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“The coaches look at the preseason one way, the players look at it another, and the media in an even different way,” Jefferson said.
The best way to look at Friday night’s preseason game with the Dallas Mavericks is that it is still, well, preseason. Dallas, with more firepower inside-and-outside than the Bucks could deal with, toyed with Milwaukee early, then started rolling in the second quarter. And kept rolling, and rolling.
When it was over, Mavs owner Mark Cuban had watched his team throttle the Bucks 105-79 before a La Crosse Center crowd of 4,289. Dallas, a perennial playoff team that switched coaches in the offseason — sending Avery Johnson on his way in favor of Rick Carlisle — was simply better in most facets of the game.
“We played a hard, physical Dallas Mavericks style of game,” Carlisle said of his team, which improved to 3-0. “I feel good about what we’ve done for three games, but we’re light years away from where we need to be.”
Milwaukee looks farther away than that.
The Bucks showed signs of being a competitive team when Jefferson, who scored nine points in his first extended action (23 minutes) popped some jumpers, which allowed Andrew Bogut (10 points, 8 rebounds) to throw his 7-foot, 260-pound body around in the paint. But Milwaukee simply didn’t play the kind of defense that new coach Scott Skiles demands from his team.
Failing to stop the 3-point shot didn’t worry Skiles — yet. Failing to execute on defense from an overall standpoint did.
“I’m not very good at making excuses. We were OK for the first two minutes of the game, then they starting cutting harder than us. They ran the floor better than us. They shot the ball better than us,” Skiles said. “They executed better on both the offensive and defensive ends. We stopped defending the paint. We were no-shows (in the second half) doing that. They were the better team tonight.”
The Mavericks were able to shoot long-range 3-pointers without much interference from a Bucks’ players hands, arms or body for much of the game. That could be why Jason Terry was 3-for-4 from 3-point range and finished with a game-high 15 points in just over 26 minutes.
Milwaukee’s Charlie Villanueva, who entered the game as the team’s leading scorer in preseason with 17 points a game, scored six points in just under 10 minutes of action. He’s not worried about the Bucks’ offense. Defense, he said, is what the team continues to work on.
“Coach is a tough coach. He is all about the little things, especially on the defensive end,” Villanueva said. “We’re buying into the system, we’re just not executing it very well. I’ll take away some good things we did tonight. We’ll learn from our mistakes.”
Milwaukee didn’t energize the Center crowd like it did last year when it rallied in the fourth quarter to beat the Chicago Bulls before 6,118 loud — and wild — fans. This year’s game had spurts of energy, but just like a high-energy drink, it didn’t last long.
That, Bucks General Manager John Hammond said, is what the team is working for. And, he said, will get to under Skiles.
“We have to get to the point where fans respect the team. If someone gets in their car and drives three hours to watch us, we have to make sure we earn their respect,” Hammond said. “We have to make sure we leave everything on the floor. We are not there yet.”
That was evident in the Bucks third preseason loss in as many tries.
“We first have to get one (playing hard all the time, earning respect) before we get the other (to the playoffs). Will we get both this year? I don’t know, but we should be able to get at least one. I do know that 100 percent of the time coach Skiles will demand that they play hard and this team will be competitive.”
