<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Help is on the way for the ailing Milwaukee Bucks. Charlie Villanueva, their talented young forward, figures to return to action soon, possibly as soon as Friday night when the Bucks host the white-hot Phoenix Suns at the Bradley Center. Villanueva has been sidelined for almost a month with tendinits in his right shoulder. "He is definitely feeling better,'' Billy Ceisler, Villanueva's New York-based agent, told me Thursday afternoon. "He's not pain-free, but he's at a point where he wants to give it a shot.'' The Bucks acquired the 6-foot-11 Villanueva from Toronto over the summer in exchange for starting point guard T.J. Ford. Villanueva made an instant impact with the Bucks, averaging 16.8 points and 9.1 rebounds through the first six games. But Villanueva's season then started to go south. He first suffered an elbow injury and then was diagnosed with tendinitis in his shoulder.</div> Source
Too bad it wasn't enough tonight. Once again, we played our best game against a top opponent. This is another reason that I think Stotts is a completely unfit leader for this team - the fact that the Bucks only play well and hard for an entire game against elite competition tells me that he doesn't have the influence to get consistently good play out of this team. This has been proven over and over and over again in his tenure in Milwaukee. With the Suns up 93-90 with about 25 secs left, we ran a play to get Bogut the ball...in the paint...he didn't score. The Suns got the rebound, ran it down court, with seconds ticking off, and Stotts didn't tell his guys to foul. Instead, we fell back into a soft zone defense. Phoenix rotated the ball, and Raja Bell sank a 3 out of the corner with no Buck within five feet of him. Let's recap. Stotts ran a play that didn't work, his team failed to foul or defend in an attempt to get the ball back, and we lost yet another close game against a good team because the effort was there and the coaching simply was not. The Bucks' play by play crew pretty much slammed Stotts after this one. John McGlockton, famed Buck who played with Oscar and Kareem when we actually mattered, just shook his head and said 'how can you not defend or foul in that situation'. Stotts went on to mumble through his live press conference, not explaining anything. He's the most worthless fucking pile of **** to have ever coached this franchise.
Aside from some horrid plays and set ups by Stotts I thought the Bucks played the game rather well, they didn't allow Phoenix to reach above the 100 plataeu and they didn't lose by much in my opinion. It just wasn't enough to stay with the Suns to the end. Things are looking bright for the Bucks in the future though. Let's hope that once they have everyone back to good health they can remain injury free. Plus they need a coaching change.
