Bucks Buzz: November 14th

The Bucks Buzz is a bi-weekly SnoTap post featuring Charlie Tritschler and Mitch Pratt. Charlie writes the Monday post while Mitch handles Thursday. This could change, but they both bring a unique style to the post. 

Quick Recap:

Tuesday @ Miami: The Bucks took on the two-time defending world champ Miami Heat on Tuesday evening and it didn't go as well as Larry Drew probably would have liked it to go. The Bucks got "boat raced" as Charlie would like to say. You could really use any synonym for the term after this one. It was a blowout from wire-to-wire. Some positives were John Henson and Nate Wolters continuing their solid seasons against Miami. Henson had 18 points on 70 percent shooting (7-10) and Wolters didn't commit a turnover in 24 minutes as a rookie point guard against the swarming Heat defense. The score doesn't matter. It wasn't close.

Wednesday @ Orlando: The Bucks' Florida two-step rolled in Disney World to take on the young Orlando Magic and it was the tale of two halves in this one. The Bucks were without several key players in this one, C Larry Sanders being the most key player to be out (and as we all know, he'll be out for a while). Also not playing on Wednesday were Brandon Knight, Zaza Pachulia and Gary Neal, all of whom played on Tuesday at Miami. My only explanation for that is that the Bucks were trying to out-tank the Magic. Drew and the rest of the Bucks' staff decided to play it safe by resting these guys a on the second half of a back-to-back. 

Photo from SB Nation

Anyway, the Bucks were down to eight healthy men heading into the game and they simply ran out of gas after two and a half quarters and ended up falling 94-91. The Deer jumped out to a commanding start and were up by as many as 19 points (in the second quarter) but then...Aaron Afflalo happened. Afflalo had a career night as he went for 36 points (8 of 11 from beyond the arc), eight rebounds and six assists. As the wheels were falling off, the tank began to fully roll down hill, destroying everything in its path after "Commander" Caron Butler went down with an apparent shoulder injury. He'll probably be fine soon but he will have an MRI on his shoulder today and we'll have a better idea on how long he'll be out. In positive news, Khris Middleton had a nice game for the Bucks in this one with 19 points, eight rebounds and three steals.

Appropriate YouTube video: Kendrik Lamar - "Black Boy Fly" - The opening line of this song is "I used to be jealous of Aaron Afflalo" and the entire first verse is about the Compton native. This looks like a fan video, not made by me.

As far as Larry Sanders...

I agree with pretty much all of what Charlie wrote on Monday. Most of the casual fans think that it's same old Bucks by giving this guy a large contract (that doesn't even kick in until next year, by the way). I acknowledge that Larry has a pretty bad temper but I feel that he also has shown in the past that he can harness it and play well. Here's a word for the wise: be patient with this guy. He's relatively new to the game of basketball and is getting better. I don't consider him to be a knucklehead at this point.

Links: 

As we continue to pile on Larry Sanders, a report came out Tuesday afternoon that he was cited back in January for leaving his dogs out in the cold. 

What to watch

I'm really looking forward to getting a heavy dose of Giannis Antetokounmpo in the coming days, with Butler probably needing to miss a few games. These injuries are allowing the Bucks to play the youth and that's really all Bucks fans want to see for once. With all due respect to Butler, who would you rather watch, an 18 year old oozing with potential for highlight plays or the 33 year old chuck up jumpers en route to 16 points? I'll take the former.

Looking ahead

The Bucks head to Indiana to face the undefeated Pacers on Friday night. I don't expect that to go very well for the depleted Bucks at this point either. Then, they return home to face Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday. The Bucks have a legit shot at being 2-7 after these two games.

-Big Money