Bucks have tough road trip ahead of them

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MILWAUKEE - The Milwaukee Bucks are gearing up for a short two-game Western road trip this week. The Bucks will play at Denver tomorrow night and Utah on Wednesday night before heading home for three Eastern Conference games.

The Bucks are getting ready to face a hot Nuggets’ team that won six-in-a-row, after a three-point overtime win over Oklahoma City. Former Bucks’ coach George Karl is in his ninth year at Denver – and he’s 11-5 against his old team. The Bucks are only 8-33 all-time in the Mile High City – and they’ve lost 10 straight at Utah, with their last victory coming in October of 2001.

Milwaukee is coming off four games in five nights in which they went 2-2. The Bucks topped Orlando at home by nine points on Saturday night. The Bucks remain three-and-a-half games behind Chicago for first place in the NBA’s Central Division. And Milwaukee remains in the seventh playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, a game behind sixth-place Atlanta.

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Milwaukee Bucks’ coach Jim Boylan has wanted his current job ever since he was a point guard on Marquette’s 1977 national championship team. Since then, he’s held a number of NBA positions, including an interim head coaching job in Chicago for the better part of the season. But his biggest battle came in Milwaukee, right after his first season as Scott Skiles’ top assistant. The 57-year-old Boylan was diagnosed with cancer at the base of his tongue in May of 2009. It was an inoperable tumor which he fought with an intense treatment of chemotherapy and radiation. He told the Journal Sentinel quote, “When you’re faced with something like that, you go into a fight mode.” He said his mouth burned, eating became impossible, and he lost 25 pounds. Boylan is in perfect health now, with a fresh perspective on both life and basketball. In his words, “You realize everything is fragile. Everything is going great one day … The next day, the phone rings and your life changes. I think since then, you enjoy the little moments. You can’t help not to.” Unlike his tenure in Chicago, Boylan says he’s not obsessed about keeping his job into next season. He says he’s trying to do all the right things. And if it’s not good enough quote, “then that’s good enough.” Boylan continues to give the Bucks a lift, a month after Skiles left. Boylan is 9-5 as the Bucks’ head coach. His team plays at Denver tonight.

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