Milwaukee Bucks Need To Start Winning Momentum Shifts

Basketball, and the modern day NBA in particular, is still a game of runs. There aren’t many other pro sports, where you’ll see momentum shift quite as swiftly, not to mention as viciously. Just ask the Milwaukee Bucks, they know all about this.

Game 1 of their current Playoff series with the Chicago Bulls saw the Bucks neck and neck with their opponent throughout a frantically high scoring first quarter, before later being swept away by a wave of red.

Then last night, it was Milwaukee who had control of the game, coming through an incredibly low-scoring first quarter with the advantage. Stifling defense gave the Bucks a 16-11 lead heading into the second quarter, and one they’d extend out further, yet still they couldn’t hang on.

There are a couple of reasons why that is too.

Watching the Bucks outstanding defensive work and dominance early on last night you still couldn’t help but feel like they were going to get caught out. Why’s that, you might ask?

Well, quite simply, as improved as the Bucks are when it comes to ball movement, and running selfless, efficient offensive sets, they still throw a few head-scratchers in for good measure.

So much is spoken about the effects of inexperience surrounding this young Bucks squad, but the only real effect it has is that they don’t seem to know how to build a lead just yet. Or even when they’re playing from behind, they just don’t seem to capitalize on their spells of dominance quite in the way they should.

What Milwaukee needs to learn is that when they’re in control, and particularly when the scoreboard shows that they are, they need to pace themselves and dictate the tempo. Sometimes it helps to take the fizz out of a game, and stamp your authority on proceedings.

For the Bucks, they’re currently still too fond of early shot clock attempts, or diverting away from plays to find the open man in the playbook, and as a result, a succession of quick misses, and a couple of opposition fastbreaks can prove almost fatal.

For proof, let’s look to last night’s game for a couple of examples. Before we start, make note of how the Bucks lost by a final margin of nine points, and then you’ll see how that could have been very different if they’d suppressed even just one of these Chicago runs.

With 10:41 remaining in the second quarter, Milwaukee had opened up a nine point lead, and the Bulls had only scored once in a spell of almost five minutes. This presented the Bucks with a perfect opportunity to stretch their lead out to double digits, and called for composure, cool heads and clinical execution.

Instead after Henson corralled the rebound from a Jimmy Butler miss, he dropped the ball off to O.J. Mayo, who then decided to go on an unnecessary one man crusade resulting in a misguided jump shot only a few seconds into the shot clock.

That miss didn’t have to mean anything in itself, but it gave the Bulls the chance to run the ball out in transition, get a score of their own, and from there Chicago put a 9-0 run together to tie up the game. A more sensible decision would have been for Mayo to allow the rest of the Bucks to get up the court with him, to initiate some form of set offense. Getting out in transition to get easy dunks or layups is never a bad idea, but one man fastbreaks ending in perimeter jump shots are a different story.

Mayo wasn’t the only guilty party either, as Jerryd Bayless did something very similar late in the game when the stakes where much higher.

With 8:20 remaining in the game, the score was all tied at 74 when Bayless decided to take an ill-advised jumper of his own.

With bodies still in motion around him, and Milwaukee’s players desperately trying to get into position to run some sort of coherent set, Bayless’ tunnel vision set in. John Henson set half a screen for his guard, before then wheeling away as if to expect some form of pick and pop, but Bayless had other ideas.

Following that miss, the Bulls went on a 10-0 run that would effectively decide the game.

The Bucks just need to be more measured at times, more intelligent, and for want of a better word: more cautious.

They have everything needed to mix it up with the Bulls, and have shown that in bursts over Games 1 and 2, right now the only difference is a naivety that the Bulls have no such issue with.

Inexperience plays it’s part in that, but then on those occasion it was two of Milwaukee’s more experienced players who were the perpetrators.

Perhaps Coach Kidd should take a look at that.

Next: The Bucks' Complicated Point Guard Situation

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