After Being Last Year's Surprise Team, Milwaukee Is Struggling

After exceeding expectations last season, the Milwaukee Bucks have struggled to live up to them this year. It just hasn't been the right mix of personnel in Milwaukee, and to make matters worse seemingly everyone has been hurt. Yet the biggest problem might have been that expectations were simply too high to begin with.

The Bucks won 46 games last season -- a 12-game improvement over the year before -- and earned the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. This season they're on pace for 32 wins, a 14-game drop. Wednesday, they came into Washington and were run off the court by the Wizards, who had lost their previous eight games.

"They kicked our ass up and down the floor," Andrew Bogut said. "You have those games in the NBA sometimes."

Sure, those games happen -- especially in the second game of a back-to-back on the road. But as the All-Star break approaches, the Bucks don't have much margin for error if they want to sneak into the final playoff spot in the East. They currently sit 2.5 games behind the Pacers.

"We feel like at the beginning of the season we had high expectations, we thought we were a playoff team," said John Salmons, who started his second game since returning from injury. "Losing games like this knowing that we got to make a playoff push, it's a bad loss for us."

The obvious scapegoat is injuries. The Bucks have been hit hard.

It seems like everyone has been hurt. Carlos Delfino missed much of the early season with a concussion. Salmons has been out with a hip injury. Drew Gooden has been out with plantar fasciitis. Most of all, injuries have hampered the team's stars -- Brandon Jennings and Andrew Bogut.

Jennings is still working his way back after missing 19 games with a broken foot. But he has a screw in that foot now, which he says he feels when he moves and cuts. He's adjusting to that feeling, and hopes his rhythm will be back in "a week or so." But right now the best news for Jennings appears to be that the Bucks fly on a private jet, so the screw has yet to set off any metal detectors at the airport.

"If I knew it, I'd push it. We got to play better all the way around. We got to play with more intensity."
-- Bucks coach Scott Skiles Bogut hasn't been the same player since his horrific season-ending fall last April. He's been working his way back, but his offensive numbers have taken a hit. His scoring average per 36 minutes has dipped from 17.7 to 13.5 and his true shooting percentage has fallen from 54 percent to 49.5 percent, the lowest mark of his career.

"He's not as agile with both hands as he used to be," McGee said. "He'll still shoot them, but he's not making them like he used to."

As a team, the Bucks are woeful on the offensive end. Milwaukee is second-worst in the league in offensive efficiency (points per 100 possessions) behind only the lowly Cavaliers. This lack of production negates the Bucks strength: the sixth-most efficient defense in the league.

The Bucks primary offseason acquisition, Corey Maggette, is doing little to help that. He's averaging just 23 minutes a game and has been an average player with an above-average salary.

Scott Skiles said Milwaukee's struggles are about more than correcting the offense alone. The Bucks are just flat, and he's still looking for the right button to push.

"If I knew it, I'd push it," he said. "We got to play better all the way around. We got to play with more intensity. We got to guard better. We got to shoot the ball better. We have to execute better.

"I mean, we have to do everything better," he said.

The good news for the Bucks is that they are getting their guys back on the court. But with the injuries taking a toll through the first half of the year, it remains to be seen the ship has already sailed on the season.

"People thought we were going to win a lot more and it's frustrating," said reserve forward Jon Brockman, who came over to Milwaukee from Sacramento this offseason. "Every single one of us came into the season with expectations to do more. I'm not saying the season is over, but I definitely thought we were going to be a little more successful at this point."

The truth is, it would have been tough for the Bucks to improve on their six seed from last season. Boston, Orlando, Atlanta and Miami are all better teams than Milwaukee. Add Chicago's rise to replace the Cavs and there just isn't a lot of space for the Bucks to move up in the East.

Still, even with the injuries, a drop out of the playoffs all together would seem almost as surprising as last year's playoff run. Looking around the locker room, talking to players, it appears that weight has made it even tougher to respond to the losses.

"We need to come out with a lot more energy, and then sustain it," Salmons said. "We definitely had a lot of injuries -- at this point that's no excuse. We just have to come out and play hard.

"Injuries can't stop us from playing hard," he said. "I just feel like we were dead tonight."

The question is: Are the Bucks dead going forward?