MILWAUKEE — While the local college basketball team has turned the BMO Harris Bradley Center into a tremendous home court advantage and a place where it never loses, the building's main tenant can't get it going.
For the third straight season, the Milwaukee Bucks are struggling to defend their turf. The Bucks are just 54-49 at home since making the playoffs after the 2009-10 season, including a 15-14 mark this year -- the worst home record among NBA playoff teams.
Why can't the Bucks win at home? It's a question that was first posed to former coach Scott Skiles and now to current coach Jim Boylan multiple times with both struggling to come up with answers.
Compounding the frustration is that Milwaukee holds its own on the road. The Bucks are 14-14 away from Milwaukee, not a bad record if they were winning 60 to 70 percent of their home games.
"Had we been able to do that this year, our record would be great," Boylan said. "But we haven't. So that's the situation we're in. But we still have a cluster of home games left, so we'll see if we can maybe get a little momentum going."
One glance at Milwaukee's split stats and it's easy to see the Bucks post almost identical averages in every category on the road and at home.
With the Bucks sitting 6-1/2 games ahead of Philadelphia and 7-1/2 games in front of Toronto for the Eastern Conference's final playoff spot with 25 games left on their schedule, Milwaukee has enough of a cushion to look up at teams ahead in the standings.
Boston is just 1-1/2 games ahead of Milwaukee in the seventh spot and Atlanta, Chicago and Brooklyn are all just 3-1/2 games ahead of the Bucks in the fourth, fifth and sixth spots.
Catching the Nets, Bulls or Hawks would be hard to do with so few games left, but Milwaukee's three-game winning streak keeps the hope of moving up alive. A more realistic goal would be to catch the Celtics, meaning the Bucks avoid a first round series with Miami.
In order to do so, the Bucks must protect their home court. Of their 12 remaining home games, only five come against teams currently in the playoffs. With a west coast trip looming next week and a four-game road trip in April, the Bucks face eight playoff teams on the road in the season's final 25 games.
As evidenced by the playoff run of 2009-10, Bucks' fans will come and make the Bradley Center a great environment if there's a reason to be there. Milwaukee has played a highly entertaining brand of basketball since acquiring J.J. Redick at the trade deadline and the building got loud late in regulation and in overtime in Saturday's victory over Toronto.
In order to keep that type of environment up for the rest of the season, the Bucks know they have to keep winning at home. How will they flip the switch? It's something that Boylan doesn't like to address specifically to the team.
"I'm not a big believer in all of that stuff," Boylan said. "The guys understand where we are at. Our approach has been pretty simple from when I took over. Let's just go out each night and do what we need to do to win the game.
"I have a view or an eye on the big picture, but I think the players have an eye just on the next game. That's the way we approach it."
The quest to turn around home fortunes continues Monday night against Utah, a team that can exploit one of Milwaukee's biggest weaknesses.
The Jazz are exactly the big and physical type of team Milwaukee has struggled the most with this year. With big bodies like Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter, Utah will try and bully the weaker, but longer Bucks big men.
Jefferson and Millsap both missed Friday's game against Charlotte with injuries and both are questionable for Monday. If both or even one can't go, the Bucks' chances of correcting their recent rebounding issue will improve.
"Most games it's usually the rebounding for us because we've been outrebounded recently," Boylan said. "Teams have hurt us on the offensive boards with extra possessions and almost always those extra possessions turn into three-point shots. Those can really hurt you."
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