Strength of Schedule, Defense and D-Wade: Milwaukee Bucks Vs. Miami Heat Preview

The first time the Bucks played the "Big Three" Miami Heat, in Milwaukee Dec. 6, Brandon Jennings, John Salmons and Keyon Dooling threw a 28.6 percent brickfest at the rim on 35 "shots" and the Bucks lost by ten in a game that was closer than the 88-78 final score.  That clunking percentage actually includes the adjustment for the 6 of 8 free throws made by the three Bucks guards.  Really.

I was at that game, sipping a Riverwest Stein as Jennings botched a two-handed fourth quarter dunk right in front of the Bob Boozer Jinx posse, never mind the lady in the Dwyane Wade jersey shrieking every time he scored.  She looked a bit too old to have been at Marquette with Wade, but was having far too much fun in the one-woman cheering section of hers for it to have been anything but personal.  Maybe she was Wade's favorite Milwaukee bartender?

In losing that night, the Bucks wasted 48 minutes of tenacious end-to-end defense, right out of the Scott Skiles textbook.  Funny, LeBron James looks awfully human with Luc Mbah a Moute in his grill, as he was held to 17 points (on 16 shots), with six assists—not bad for most NBA players, but certainly not the sort of normalcy one expects from LeBron.  And LeBron just let it happen, allowing the game come to him, refusing to force anything offensively, moving the ball to his more open teammates.

James' willingness to share the ball and take a back seat to Wade (25 pts), to Chris Bosh, even to Carlos Arroyo (18 pts), exemplified the team ethic the Heat built during their 12-game winning streak.  This, more than the individual talent of the Heat stars, is the biggest problem tonight for the Bucks in Miami tonight, in the first of two Bucks-Heat games this week. 

That and the Heat D, one of four defenses (the Celtics, Bulls and Magic the others) rated higher than the Bucks' 101.9 pts allowed per 100 possessions.

The Heat game tonight will be the Bucks' seventh without Jennings, who'll be out at least another two weeks recovering from a bone fracture in his left foot.  The Bucks are 3-3 without Jennings, including a 19-point win in Los Angeles against the Lakers that was the first sign this season that the champs might not have it this season.  In any case, that game was as much about the Bucks toughness and resiliency against the elite teams of the league, the Heat included, than it was about the demise of the Lakers. 

The Bucks have played the most difficult schedule in the league based on opponent won-lost record, the majority of it against the West—and 13 games against the eight teams holding playoff spots in the West.  The Bucks are no ordinary 13-and-18 team.  The Heat shouldn't—and won't—take them lightly, as Bucks-Heat, records aside, remains a matchup between two of the tough teams on the block in the East, advantage Heat, of course.

The Bucks' problem has been that they're better at dogging elite NBA teams buzzer to buzzer than they have been at taking care of business against teams in the bottom one-third of the league.  It still seems just as likely to me that they'll beat the Heat tonight as it does that they'll forget to show up in New Jersey this weekend.

The Bucks schedule:  While I'm on the 2010-11 NBA Season Summary page at Basketball-reference.com, now's a good time to mention that, as of this week, the 13 wins, 18 losses Bucks have officially played the toughest schedule in the NBA (scroll down to the "Miscellaneous stats" table in the SOS column).  The Bucks are the lone team with a plus-1.00 SOS; the Lakers, who've played the softest schedule in the NBA, are the only team with a minus-1.00 SOS number.  

The Bucks' SOS can only increase tonight and over the next ten days when they play the Heat again (Friday), a game tomorrow in Orlando and host the Spurs Jan. 12.

The Spurs game all-but closes the Bucks out against the upper tier of the West this season, leaving a road game at Oklahoma City and a home game against Denver left to play. The remaining ten Western conference games are against the bottom seven, though it wouldn't be wise to underestimate the (14-18) Suns, whose tough schedule so far is 2nd only to the Bucks'.

Beasts of the East: The Bucks still have three Bulls games to look forward to, but after Friday's Heat game, six of the Bucks 11 games against the Heat, Celtics and Magic will be behind them at the 34 game mark.  

That's a lot of tough competition in your back pocket if you're the Bucks and looking up at the Hawks (third-softest schedule), Knicks (fourth softest) and Pacers.

Author J.D. Mo is the perpetrator-in-chief of The Bob Boozer Jinx, a Milwaukee Bucks/NBA blog.