The Lead: You could see this one coming. The Milwaukee Bucks entered the game 29th in offensive efficiency and were facing a Grizzlies team currently ranked 9th in defensive efficiency and moving up. Meanwhile, the Bucks were 6th in defensive efficiency and were getting a Grizzlies offense ranked 20th on the season and coming into this game without O.J. Mayo (league suspension) and Zach Randolph (nursing a sore ankle) and with Rudy Gay gutting his way through multiple injuries.
Given all that, this was shaping up to be a low-scoring muddle of a game, and that’s exactly what it was.
Other than an unlikely third-quarter explosion from Corey Maggette, who scored 20 points in the quarter on 4-4 three-point shooting (he’s a career 32% shooter from distance), the Bucks could never get anything going offensively. But that one little run of shot-making was enough to make this a competitive game as the Grizzlies own offense was searching for scoring options for much of the game: Mike Conley and Darrell Arthur, suddenly the primary shot creators, combined to shoot 4-17 in the first half. Back-up point guards Greivis Vasquez and a debuting Jason Williams created exactly zero points in a combined 11 minutes.
Rudy Gay delivered an admirably effective 14 points (5-11 shooting) and 3 assists in nearly 40 minutes, but you could tell early on that he was severely limited. In the first quarter, he finished a play on the block with a soft lay-up that would normally be a dunk, and with a reasonably clear angle to the basket on a 2-on-1 break, he gave the ball to Conley instead. Gay was clearly trying to pick his spots, but when the team ran a few isolation plays for him down the stretch, he struggled with turnovers.
Ultimately, good defense, a spark of energy from Tony Allen, and a bounce-back second half from Mike Conley was enough to polish off a bad Bucks team. But I don’t think the Grizzlies could be this limited against better Denver and Philadelphia teams on Sunday and Tuesday, respectively, and hope to win.
