Darvin Ham team President Peter Fagan talking about your favorite basketball team from on the court. Good stretches. Where, you know, I think that the guys have executed and done some things. Well, you off. The key is I think the planning was great. The execution is going well. It's time to go courtside with the Milwaukee Bucks. Here's your host, Gail Papa. One. I'm Gail Klopfer at this is courtside with the Milwaukee Bucks. You've heard the old adage. Go West Young man. Go West. Let's just what the bucks have done tonight. The team is in the middle of the longest road trip of the season. So far, the trick actually began with a quick jog to the East, a miniseries against the Cavaliers in Cleveland, two games to convincing wins, then under Denver for a showdown with the Nuggets and a dude you can't ignore. They call him the Joker. He can drop 50 points on you in a heartbeat. Last night, he poured 35. But the Bucks took control of the second half Yannis and Chris Middleton combined for 59 points. The bench mob kept the momentum rolling, and the monks racked up their fifth win in a row. Now, the westward ho continues with stops ahead and Phoenix, Salt Lake and Oklahoma City and as the truck rolls on, you can bet that a big part of the Buck's story will be the best mob. Our guest tonight is the unofficial chairman of the mob. He honed his skills on the hard court at Notre Dame in his third season with the Bucks. He brings it every night with energy defense. Of toughness and the ability to score from up close or downtown Beverly that he's got a side hustle in the construction business. We'll talk about it all with one of the most versatile players on the Bucks. Roster. Pat Connaughton pad Welcome. Great to have you back on court side. Awesome. Appreciate you having me gallows. Very nice intro. I don't know if I deserve all of that. I think you do. Absolutely particularly if you keep shooting the way you are bad, Definitely well. Terrific. Well pad after an uneven start. The team is clearly started to jail. What what was the catalyst in your mind that helped kick the team into another gear? Um, well, I would say just the The time and you know you learn a lot about yourself. When you go through a little bit of diversity, I think in the years passed my first two years here, Um, you know, we didn't face all that much diversity throughout the regular season, and this year we have a bunch of new guys. So there's a lot of chemistry that has to be formed. And that doesn't happen overnight and especially, doesn't happen when You know, there's such a short preseason both from a practice and a preseason game standpoint on Ben, Like I said, You know, I think it's actually pretty good for us that a Zagros up with the new guys included. We went through a little bit of adversity on go. We're finding ways to, um, you know, deal with it. You know, it's better to learn about that now than to have to learn about it. You know, in playoff time, which is what we've had to do over the last few years. That makes a lot of sense, but it really does. You know, we've often talked about pro basketball being a game of adjustments. The Bucks coaching staff is clearly made changes in both the offensive and defensive schemes that what do you see is the biggest differences between this year and last Um, yeah, I think this is a lot more space on the floor offensively. Um, you know, we've changed our spacing a little bit, and we have a lot of guys that are unselfish. You want to play with each other and want to, you know, shoot as much sorry, past as much as they want to shoot. I think that's really unique in the MBA s O for us, Um Having that space allows Yonathan Crist operate with a little more freedom and, um, make sure that they see a little bit less of a crowd and then you know defensively, it's about continuing our quest to be as good defensively as possible. That's where it all starts for us, and I don't think at the beginning of the season we were as good as we needed to be. I think you could be a little more physical and I think You know, it's about getting, you know a bunch of the new guys. Uh, Up to speed with exactly how we defend because, you know, we pride ourselves on having each other's back on sometimes comes whether NBA teams that's not always the case. It's up to you to guard your own man, and you don't have as much help for us. We want over help. You want to make sure we're there for each other and one the team it has. Another too much back. There is a third teammate having that guy's back, so I think we're start finally starting to get in rhythm with that, and hopefully we continue to build upon it on this West Coast swing. How does the team continue to improve and defending the long ball? The three point shots? You know, it's about that extra effort. You know, defending three, especially say Themba is such a big deal. It's such an important part of the game that we want to make sure that we Make it a little bit harder when we weigh scramble, and it's about giving that extra little bit of effort and then making them a little bit more on cultural obviously, and says MBIA. There's guys shooting from 35 40 ft..