Jennings sets city, state, hoops world abuzz

Bucks rookie's impact turning heads of many

By Truman Reed
November 9, 2009

Brandon Jennings got the Bradley Center crowd on their feet in his first game at home.

Maybe someday years from now, folks will pull out their tattered ticket stub, show it to their family members and friends and tell them what they witnessed on the night of Oct. 31, 2009.

For the general population of Milwaukee and Wisconsin, it will be remembered -- and probably soon forgotten -- as another Halloween night.

For the city and state's sports fans, it will go down in history as the night before Brett Favre's first visit to Lambeau Field as a Minnesota Viking.

For those basketball diehards who showed up for the Milwaukee Bucks' 2009-10 home opener, it was a premiere.

And for 20-year-old Brandon Jennings, it became a homecoming party celebrating his arrival into the National Basketball Association.

With so many Milwaukeeans and Wisconsinites already perched on the edge of their seats awaiting No. 4's fateful emergence from the visitors' lockerroom in Green Bay, it was unthinkable that anything could divert the attention of the region's sports citizenry.

But Brandon Jennings did it. And the buzz is still reverberating far and wide.

The record will show that 15,095 customers turned out for Jennings' first home game as a Milwaukee Buck. Those who did know they were a more fortunate few than that.

During the third quarter of the Bucks' 96-85 victory over the Detroit Pistons, Jennings lit the fuse, dribbling the ball behind his back and finishing a 1-on-2 fast break with a twisting, reverse layup as Pistons defenders Rodney Stuckey and Jason Maxiell flailed at the air.

The laid-back audience sat in stunned silence at first, then rose to its collective feet with roaring approval.

Jennings proceeded to rattle off nine consecutive points, igniting a 12-0 Bucks run, and scored 16 of his team-high 24 points in the period. As he beckoned the fans to keep bringing it, they jumped out of their seats several more times and responded with loud ovations.

"Tonight I was thinking, 'Let's put on a show, but at the same time let's get a win," Jennings said. "That play I did on Stuckey, that was my part of putting on the show but at the same time containing myself and trying to get the win.

"I got that (the spinning reverse layup) from Kobe (Bryant). That only thing was Kobe dunked it and I didn't."

Jennings' teammates -- those with him on the floor and those who were on the bench at the time -- were visibly jacked over the rookie's dazzling display, too. So were his coaches. The only difference was that, unlike the fans, they had seen the sneak previews.

"He got the crowd going, and he got the team going too, which is as important if not more important," Bucks head coach Scott Skiles said. "We've seen a lot at the Cousins Center. We've seen him do a lot of things.

"One of the best things I've seen, though, is when he gets out on the floor, he's ready to go to work."

Jennings was one of many Bucks who convened at the team's practice facility well ahead of training camp this summer. He provided his first pro teammates with glimpses of what the Bradley Center faithful saw in the home opener.

"I've seen some stuff," guard Charlie Bell said. "With his quickness and the way he handles the ball ... maybe not as much at practice because we haven't been scrimmaging as much.

"But at the beginning or before practice started, we were playing a lot of pickup ball and I got a chance to see him. He's exciting. I mean there were times when he did some moves and you were like, 'Whoa!' He did a couple of them tonight and really got us going offensively."

Bell hasn't been the only witness.

"We've seen it in practice," forward Hakim Warrick said. "We knew it was coming. I knew he was going to be a special player down the road. I also knew he was going to be able to help us immediately. The way he's playing right now, it's unbelievable.

"I think everyone -- the team, the fans -- felt a lot of energy in the building tonight."

The ordinary reaction from teammates -- and especially coaches -- to extreme flamboyance from a rookie would be to cover their eyes or yell, "No, no, no!" if the youngster goes to extremes on occasion while going about his risky business.

Bell hasn't seen many such reactions to Jennings' play, though. 

“You know, he's gotten better when he's coming off screens at making decisions -- when to shoot, when to pass," Bell said. "I think early on in preseason he was forcing it a little too much whereas now he's letting the game come to him a little bit more.

"With Coach, he lets you play. As long as you play hard defensively, he's going to let you play offensively. He lets you do what you do. He's not going to do anything to hold you back. Tonight Brandon definitely had it going."

Skiles doesn't plan to be pulling the reins on his protege point guard.

"He had it going," Skiles said. "He was in a zone. I've been in a zone like that myself. When a guy gets in a zone like that and he has a natural enthusiasm for the game, I'm certainly not going to stand in his way.

"Brandon had a very, very good game. He and I looked at all of his shots from his first game (Oct. 30 in Philadelphia) and all of his turnovers. We went through them. After we did that, I told him I thought he had one of the most impressive first games I've seen a rookie point guard play. Then I told him he has to try to follow it up. And he did that.”

Jennings said afterward that his game plan was not to launch more shots than anyone else on his team; far from it.

"My main thing was to come in here and try to get like 15 assists a game and just run the team," he said. "Tonight I had to take over the scoring load a little bit, which I did."

"But my main thing is to get Bogut and Redd going a little bit and get mine as the game goes on."

As this particular game went on, Jennings found a groove. He made the wise decision to stay in it.

"I think after the first three I hit in the second half, the rim just looked like an ocean," he said. "I kept getting into the lane and I was getting open shots. It wasn't like they were bad shots. They were open shots, and I had to take them."

Jennings, who averaged 35.5 points per game as a high school senior at renowned Oak Hill Academy,  once sank 13 three-pointers in a single game for the Warriors.

Because he wasn't allowed to play point guard during much of his professional stint in Europe last year, though, he never found a comfort zone and his statistics were meager. Skeptics jumped to the wrong conclusion, questioning his shooting and scoring capabilities.

He has worked hard since his arrival in Milwaukee to regain his confidence in his shot and improve his mechanics, working late into the night on a regular basis with assistant coach Kelvin Sampson.

"When I have my feet set and have my hand stretched all the way straight out, my shot has a good chance of going in," Jennings said. "Whenever I jab at it, then everybody sees that and says, 'He can't shoot.'

"Coach Skiles has been helping me out a whole lot, too. We came in early today and watched film of all my shots from last night -- all the ones that were bad and good. Tonight I tried to take good shots and do the things he told me to do when I'm shooting, and it helped me."

Jennings finished his first home game as a Buck with a great statistical line, but the line he spoke most about afterward was the bottom one.

"This game was a big confidence boost," he said. "At the same time, it's still early. It was one game. My main thing is to stay healthy, be strong and keep contributing to the team. If we're not winning, then everyone will be like, 'Here we go again.'

"So the main thing is we got the win."