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"It's getting kind of late," guard Michael Redd said. "January is going to be a make-or-break month for us. Plain and simple. We can't wait until February or March to try and make a move. It's now. It's now or never. I had great expectations for our team. At this point, it's disappointing."
Said forward Yi Jianlian, "Because of the performance lately, (morale) is overall kind of low but what we have to do now is pick ourselves back up and find that good feeling once again."
After getting taken to the woodshed by the Detroit Pistons on New Year's Eve, the Bucks were encouraged by the 1½-hour practice they went through on Tuesday. But as is always the case with the Bucks, now it's a matter of being able to transfer that practice energy over onto the game court.
The Bucks were also encouraged by the fact that point guard Mo Williams practiced and is expected to be back in the starting lineup after missing the Detroit game with a sore Achilles' tendon.
Despite the fact that Bobby Simmons has been largely unproductive his last four games as a starter at small forward - 3.7 points on 27.3% shooting and 2.2 rebounds per game - coach Larry Krystkowiak wants to establish some continuity with his lineup and does not plan to tinker with the starting lineup.
One thing Krystkowiak would like to do, though, is play Charlie Villanueva more at small forward and even play him together at times with Yi.
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I'd like to see more of the two of them together, and I"d even be happy if they started CV at small forward instead of Simmons, but theyn they'd have an even crappier bench.
More of the new year's plans here:
Bucks reaching critical point
JSOnline: Sense of urgency emerges
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