Bucks prepare for opening night in Philadelphia

Paul Imig Posted: Oct. 30, 2009

ST. FRANCIS – The Milwaukee Bucks will be the final National Basketball Association team to kick off the 2009-’10 regular season when the ball goes up tonight in Philadelphia.

Some teams were playing as early as Tuesday night, but the Bucks had an entire week off between their final preseason game and Friday’s regular season opener against the 76ers.

“Other teams have played already, played two games,” coach Scott Skiles said after Thursday’s practice. “We have nothing to complain about now. We’ve had extra time to prepare, so we start with a back-to-back and see what happens. It’ll be interesting to see how we respond. I’m pretty confident in saying we’re going to play really hard.”

Philadelphia will enter the game with a 0-1 record after a lopsided loss to the defending Eastern Conference champion Orlando Magic on Wednesday night. Orlando scored 70 first-half points and led by 31 entering the fourth quarter.

It will be the home opener for the 76ers, and new head coach Eddie Jordan’s first introduction to the Philadelphia fans. Jordan, the former Washington Wizards coach, has his team running the Princeton offense for the first time this season, and Skiles believes they may still be adjusting to it.

“They’re running a new offensive system,” Skiles said. “It’s a really nice offense, and I’m sure they just need a little time to get familiar with it all. For us it’s a very, very dangerous team that we have a lot of respect for. We’re going to need to really take care of the ball and take good shots because even early in the game last night (against Orlando), when they get out in the open floor, they’re incredibly fast and they can finish and have great athleticism. So we really help ourselves if we have a low turnover game and take good shots.”

The 76ers are returning largely the same team from last year that went 41-41 and made the playoffs, with the one big exception being the loss of point guard Andre Miller.

“Losing Andre Miller will help us because he’s such a great passer and he found a lot of easy buckets against us,” Bucks center Andrew Bogut said. “But it’s going to be a tough matchup either way. We need to come and bring it. We know they’re adjusting to a new system with coach Jordan and the Princeton-type stuff. Hopefully they’re not too well adjusted to it. Hopefully they’re doubting themselves with that system.”

In Miller’s place is fifth-year player Louis Williams, who will serve as Bucks rookie Brandon Jennings’ first challenge as a starting point guard in the NBA.

“He’s a good scorer,” Skiles said of Williams. “We had difficulty last year getting him stopped. We had to put Mbah a Moute on him in one game. He’s clever with the ball. He’s got great quickness and he’s got range. They’ve got multiple guys that can break you down off the dribble, and it’s an area we’re still working on is containing people on the dribble. So we’ve got to be able to have a good team defensive game, but individually we’ve got to be able to keep them in front of us.”

Williams scored 18 points and had four assists Wednesday in Orlando, and second-year center Marreese Speights led Philadelphia with 26 points in the game.

With the Bucks flying back to Milwaukee at the conclusion of Friday’s game, Saturday’s home opener against Detroit will be the first set of back-to-back games for Bogut and Michael Redd, both of whom missed the final months of last season due to injury.

Bogut played all but one preseason game (the second of a back-to-back on the road) and increased his minutes as the exhibition season progressed. Redd missed three days of practice this week, but not because of his surgically-repaired knee. He strained a muscle in his lower back in Friday’s preseason finale, but was able to practice Thursday and is expected to be in the starting lineup in Philadelphia.

“I don’t have any restrictions (on Redd and Bogut),” Skiles said. “It’d be nice if I felt like I wasn’t over-playing them early on, but we can’t be thinking about anything other than winning the game.”

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Bucks prepare for opening night in Philadelphia