With six games to go on the regular season slate, the Milwaukee Bucks still have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs.
Milwaukee will try to improve its postseason status once again when they open a quick two-game road trip tonight against the Washington Wizards at the Verizon Center. The Bucks are just 1 1/2 games behind stumbling Philadelphia for the eighth and final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference and have lost three of four games since winning four in a row. The 76ers will play in Cleveland tonight.
In a 105-99 loss to the Central Division-rival Indiana Pacers on Saturday, Monta Ellis had 20 points and Brandon Jennings collected 16 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds for Milwaukee, which shot 44 percent for the game and was outrebounded by a 54-43 margin.
"I was trying to get boards, get my other teammates involved, it wasn't enough," said Jennings. "Picking up full court, that takes a ton out of you. They hit some shots and we didn't."
The Bucks used a 7-0 run to pull within 90-89 with less than seven minutes to go, but Indiana answered with a three-pointer to end Milwaukee's threat. The Bucks will visit the Pacers Thursday and are 14-16 on the road. They have won their last three games away from Brew City and are 8-1 in the last nine as the visitor.
Washington won for just the fourth time in 16 tries with Monday's improbable 87-84 win at Chicago. Granted the Bulls were without Derrick Rose and Luol Deng, Washington rallied from an 11-point deficit in the fourth quarter and was led by Kevin Seraphin's 21 points and 13 rebounds.
John Wall had 16 points and five assists.
"This team has shown a lot of potential all year. With another good draft, and this core group, we have an opportunity to do something special in the future," said Wizards guard Maurice Evans, who netted 14 points.
The Wizards are 8-22 at home and haven't been swept in a season series by Milwaukee since the 2008-09 campaign. Milwaukee has won the first three matchups between the teams and four straight overall. It is 11-3 in the past 14 meetings with Washington.
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
No comments:
Post a Comment