Bucks go toe-to-toe with the World Champs

Sorry its taken me so long to post this Total Win Contribution Milwaukee Bucks boxscore from their game last night against the World Champion Boston Celtics. I went to the Wisconsin Badgers football game yesterday afternoon, and I was basically too tired after the Bucks game to do anything.

Before I make a few comments on last night's game, let me make one administrative note. Last night watching the Bucks game, I was flipping at timeouts to the Alabama Crimson Tide vs. Mississippi State football game. At one of the timeouts I made a revelation that has led to a permanent policy change for this blog.

You know how I always refer to the Bucks as "The Green and Red"? Looking at the Bucks uniforms, and the Bradley Center floor paint, and then comparing it to the colors on display at Alabama, I decided that designation is incorrect. The Badgers are Red... the Bucks are more like Green and Crimson. So that's how I will refer to them henceforth. Besides, its cooler when a sports team has really unusual sounding color designations (like I heard Lee Corso on a Home Depot commercial say he was going to paint his kitchen Florida State "Garnet and Gold").

So wear Green, think Crimson. Now on to the game.

Comments on the Game

1. I'm going to stop commenting on how impressive Luc Moute has played. But last night the undersized power forward outplayed one of the best power forwards of all time, Kevin Garnett. I knew Moute would make a contribution this season to the Bucks, but not this large a contribution. Right now he's their most consistently positive contributor.

2. The Bucks outpointed the World Champions last night at 3 of the 5 positions, but they were bested at shooting guard, and beaten decisively at the small forward. Paul Pierce was back to last season's level. He crushed Richard Jefferson, and that was the difference in the ballgame.

3. The offense last night was hard to come by on both sides. Nevertheless it was a great game to watch. It had an old school "every possession counts" intensity to it that Bucks games always used to have.

4. Coach Skiles says every player can choose to be either aggressive or passive. I guess Andrew Bogut has chosen to be aggressive. He went toe-to-toe with a very rough, physical Celtic frontline, and had the best game of any Milwaukee Buck.

5. Last night I was reminded of Sollozo's line from The Godfather, "The Don was slipping. In the old days I could never have gotten to him." A year ago, the Bucks could never have closed a double digit Celtic lead enough to extend the Celtics to overtime as they did last night... even at home. The gap has closed between the teams, there's no question about that. Some is due to Celtic slippage, most is due to Bucks gains. And, of course, Coach Scott Skiles.

6. Last night was another step forward for Bucks rookie Joe Alexander. He's rounding into a contributor.