Milwaukee Bucks Grades, Reaction To 113-95 Loss To Los Angeles Lakers

Dec 15, 2015; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Milwaukee Bucks forward

(34) defends Los Angeles Lakers forward

(24) as he drives to the basket in the first quarter of the game at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

The Milwaukee Bucks followed up beating the NBA’s best team by losing to the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the league’s worst.

How naive of me to think that the Milwaukee Bucks win over the league’s best team Saturday night would translate to furthered success Tuesday night against one of the league’s worst.

Instead of capitalizing on a match-up against the (previously) three win Lakers, and climbing the road back to .500 in earnest, the Bucks were blown out by eighteen points.

In doing so the Bucks allowed the Lakers their largest lead of the season (22), made Kobe Bryant look 28, and egregiously allowed 113 points to the NBA’s 23rd ranked offense just one game after allowing 95 to the NBA’s best offense.

Nothing about this Bucks team makes sense, so I’m going to bring in some hard-hitting physics theories to try and bring order to this chaotic mess.

I liken them to Newton’s third law of motion. For every action (beating the Warriors) there is an equal (rekindled hope for the lost season) and opposite (Bucks soiling themselves in L.A.) reaction.

Let’s apply that equation to their off-season transactions! For every action (signing John Henson to an unfathomably wealthy contract) there is an equal (sending Zaza Pachulia away for pennies) and opposite (signing Greg Monroe) reaction.

Okay so the semantics of those examples might not hold up, but the sentiment does–this Bucks team floundered away any chance at relevance when they jettisoned the established Zaza Pachulia to Dallas.

Why is that? The answer is two-pronged, and it starts with veteran leadership.

Who’s going to step up and calm the young players down when a bad team like the Lakers show they have a pulse? Not John Henson.

Second, Greg Monroe will inevitably miss time. He’s not injury prone by any means, but the nature of the game is for players to miss time with minor dings and dents. Like a banged knee (which better not have come against Henson) in practice.

With Greg Monroe out the Bucks turned to John Henson in the starting lineup.

They were rewarded with six points, poor rebounding, and no physical presence against Roy Hibbert (who set a season-high in rebounds with eleven).

Frustrating? No doubt. There’s also little doubt the Bucks bemoan trading away Zaza Pachulia. For that matter they must miss Jared Dudley, too (who was replaced with an ineffective Chris Copeland).

Without veteran leadership the Bucks floundered against the Lakers. And that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the season.

Let’s take a closer look at the blowout defeat in our Milwaukee Bucks grades and reactions.

Next: Reactions: The Good