Lakers Convict Bucks of Crimes Against Basketball

I don't want to alarm anyone, but Adam Morrison made a three-pointer tonight. It was his third of the year and one of many humiliations visited upon the Milwaukee Bucks. A 15-0 first quarter run by the Los Angeles Lakers put the Bucks in a big early hole, and the Lakers spent the rest of the game shoveling dirt on their antlered heads. The final score was 95 to 77, capping an awfully rough day for Wisconsin pro sports franchises.

It's hard to find vocabulary adequate to describe the Bucks' crappiness tonight. Their offense was a holy abomination. In the first quarter, they shot 4 for 21 and knocked out only eight points. The Laker defense was scrappy enough, but let's not kid ourselves. The Bucks shot the ball like morons. Even with a garbage-time scoring burst they managed only 0.82 points per possession, the lowest mark posted by a Laker opponent this season. Brandon Jennings missed 13 of his 17 shots and didn't get to the line.

(I do, however, wish to steal his hair and never give it back.)

The Lakers themselves shot the ball in pretty unattractive fashion. Andrew Bynum (7 for 14, 17 points and a career-high 18 reebs) was the only starter to find a scoring vibe. None of the others made more than four buckets, and it took Kobe Bryant 21 attempts to get even that many. He made 1 of 14 attempts in the first half, making it increasingly obvious that his broken finger is sabotaging his shot.

Both Shannon Brown and Jordan Farmar played nice games off the bench. Shannon served up a variety pack of spectacular moments, including a half-court buzzer beater at the end of the third (viewable here), an "and one" dunk off a leakout from Lamar Odom and back-to-back swats of Luke Ridnour and Jennings. The videos of the latter two are posted below.

The Lakers are 29-8 and head out on the road for the dreaded Texas Two-Step: back-to-back games against San Antonio and Dallas. Health remains the most ominous cloud hanging over the team. In addition to Kobe's finger woes, Pau Gasol remains out of action with his strained hamstring - he might or might not play against the Spurs on Tuesday - and Ron Artest may have reaggravated his concussion tonight. Midway through the first quarter, he got tangled up with a Bucks player and bonked his head on the ground. Eventually he asked out of the game and played only 19 minutes.

Gary Vitti, it's time to work some magic.