Pistons-Bucks Preview

By SANTOSH VENKATARAMAN
Posted Jan 30 2012 10:11AM

The Milwaukee Bucks did a good job dealing with being short-handed and playing on short rest their last time out.

The same can't be said for how the Detroit Pistons handled the same set of circumstances.

The Pistons will begin a stretch of three road games in as many nights Monday when they visit the Bucks for the second time this month.

Milwaukee (8-11) defeated the Lakers 100-89 on Saturday, bouncing back from a 107-100 loss at Chicago the previous night. Already playing without injured center Andrew Bogut, the Bucks learned shortly before Saturday's game that Stephen Jackson was suspended for verbal abuse of an official and failure to leave the court in a timely manner against the Bulls.

"We needed pretty much everybody," said Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, who had a season-high 10 points. "I think everybody tonight came in and had good effort. We need to sustain that for the rest of this season, with Bogut not being there."

While Bogut is expected to miss 8-12 weeks for a fractured left ankle he suffered Wednesday, Jackson is eligible to return but has been held without a basket in his last two home games.

The Pistons (4-17) have struggled to make baskets on the road, where they are averaging a league-low 81.4 points while going 1-9.

Detroit shot 34.9 percent in a 95-74 defeat at Philadelphia on Saturday, one night after blowing a six-point lead in the final 54 seconds of regulation in a 107-101 overtime loss to visiting Atlanta.

"It's all about resolve," coach Lawrence Frank said. "It's how you react. It's not a college season."

The Pistons are without Ben Gordon because of a sore shoulder, Charlie Villanueva due to a sore right ankle and Will Bynum because of a strained right foot.

Greg Monroe posted his third straight double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds Saturday for Detroit, which has lost four straight and eight of nine.

"You're going to have off nights, but you have to continue to play on both ends," Monroe said. "I think we did an OK job of continuing to play, but like I said, it's hard to continue to play hard when you know you're missing easy shots, shots you know you can make."

Monroe scored a career-high 32 points to go with 16 rebounds in a 102-93 loss at Milwaukee on Jan. 12. Rookie Brandon Knight added 20 points.

Jackson and Brandon Jennings combined for 52 points in that victory - the Bucks' most recent one at home before Saturday. The Lakers game began a stretch in which Milwaukee plays five of six at home.

"I think the fact that we got home games, hopefully we can count on that, the fact that we'll be at home, we'll be in our house where we're comfortable at and where we're used to playing," said Jennings, averaging 23.9 points in the last seven games despite being held to 12 on Saturday. "So I think it's just a great thing that we're back at home."

Drew Gooden scored 23 points - he's averaging 10.2 - for the second consecutive game Saturday as Milwaukee shot 50.0 from the field for the first time in 10 games.

Jennings leads Bucks to 103-82 win over Pistons

Posted Jan 31 2012 12:33AM

MILWAUKEE (AP) Bucks coach Scott Skiles is not quite ready to call Brandon Jennings an All-Star. With a few more victories, he might be.

Jennings had 21 points, reserve Mike Dunleavy added a season-high 20 on 8-of-10 shooting and Milwaukee rolled to a 103-82 victory over the skidding Detroit Pistons on Monday night.

"Realistically, we've got to have a better record," Skiles said when asked about Jennings' All-Star chances. "Let's see what our record is when the vote comes across my desk. I think you have got to be on a winning team. That should be one nice measurement, and we're getting close to being a winning team."

Milwaukee, which has won four of six after losing three straight, improved to 9-11.

"It would be nice for us to go ahead and punch through .500 and see what happens," Skiles said.

Drew Gooden shot 7 of 9 and scored 16 points for the Bucks, including seven straight during a decisive 12-2 run to open the second half. Detroit, which has lost five straight and nine of 10, never led in falling to 4-18.

Rodney Stuckey led the Pistons with 19 points, and Greg Monroe added 16 points and 10 rebounds.

"We've been inconsistent this whole year," Stuckey said. "It comes together, then it falls apart. We've just got to make it sustain for 48 minutes."

Jennings scored nine points in the first 7 1/2 minutes, helping the Bucks to a 30-16 lead after the first quarter. He added 12 in the third period.

"We were just moving the ball well," Jennings said. "We just looked like a good team out there.

"We're just rolling right now," he added. "We've just got to keep the team spirit and just keep everything positive. ... I think we should be above .500."

Milwaukee, led by Gooden, opened the third on a 12-2 run to turn a 47-41 halftime lead into a 59-43 advantage.

"We've been having a lot of third-quarter woes around here, and Coach is always talking about not letting a team come back," Gooden said. "I was keeping that in my mind, just knowing that I was going to start the third quarter off with a lot of intensity. Just keep that mindset that we're not going to let up and be front-runners and just kind of go for the jugular."

Detroit got within 10 points in the third, but the Bucks sealed it by making nine of 10 shots spanning the third and fourth quarters - with the only miss being a three-quarters-court try by Jennings at the end of the third - to extend the lead to 75-60.

Milwaukee led by as many as 23 points in the fourth.

"Jennings, in that third quarter, I don't think he missed a shot," Pistons coach Lawrence Frank said. "Dunleavy had catch-and-shoot jump shots. They blitzed us in the third quarter. This team, when you allow them to make 3s, it's trouble.

"Jennings was dominant. Dunleavy was dominant."

The Bucks got off to a strong start, shooting 68.8 percent in the first quarter (11 of 16). They led by as many as 18 in the second, but the Pistons rallied, closing the half on a 9-1 run to pull to within six at halftime. Stuckey had 11 in the period for Detroit, which outscored Milwaukee 25-17.

"It always hurts when you cut down a lead and give it right back to them," Monroe said. "Whenever you do fight back, you have to be perfect the rest of the game and that's something we didn't do."

Jennings came in averaging 20 points per game and has scored 20 or more in eight of the Bucks' last nine games. The only time he didn't during that stretch was Milwaukee's 100-89 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday. He had 12 points and seven assists in that game.

"He's playing great, making good decisions, shooting the ball really well, doing a great job of leading our team. What else can you say?" Dunleavy said.

Dunleavy, too, has seen patience pay off after he struggled to start the season. He had 10 points in the fourth quarter Monday.

"In Vegas, I'm a blackjack guy," Dunleavy said. "Numbers, they always come back. You can start off and be getting crushed by the house and losing all your money, but if you stick around the tables long enough, you'll make it back."

Milwaukee shot 10 of 17 on 3-pointers and 51.4 percent overall for the game. Detroit was 1 for 9 on 3s - connecting for the only time with less than a minute left - and shot just 38.6 percent for the game.

Tayshaun Prince had 14 points for Detroit, which dropped to 1-10 on the road. Milwaukee is 6-2 at home.

One second-quarter possession pretty much summed up the Pistons' struggles. It started positively, with Stuckey's steal, but Damien Wilkins missed an easy breakaway layup. Stuckey then missed two point-blank follows, but Detroit got another chance - before Monroe picked up a charge as he ran over Ersan Ilyasova on his way to the basket.

"We're just getting off to bad starts," Stuckey said. "We're letting teams score. Tonight, they had it their way in the first quarter, getting easy shots, just doing whatever they wanted to do. When you are letting teams do that, it's hard to win games."

Detroit, which has the second-worst record in the NBA behind Charlotte, was without Ben Gordon (sore left shoulder), Charlie Villanueva (sore right ankle) and Will Bynum (strained right foot). All three are day-to-day.

Notes: Milwaukee's Stephen Jackson was on the active roster but did not play after serving a one-game suspension for verbal abuse of an official and failure to leave the court after the Bucks' 107-100 loss at Chicago on Friday. Jackson was also held out of a game Jan. 20 for missing shootaround. Skiles said Jackson "will have an opportunity to work himself back in there." Jackson said that's fine with him. "Everybody knows the situation. My situation is going to get better soon. Until then, I'm going to support these guys and continue to collect my check," he said. . It was the first of two back-to-back-to-back stretches for Detroit this season. The Pistons play the New York Knicks on Tuesday and New Jersey Nets on Wednesday.

Notebook: Bucks 103, Pistons 82

By Rick Braun, for NBA.com
Posted Monday January 30, 2012 11:47PM

THE FACTS: Brandon Jennings scored 21 points, and Mike Dunleavy Jr. added 20 off the bench to lead the Milwaukee Bucks to an easy 103-82 victory over the Detroit Pistons Monday night at the Bradley Center.

The Bucks (9-11) won for the fifth time in seven games after a 4-9 start to the season. The Pistons (4-18) lost for the fifth straight time and the ninth time in 10 games.

Drew Gooden added 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting in his third start for the Bucks since center Andrew Bogut went down with a fractured left ankle.

Rodney Stuckey had 19 points for the Pistons, who never led in the game and trailed the rest of the way after Carlos Delfino's 3-pointer gave Milwaukee a 5-2 lead.

QUOTABLE: "I'm a Vegas guy, a blackjack guy. The numbers always come back. You can start off getting crushed by the house losing all your money, but if you stick around the tables long enough, you'll make it back."
-- Bucks swingman Mike Dunleavy Jr., who was just 22-for-65 (33.8 percent) from the field before going 14-for-18 in his last two games.

THE STAT: The Bucks went 10-for-17 from beyond the arc while the Pistons were 1-for-9 -- a 30-3 edge.

TURNING POINT: The Bucks led by as many as 18 in the first half but settled for a 47-41 lead at the intermission and were letting the Pistons hang around for much of the third quarter. It was still 63-55 with 2:45 left in the third when Dunleavy hit a jumper that started a 22-7 run that stretched into the opening minutes of the fourth quarter and gave the Bucks an 85-62 lead. Dunleavy capped the run with consecutive 3-pointers.

QUOTABLE II: "Over the summer I put in a lot of hours -- especially the whole month of June working with Scott Skiles and working with the coaches. And, also, when I couldn't work with them I was in Baltimore working on my shot the whole summer. And I'm still working on it. My jumper's not great. It still needs improvement, so I just try to get shots up there every day."
-- Jennings, who shot 37.9 percent from the field over his first two seasons but is at 44.5 percent (153-for-344) this season.

HOT: Bucks center Drew Gooden canned 7 of 9 shots for 16 points and has made 22 of 38 in his three games as a starter since Andrew Bogut went out with a fractured left ankle. Gooden is averaging 20.7 points in the three games.

NOT: Pistons swingman Damien Wilkins went 0-for-5 and is now 7-for-25 over his last six games.

GOOD MOVE: Stephen Jackson may not think it's a good move, but coach Skiles kept the swingman on the bench the entire game after Jackson was suspended by the league for Saturday's game. Jackson also was suspended by the team 10 days ago for missing a shootaround. The Bucks are 3-0 in the three games Jackson has not played. He's shooting just 36.7 percent (76-for-207) on the season.

ROOKIE WATCH: Pistons guard Brandon Knight had a rough one, going scoreless on 0-for-4 shooting with four turnovers in 24 minutes.

NOTABLE: The Bucks reached the century mark for the fourth straight game. They were the NBA's lowest scoring team a year ago averaging 91.2 points per game. ... The Pistons have lost by at least 17 in their last four road games. ... The Bucks went 36-for-70 (51.4 percent), topping the 50-percent mark for the second straight game.

UP NEXT: For the Pistons, Tuesday @ New York, Wednesday @ New Jersey, Friday vs. Milwaukee. For the Bucks, Wednesday vs. Miami, Friday @ Detroit, Saturday vs. Chicago.

• Pistons: Villanueva
• Bucks: Bogut, Hobson

• Pistons: Macklin
• Bucks: Dunleavy

• Lead Changes: 0
• Times Tied: 1

• Arena: Bradley Center, Milwaukee, WI
• Officials: #41 Ken Mauer, #20 Leroy Richardson, #75 Eric Dalen
• Attendance: 13103
• Duration: 2:06