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Bumpy Texas road
Trip provides difficult tests
By Tom Enlund
On to Texas.
It doesn't get any easier for the Milwaukee Bucks who, coming off a three-day holiday layoff, played their worst offensive game of the season in an 87-76 loss to the Detroit Pistons Saturday night at the Bradley Center.
After practice today, the Bucks (14-17) will travel to the Lone Star State for games at San Antonio on Tuesday and Houston on Wednesday. San Antonio has won five straight and, at 20-10, has the second-best record behind the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference. Houston (20-11) is also one of the top teams in the West.
The Bucks, who have lost eight straight in Houston and five of their last six in San Antonio, will have their hands full.
"We're playing two games now that we're not supposed to win, on paper," said center Andrew Bogut. "No one is expecting us to win so we just have to go out there and see how we go.
"It's definitely a tough week . . . Houston and San Antonio at their place. So we'll just go in there as the underdog and if we can steal one or two it would be great."
The games in Houston and San Antonio will put the lid on a challenging month that included a three-game Western trip, a three-game Eastern trip and now the trek into Texas. The Bucks have forged their way through it fairly well, winning five of six home games and two of six on the road so far.
The first two months of the season make up the most difficult part of the schedule, but coach Scott Skiles warns that January figures to be no picnic either.
The Bucks will play 18 games in January, nine of the road. They will face a back-to-back situation on all five Fridays and Saturdays in the month. The schedule doesn't really start easing up for the Bucks until February.
"Starting on Tuesday, we've got 20 games in 33 days," said Skiles. "When the schedule first came out, I had an awful lot of people saying to me, 'If you can just get through the holidays, you'll be in good shape.' And I was saying, 'Well, you better take a look at January, too'. And really, that's what it is. We've had an eye on this the whole time."
Throughout January, the Bucks will not have more than one day between games and that one day will often involve travel, either flying to another city or returning home after a road game. That means that the Bucks will fall back into the balancing act of getting in some practice time along with finding days of rest for players during a busy schedule.
It was the same challenge the Bucks faced at the start of the season when they played 18 of their first 28 games on the road. They thought they finally had an opportunity to catch their breath last week when they had only two home games on the schedule.
The Bucks had three days off between last Tuesday's game against Utah and Saturday's game against Detroit, and Skiles gave the team Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off before practicing on Friday. But the team didn't respond well to the layoff. In Saturday's loss, they set season lows in points, field-goal percentage (30.4%), and field goals (24). The Bucks shot 21.1% in the second half.
"We're trying to strategically get days of rest in there knowing that throughout the whole month of January, it really doesn't let up," said Skiles. "We have a back-to-back every weekend in the month. We're doing some in and outs and 20 games in 33 days. That's a tough schedule. It's just something we have to keep an eye on and keep putting in strategically some days of rest."
