New Bucks coach plans to get defensive
ST. FRANCIS, Wis. -- On a wall that leads to the Milwaukee Bucks' practice gym at the Cousins Center here is a list of all the Milwaukee Bucks who have made the National Basketball Association's All-Defensive team.
The list is notable for a couple of reasons. First, just five players -- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Quinn Buckner, Sidney Moncrief, Paul Pressey and Alvin Robertson -- have made the team. Second, nobody from the Bucks has made it since Robertson in 1991.
In bold letters just below the list is a simple question: "Who's next?"
New Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles would like to think that answer will be coming soon as he attempts to instill a defense-first attitude on a team that had a dreadful 26-56 record last season mainly because of its inability to stop anybody.
It's a weird phenomenon considering the Bucks reside in a state where defense is the name of the game at every level except where the pros reside.
Teams from the University of Wisconsin, UW-Green Bay, UW-Milwaukee and Marquette all have found great success on a national level because of their defensive efforts. The trickle-down effect from so much good coaching at the college level has seen high schools from Ashland to Kenosha winning with strong defense and good fundamentals.
"How proud could we be to be compared to the Badgers or compared to the Marquette teams defensively?" said new Bucks general manager John Hammond, who spent the past seven seasons as the Detroit Pistons' vice president of basketball operations. "If we're that good defensively we're having a good year."
Skiles wants to take a page from those great in-state college defenses, too. Although he would love to have one of his players make the league's All-Defensive team, he knows that the best team defenses don't have to have any great individual defenders.
"You can be a very good defensive team if guys aren't individually good as long as they are tight with their schemes and so forth," said Skiles, who added that Wisconsin teams under Bo Ryan and Dick Bennett prove his point.
And that's what he is teaching the Bucks, who opened camp two weeks ago with a bunch of new faces on a roster re-shaped by Hammond during the offseason. The biggest task will be convincing holdovers like star guard Michael Redd, who was part of a team that allowed opponents to average an ugly 1.1 points per possession last season.
"There's no question, we have to change habits, we have to become more competitive, and that starts on the defensive end," said Skiles, who built a reputation with the Chicago Bulls as a coach of competitive and strong defensive teams. The Bucks will open the season against Skiles' former team on Oct. 28 in Chicago.
"When you become a very good defensive team, what happens is that teams don't like to play against you and all of a sudden you've won a little mind battle," Skiles continued. "That is the environment we're trying to create."
Skiles knows that won't be easy, especially when a good defensive approach becomes a requirement if you want playing time. But Hammond certainly has Skiles' back on that one.
"I think Scott, to get the mentality we're talking about, that's exactly what has to happen," said Hammond, who helped build a Pistons team that held its opponents to a league-leading 0.98 points per possession last season. "If you want to play you have to defend. If you want to stay on the floor, you have to stay within our defensive principles and defensive concepts."
A solid veteran like newcomer Richard Jefferson can play a key role because the former star for the New Jersey Nets understands what Skiles is teaching and should be a positive influence in the locker room. But Skiles knows coach-player conflicts are still inevitable.
"You're trying to get people to do a little bit more than they believe they can do, which is always a challenge of coaching," Skiles said. "But they'll see what we're doing makes sense. If we want to stop people in this league, this is what we have to do. Then you have to drill it and stay with it, you can't relent and you have to hold guys accountable. They have to know that if they play defense and rebound, they'll get playing time."
That same philosophy has made champions out of coaches like Ryan and Bennett. Nobody knows that better than Skiles, who is a fan of their defensive and offensive concepts.
"This is no way trying to sell their defense short, but their teams also play very good offense. They work the clock, they pass the ball, they move bodies, so they always have good floor balance, so their backcourt is covered -- and transition 'D' is the first wave of defense," said Skiles.
"Ultimately, the first part of defense is your shot selection," he continued. "If you're taking bad perimeter shots or early (in the shot clock) shots that aren't open and you don't have the backcourt covered, no team can defend against that."
Take a look at the Bucks teams of the recent past and that's exactly what has helped doom them. As bad as the defensive numbers were last year, the offensive numbers weren't much better. They averaged 1.02 points per possession, which ranked toward the bottom of the league.
"But we can't prejudge what is going to happen, though," said Skiles. "I can look at all the Bucks games from last year and say, 'Hey, that's a team that I don't think had good shot selection.' But this is a new team with new players. Guys have to have freedom to play their offensive games at this level, but at the same time, with that freedom comes the responsibility to be judicious with the shots that you take."
Two seasons ago, San Antonio roared through the playoffs and won the NBA title by averaging 94 points a game while holding its opponents to 88 a game. Remarkably, Boston averaged the same offensive and defensive numbers during its playoff run to the NBA title last season.
Those are the numbers Skiles is trying to imprint into the brains of his team that averaged 97 points per game but gave up 103.9. Early returns in the exhibition season haven't been favorable, as Milwaukee is giving up an average of 104.5 points per game through four preseason losses, while the Bucks have only topped 80 points once.
"So if you have a goal of playing at that level, you've got to play defense, you have to guard, you have to rebound. Those are truisms in the game," he said. "It has to start somewhere and it might as well start the first day of camp and build toward that."
New Bucks coach Scott Skiles is trying to get all-star guard Michael Redd (22) and a new-look roster to become a better defensive team.
