100 possessions when he’s on the court) behind Kevin Garnett and Howard. That’s the sort of company AB keeps these days.

If Bogut keeps it up and continues hitting 55% of his shots (50 of 89 since tipping it off against the Magic), the Bucks should weather the current scheduling nightmare (and AB’s horrendous free throw shooting) by earning a few tough road wins in the West — and be right on the Bulls’ tails by late January.

***************************

Speaking of centers and the Bulls, Joakim Noah will be out nursing a broken right thumb until after the All-Star break. With the Bucks in the middle of the toughest stretch of basketball in the league this season, fate (or Bulls management) has conspired to make sure the Bulls don’t run away with the Central. The Bulls can’t and won’t keep up their 16-8 pace (and 3rd-ranked defense) without their defensive anchor in the paint having the All-Star season he was having — but the Bucks have a six game hole to climb out of while playing the toughest December-early January schedule in the league.

The Bucks play Dec. 28 and Jan. 24 in Chicago. Noah will miss both of those, which means the Bucks won’t get a chance to see the Rose-Noah-Boozer Bulls until Feb. 26 in Milwaukee. That’s too bad, because a Bucks-Bulls game without Joakim Noah is like playing the Celtics without Kevin Garnett — it takes the fun out of the battle for the paint. I wonder if Bogut will miss him.

I can’t help but wonder, though, given that 2-handed push shot that Noah throws up at the rim, what he needs his right thumb for?

The Revenge of the Airball struck again in Philly

8 Replies

The Bucks just can’t shake the mojo that the Philadelphia 76ers have over them, and they fell victim to it once again Friday in a regrettable 90-79 loss to the (ouch) 2-10 Sixers in Philly. Throw the team records out — Sixers have won three of the last five matchups and 6 0f 8 since Scott Skiles took over as coach. Philly had won 7 straight before the Bucks seemingly broke the spell last January in what was likely Allen Iverson’s last game in the arena where he staged so many of his career highlights – the Bradley Center.

The Sixers have always been the Bucks nemesis, their greatest rival when times were good and Nellie’s Bucks in the early 1980’s were one of the best teams in the NBA — one of the best teams in history never to win a title, and certainly the best team in NBA history never to play in the Finals. Forget 1991, the year the 48-win Del Harris Bucks were swept out of the playoffs by Charles Barkley’s Sixers — there was something else amiss in Philly’s recent domination of the Bucks. It can be traced back to Iverson’s first shot in the NBA, an airball that bounced harmlessly out of bounds on Nov. 1, 1996.

Was the spell broken last January? Alas, no — “The Airball” is still exacting its revenge, and the Sixers showed Friday that they don’t need “The Answer,” Andre Iguodala or Sam Dalembert to stymie the Bucks — Thaddeus Young and Lou Williams will do just fine, shades of 2008 and 2009 when the Sixers were winning seven straight against the sluggish Michael Redd teams. Interesting to note that Young and Williams are Mo Cheeks players, guys who, like their coach in his playing days, have always seemed to light up when they see a Milwaukee Bucks uniform.

The 5-8 Bucks. The silver lining for the Bucks these days could be the realization that, for the most part — until last weekend — they’ve been playing fairly well against a tough early season schedule and coming up painfully short in a few close games (two against the Hornets, OT in Boston and Saturday in a very winnable game against the Thunder, playing without Kevin Durant, the league’s leading scorer. Add that one-point loss to either of the Hornets games as one the Bucks want back.

Yet it’s some consolation that their strength of schedule ranking is 12th in the league, better than everybody in the Central Division but the Bulls, with two Central games on the schedule this week in Cleveland and Detroit. On some level, the Bucks have simply been an unlucky team that can’t catch a break.

The Bucks schedule for the first 35 games is tough, at no time tougher than next week when they head west for a Utah-Denver road swing, then come back home to play the Heat and the Magic. No, it’s not much consolation, but the Bucks record should eventually turn around. It will probably take a while … and they’ll have to do some good work on the road in the west in December to mitigate the depth of the hole they’ll likely be in come January. Maybe they’ll even get lucky a time or two.

Bogut ranked #2 in Ball Don’t Lie center ratings

Leave a reply

Defense matters in the NBA. When it comes to the best big men in the world, there is Dwight Howard and then there is Bucks center Andrew Bogut. Ball Don’t Lie’s Kelly Dwyer — one of most dogged NBA junkies in the blogosphere — concurs.

Bucks fans have seen Bogut improve every year in the face of a couple of broken noses, a smashed kneecap, a bashed upper thigh and a troublesome lower back. The rest of the NBA finally took notice last February as Bogues — healthy at last — anchored coach Scott Skiles’ tenacious, turnover machine defense and at age 25 seized the mantle of leadership, lifting his Bucks out of the abyss of the Michael Redd era and reenergizing a fan base that had been dormant since the trade of Ray Allen in 2003.

No, Bogut didn’t make the 2010 All-Star team but everybody from Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy to the TNT’s Round Mound of opinion, Charles Barkley, went on record saying he should have — and would have had the Eastern Conference coaches been able to recast their ballots a couple of weeks after the voting deadline. At season’s end, Bogut was voted 3rd team All-Pro by the league’s media, just missing the 2nd team with the 11th highest overall vote total.

Dwyer, at heart a Bulls fan and a bonafide Scott Skiles expert, tends to pay more attention to the Bucks than most NBA geeks, and his meta-awareness of the game’s sometimes unmeasurable intangibles is unrivaled. Here’s his take on Bogut:

That’s right. The man who I think is the second-best center in the NBA didn’t even make the All-Star team last season.

This isn’t me trying to be obscure — Bogut was a No. 1 overall pick fercryin’outloud. It’s just the end result of seeing this guy work expertly on either end of the court last season. Bogut was an at-times dominant defender on par with Dwight Howard, especially when Howard started 2009-10 slow. And Bogut’s versatile offensive game still isn’t being taken advantage enough by his Bucks teammates.

All he does is do everything well, save for the odd trip to the free-throw line. And because he turns 26 just a month into the season and so many other bigs are either playing out of position, coming back from injury or starting to put it all together, I think Bogut establishes himself as a clear No. 2 in 2010-11. To those that pay attention to defense, at least.

As for Dwyer’s Top 11, I’ve gotta take issue with Hawks big man Al Horford‘s #4 ranking, and I think it’s fair to say that the Lakers Pau Gasol plays as much center as teammate Andrew Bynum (#5), given Bynum’s ever-nagging knee problems. Spurs Hall-of-Famer-to-be Tim Duncan plays center most of the time, too, it should be noted, and deserves to be in the Top 5, nevermind the Spurs’ insistence on listing Duncan as a forward, which they’ve continued to do since David Robinson retired in 2003. Duncan’s the Spurs center.

Ranking Brook Lopez # 3 seems to beg a “what has Lopez accomplished?” question, and wouldn’t a lot of teams take Joakim Noah’s defense and rebounding over Lopez’s sometimes uninspired D? No way is Lopez the #3 center in the league but I realize that Dwyer was giving a nod to Lopez’s offensive game and that youth weighed in KD was balancing his criteria.

I could quibble all day into next season about rankings 3-11 (that’s what we obnoxious and insufferable NBA blogo-junkies do). But the spot that Dwyer nailed was the one that mattered most and is most contentious among NBA faithful who care about center play — #2 behind Howard. Bogut earned it last season and will have to fight to defend it through the coming season as guys like Lopez, Bynum, Noah, Greg Oden and Marc Gasol continue to improve and they all try to stay as healthy as the freakishly fit Dwight from another planet. I can’t wait.

And damn you Dwyer for getting your center rankings done before I even started mine.

Revenge of the Airball: The Sixers’ strange spell over the Bucks

Leave a reply

What did the Milwaukee Bucks ever do to the Philadelphia 76ers? Was it drafting Julius Erving in 1972 when he didn’t want anything to do with Brewtown, and, a few years later — preventing the Hawks from signing him out of the ABA? Or was it drafting somebody named Russ Lee six picks before the Doctor? Did the Bucks commit some cosmic offense to the basketball gods in the first round of the 1987 playoffs when they failed to close the Sixers out in Philly, moving the Dr. J retirement party to the Bradley Center — ensuring that the Doctor would suffer his final loss in front of Bucks fans? Didn’t Doc owe us at least that, small enough consolation though it was for the pain and suffering he and Bobby Jones and Mo Cheeks caused in the 1981, ’82, ’83 and ’85 playoffs?

Was it the Milwaukee police arrest of Charles Barkley in December 1991 for breaking some duffus’ nose outside Rosie’s on Water? A Milwaukee jury had the common sense to acquit Sir Charles of any wrongdoing, agreeing the punch was thrown in self defense. … Or was it this, on Nov. 1, 1996? —

Allen Iverson’s first shot in the NBA: (Unfortunately, some entity — the NBA, the Sixers or the Bucks — claimed protected rights on video of Allen Iverson and Ray Allen’s first minutes in the NBA, so the video evidence of AI’s first NBA shot and Ray Allen’s first made NBA 20-footer and first made NBA 3-pointer is no longer available … but read on ….)

I have a feeling it has something to do with that shot — the airball — #1 overall pick Iverson’s first field goal attempt in the NBA, his first shot on the Philly home court that he would ritually kiss before each game — an off balance fall-away off an aborted drive — drawing no rim in his premiere game for the fans who would grow to love him. That shot, the airball, even as his rookie Big East rival, Ray Allen, tickled the bottom of net with sweet jumpers, sinking both his first midrange two and, before he Answer could respond, his first high-arcing shot from 3-point land, that place that would become forever known as the Land of Ray and Reggie. The rhetoric of the 1996 draft — “Stephon Marbury creates shots for others/woulda been better for the Sixers” prognosis was out on parade, voiced in the clip by Bucks bland-alyist Jon McGlocklin — though you’d have to know that Johnny Mac was also taking a backhand swipe at the Bucks for drafting Marbury #4 and swapping him for a future draft pick and Ray, whom the Timberwolves had taken 5th. McGlocklin was one of the many thousands who thought the Bucks needed a “true” point guard, not a scorer, and obviously had similar thoughts about the Sixers, who had already had a young gunner — 22-year-old Jerry Stackhouse — in the fold. *(see notes on Stackhouse below)*

Iverson went on to score 30 opening night, 1996, but the Bucks won the game, 111-103 and took the season series 3-1, then winning the first two the next season in Larry Brown‘s first year as Sixers coach. But Brown and Iverson turned the tables in the remaining two 1998 Bucks-Sixers games, then went 9-4 over the next four season, beating the Sam, Ray & Dog “Big Three” teams 7 out of ten times. If the Iverson-Ray rivalry was on — and it was — advantage Sixers. Nothing screamed this louder than the bitter 7-game 2001 Eastern Conference Finals, still the NBA standard for crooked refereeing. Most of the shady stuff occurred in Philly but Game 4, the crucial game that would have put the Bucks up 3-1, was hijacked at the BC in a blur of calls and non-calls as the walking wounded Sixers were given new life. The series would live on in infamy, tarnishing Shaq’s 2nd title in LA if only the East Finals were more well-remembered. But they’re not. One of the NBA’s greates travesties wasn’t left on the cutting room floor of ESPN columnist Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball (publ. fall 2009) — Simmons simply forgot it. That’s OK, Bill. The Bob Boozer Jinx remembers.

Since Iverson dropped 5 of those first 6 games against Ray Allen, the Sixers are 28-15 vs. the Bucks, with many of the Answer’s career highlights achieved at Milwaukee’s expense, including a 45-point masterpiece in a 124-120 OT win in Philly, Jan. 3, 2000. For a few years, Iverson held the record for most points by an opponent at the Bradley Center (broken last season by Lebron James), dropping 54 on Michael Redd and Mo Williams, good defenders that they weren’t, more interested in filling up their own box scores than stopping AI from filling up his and winning the game. It was pure streetball that night at the BC, and Iverson was worth the price of admission. There was a down season for the Sixers against the Bucks after Brown quit and resurfaced in Detroit, and another in Iverson’s last full season in Philly, when he took one look at the rookie Andrew Bogut and realized that Ray Ray probably hadn’t been a Buck for years. The rivalry had become one-sided. The airball had been avenged, and it probably should have ended there, in Dec. 2006, when Iverson was traded to Denver for Andre Miller.

But it didn’t end there, and lately, the Revenge of the Airball has hit the Bucks hard: the Sixers have won 8 out of the last 10, and had won six straight until the Bucks 91-88 victory Jan. 27, very likely the Answer’s last game ever on the Milwaukee court that has been so kind to him. I was there to see it, and though Iverson gave way to Louis Williams in the 4th quarter, I caught a basketball high watching AI chase Brandon Jennings all over the court, both of them wearing #3, the young Buck honoring the old Sixer, his hero. I also believed I was witnessing the breaking of the Sixers’ spell. When Iverson left the team a couple of weeks later for personal reasons and didn’t come back, and the Bucks went on a 15-2 tear after acquiring John Salmons, I was sure it was over. Boy, was I wrong.

Wednesday night the Sixers, a dismal 24-47 and without two of their best players, Williams and Thaddeus Young, blew the Bucks out of the Bradley Center. Willie Green (16 pts) couldn’t miss until his team was up by 20. Rookie point guard Jrue Holiday (15 pts) proved unguardable for Jennings and Luke Ridnour. Center Sam Dalembert, as usual, locked down Bogut, with some help from 2nd-year big man Marreese Speights, and Dalembert was almost perfect under the basket for 12 pts, 10 rebs. Andre Iguodala played lock down defense on Salmons and was off to the races in the open court, where Iggy’s Sixers teams are at their best. Power forward Elton Brand, who’s done most of the damage for the Sixers vs. the Bucks this season (also singled out as the force of gravity slowing down Iggy and the gang since becoming a Sixer) didn’t have to break a sweat or make more than a shot. Brand was 1-7 from the floor in 27 uninspired minutes, while the Sixers young guns had a blast. Jodie Meeks, traded by the Bucks a month ago with Francisco Elson to the Sixers for Royal Ivey, Primoz Brezec and a draft pick, got into the act with 7 pts. The Bucks managed to make up a few points in garbage time for a 101-86 final.

Clearly, the Sixers’ mastery over the Bucks has extended beyond the corn-rowed one and the rivalry of a decade ago. Iverson was in Denver and Detroit and Memphis for the eight most recent Bucks losses, make that nine. The Sixers are now 9-3 vs. the Bucks since trading Iverson to the Nuggets, while going 127-155 (.454) against the rest of the NBA. But coach Maurice Cheeks had figured out that speed and nasty defense could be tough on the slow-footed Bucks, even as the detrus of Iverson and the rivalry remained, infecting his teammates with the necessary Buck-beating mojo. Iggy got it, and there was Dalembert (who seems to enjoy his matchup against Bogut). Guards Williams and Green were on those teams, and it infected Thad Young when he came along the next year. Now it seeems to have Holiday and sharpshooter Jason Kapano, too, after playing with Iverson for only a month. And, hey, look who’s back from a one-year exile in Minnesota — forward Rodney Carney, a Sixers rookie during the trade year. Carney killed the Bucks last year in a game at Minnesota, with 22-points and a 4th quarter 3-point barrage. I could mention ex-Sixer Kyle Korver here, too, but that would be redundant. There is something to this Sixers hex, the Philly jinx. The Revenge of the Airball.

If the fact that Wednesday’s loss was clearly beyond the red-hot Bucks’ earthly control wasn’t enough, take a look at how one other Sixer from those post Brown-Iverson teams did in the game. He’s on the Bucks (for now), and on Monday scored 32 in a classic 4th quarter shootout with the Hawks’ Joe Johnson. Yes, the Bucks salvation at shooting guard, John Salmons, predated even Dalembert in Phlly, playing his rookie year in Brown’s final Sixers season. Salmons played four years with Iverson under five different coaches (Cheeks the last one) shooting the ball five or six times a game off the bench if he was lucky.

Salmons was 2-12 Wednesday night in 30 mins against the Sixers and the hex, the Revenge of the Airball. He finished with 4 pts and as many turnovers (1) and fouls (2) as rebounds (1), assists (1) and steals (1). That airball of Iverson’s just never seems to get enough revenge.

*Note: Jerry Stackhouse started his career in Philly and played with Iverson in AI’s rookie year, but lasted only 22 games into the following season. I’m guessing that because he was unhappy playing second fiddle to Iverson and asked to be traded (he went to Detroit), Stack is probably exempt from any effects of whatever it is I’m calling this Iverson thing. Stackhouse was in just his third season when the Philly-Detroit trade went down, which tells us that …

A) Allen Iverson was horrendous to be around early in his career,

B) Jerry Stackhouse was quite the 23-year-old prima donna for a guy who would never go on to make All-Pro, or

C) Both A and B are true, and Larry Brown certainly wasn’t about to let Stack slash the tires on the Iverson-mobile.

Behind the Bucks surge

Leave a reply

The Bucks were the talk of the NBA even before beating the Celtics Tuesday, as TNT analyst David Aldridge honed in on the job Scott Skiles has done this year. In his Monday “Morning Tip” column at NBA.com, Aldridge wrote that Skiles is “doing one of the best coaching jobs in the league.”

Skiles credits the fact that the Bucks didn’t give up during the tough part of their schedule in January.

“The M.O. of our franchise over the past several years, anyway, has been to kind of get down, fall behind a little bit and then, boom, just cave, and that’s it,” Skiles said. “And the season’s over by now, or before now, even. We were 18-25. But during that stretch, right near the end of that stretch, we started playing better. We took Dallas to the wire on the road, Houston to the wire on the road … we got Jerry [Stackhouse], and he started to help, and we were able to finish strong before the break. So I guess to sum it all up is the fact that we didn’t quit. We kept playing, played through it.”

Aldridge also talked to Bogut about his improvement, and the fact that Skiles is asking more of him this season. The Bucks are 18-6 over the last 24 games, and Bogut has been on a shot-blocking tear, bringing his average up to a career best 2.4 per game. Against the Celtics, AB was downright dominating, scoring 25 and grabbing 17 boards to go with four blocks.

On TNT’s Inside the NBA last night, Kenny Smith tabbed Brandon Jennings for Rookie of the Year over the Kings’ Tyreke Evans and the Warriors’ Stephon Curry because he’s had more impact on a team many picked to finish last with a healthy Michael Redd. “Their best player,” Kenny called Redd.

Nobody on the panel agreed with Kenny’s Redd assessment of course, led by Charles Barkley — he of the infamous “Is Andrew Bogut still in the league?” Barkley gave the ROY nod to Evans. But in doing so he finally gave AB his due.

“Andrew Bogut is having a phenomenal year,” Barkley said, emphasis on phenomenal. “… He’s the reason the Milwaukee Bucks will make the playoffs.”

Kevin McHale also gave the nod to Evans.

But despite the national buzz about Skiles, Bogut and Jennings (and John Salmons) Bucks fans in Milwaukee will open up their morning daily and read that Jerry Stackhouse has made the big difference. How do these things happen in Bucks media? And why do they happen?

Needless to say, the usually stellar Tom Enlund was not responsible.

The Bucks are 18-6 since Stackhouse arrived, true enough. He’s helped the cause in a couple of wins and added to the depth. It’s a long season.

But it’s difficult to see Stackhouse as much of a difference, not with Luc Mbah a Moute and Bogut playing as well as they’ve played over that stretch. Everybody’s contributing these days, except Charlie Bell, marooned on the bench.

Since acquiring John Salmons, the Bucks are 10-1. Would the Bucks have lost a game or two with Bell playing Stackhouse’s minutes. I don’t think so, and in fact, the D Charlie blanketed on D-Wade contributed directly to a couple of those wins in the 8-5 stretch the Bucks had after their six game road trip West and before the trading deadline.

More than anything, the Bucks just needed Michael Redd to take a seat on the sidelines. Bucks fans are almost universal in realizing this. But Journal Sentinel won’t come around to saying it.

I can agree to being more positive about Stackhouse than I was when the Bucks picked him up. But fans need the daily paper to be a source of news, not a shill for whatever cover the Bucks and their GM require at the tail end of the Redd era. If you’re inspired to buy some Bucks tix, don’t do it for the minor Stackhouse factor. Buy them to see the first All-Pro center the Bucks have had since Kareem. And that rookie point guard Kenny Smith’s talking about on TNT.

Note: Bob Lanier was never voted All-Pro in his career, though he was a 7-time All-Star selection, once as a Buck (1982). If Bogut continues to play like he’s playing now (no reason to think he won’t) he should make at least 3rd team All-Pro. Kareem, the Big O, Marques Johnson, Sidney Moncrief and Terry Cummings are the only players in Bucks history to make 2nd team All-Pro or higher. Kareem, Marques and Sidney were the only 1st-teamers.

Andrew Bogut is a beast

Leave a reply

“NBA fans, take a look at this guy Bogut,” said TNT analyst Kenny Smith after watching the highlight of Andrew Bogut blocking a driving Paul Pierce shot in the lane, snatching the ball and launching the outlet to half court where it found a streaking Brandon Jennings.

“He’s going to be in the NBA a long time.” Not sure what Charles was doing during these highlights of the Bucks 86-84 win over the Celtics Tuesday. Guffawww …

“He was a monster,” wrote Kelly Dwyer in “Behind the Box Score” at Ball Don’t Lie. “Actually, he was Andrew Bogut. I’m not going to tell you that he hasn’t improved this season, he has, but this guy has been there all along. It’s just taken a series of coaches (and his current coach’s second year) to realize that.”

So the Bucks are 34-29 and holding on to the fifth playoff spot in the East, hoping for a first round matchup against either the Celtics or the Hawks (for many reasons, Kevin Garnett chief among them, I hope it’s the Hawks). When the season started I didn’t think I’d be writing that sentence with 19 games to play, but there it is. Coach of the Year buzz (Smith again) is humming around Scott Skiles.

And Andrew Bogut (25 pts, 17 boards and a lot of great D against the Celtics) is at last playing like the big center who was at the top of the draft boards in 2005. Bogut is now perhaps 2nd only to Dwight Howard as an NBA center.

Like Dwyer said, Andrew Bogut has become Andrew Bogut.

It’s about time.