The Bucks are at Cleveland tonight in another winnable game. Which has not meant a damn thing since the last two games were winnable, at Philly and home against Oklahoma City. Those losses would have been acceptable if not for the fact each team’s best player was out for those games, Andre Iguodola for the Sixers and Kevin Durant for the Thunder.
When I was reading some of the post-game comments from the Sixer game some of the players suggested “maybe we were tired”. Tired! TIRED!! How the hell could they have been tired, they were coming off two days rest from two straight home games. That is about as long as a vacation as you are going to get in an NBA regular season outside of the All-Star break. Then the Bucks followed up that stinker with a very poor effort, until the fourth quarter, against the Durantula-less Thunder.
I am officially pissed off at the team at this point. 5-8 I could live with as the Bucks have only been good again for about five minutes. But where is the over-achieving effort? This team HAS to outwork teams and they show up in Philly expecting the opponent to lie down? Why, because they fear the low post game of Bogut which churns out a whopping 11 points per game? Because the best scorer is a tiny point guard who goes really streaky?
The Bucks need to wake up, now. They play at Cleveland tonight with the Cavs coming off a game at Indiana on Tuesday while the Bucks are well-rested.
NFL Week 12 Picks
This is a great week, there are the three Thursday Thanksgiving games, very good noon games (Packers-Falcons, Jags-Giants) great late games (Eagles-Bears, Bucs-Ravens) and a great Sunday Night game (Colts-Chargers). The only stinker, and it is a big stinker, is on Monday night with Cardinals-49ers.
Patriots -7 @ Lions – I am hoping Detroit can get their offense rolling enough to keep this interesting. The Pats do not seem to play well as heavy favorites, maybe they do that here.
Saints -3.5 @ Cowboys – When you have a coach in waiting, as both the Cowboys and Vikings had, I think it is plain stupid to wait around to fire a guy everybody in the country needs to go. The Cowboys are a different team now.
Bengals @ Jets -9 – The Bengals suck, but the Jets are the worst 8-2 in a decade. I am sick of the Jets talk. They needed overtime and/or late game heroics to beat three straight non-playoff teams. They couldn’t thump one of them?
Vikings @ Redskins -2 See Cowboys pick. The Vikings will get much better quickly. Everybody will be surprised how well they rush the passer this week.
Titans @ Texans -5 – Too much going on behind the scenes this week for the Titans.
Steelers -6.5 @ Bills – Do not let the Bengals game fool you, the Bills are not going to score much against Pittsburgh.
Jags @ Giants -7 – Crazy year, the Jags win against the Browns was maybe their best of the year outside of the Colts win.
Panthers @ Browns -10 – The best bad NFL team in a while.
Bucs @ Ravens-7.5 – If you swapped the Browns and Bucs schedules the Browns would have the same record, or better, than Tampa does now. Another game against an actual contender, another blowout loss for Tampa.
Eagles -3 @ Bears– The Eagles massively outplayed the Giants but allowed it to get interesting. I hate the Bears but this is a good matchup for them, or bad matchup for Philly. Soldier stadium in November and December is horrible to play at for fast, passing teams. It will be windy and the turf will look brown and will be slow. Add in the fact that the Bear defense does not surrender big plays and I think this is a game Chicago can steal.
Packers @ Falcons -2 – Green Bay is better than Atlanta, plain and simple. Both are playoff quality but the Packers are becoming dominant on defense, found their identity(and Greg Jennings) on offense, and McCarthy has grown as a head coach. Last week he deferred the coin toss for the first time in his career, he has to realize that on the road you DO NOT want the ball first, especially in domes, especially if you have a good defense and he did this last week.
Dolphins @ Raiders -3 – Who knows what Raider, or Dolphin, team will show up.
Chiefs -1 @ Seahawks – I am going with the whole “Seattle is tough at home” angle here.
Rams @ Broncos -4 – I have no feel for Denver, they get blown out by Oakland, then blow out KC, then score extremely easily on their first drive against the Chargers only to not move the ball the rest of the game. No idea and I actually find them annoying because of it. Either be good, or suck, but Denver can be both.
Chargers @ Colts -3 – Peyton at night, at home.
49ers -1 @ Cardinals – No Pick, as only the fans lose by having to watch this shit on Monday Night. The NFC West should be subject to the English Soccer Premier league rules, this whole division should be dropped down to the SEC or Big 10 for a year.