When Larry Krystkowiak took over as head coach of the Bucks in mid-March, the team won its first two games and seemed poised for a final-month renaissance.

Then, reality set in.

With key players like Andrew Bogut, Charlie Villanueva and Michael Redd sidelined due to injury, the Bucks have lost 11 of 12 games, including a 104-98 setback against Indiana Wednesday night at the Bradley Center.

As the season entered its final week with nothing to look forward to but the draft lottery, we caught up with Krystkowiak at the team's training complex in St. Francis.In a small office decorated with photos of his wife, Jan, and sons Cameron, Luc and Ben, Krystkowiak talked about injuries, the draft and the effort put forth by his players.

Enjoy this Milwaukee Talks interview with Bucks coach Larry Krystkowiak:

OnMilwaukee.com: It has been just about a month since you took over as head coach and there is about a week until you reach the finish line. At this point, do you wish you had more time to keep working with these players or will you be relieved when the season is over?

LK: Under the circumstances, I figure I'd be lying if I didn't say it was a sense of relief. We've been somewhat of a wounded bunch as a team. It's been really hard on everybody mentally. Between the injuries and losing way more close games than we should. And finding a way to lose some games, the other night like New York.

It's been real disheartening. I think it's been positive to have an opportunity to coach for however many weeks I've had to get a little of that out of my system and maybe set the tone a little bit for what is going to happen in the fall. I think from my perspective, it's a bonus. Hopefully, from a player's perspective to not have the unknown over the summer and then have a coaching change and try to jump into camp.

I'm really, really excited about what lies ahead. At the same time, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be relieved when this chapter is over.

OMC: A lot of people probably think your life changed a lot when you moved into the head coaching job. Did it? It has always seemed to me that assistant coaches are every bit as invested in a team's success or failure as the head coach. Do the losses sting more now that you're the guy in charge?

LK: The job description expanded a little bit. Instead of being on the floor working with the players as much as I was before, I'm doing more media stuff. The time changes, but the time elements are the same. You hit it right on the head - assistants... I wasn't sleeping very much (as an assistant). I was taking it hard, too. Not a whole lot has changed in that respect.

OMC: They say that adversity reveals character. Your team has had plenty of adversity this season. What have you learned about the players?

LK: I've commented on that the last few weeks. If you watch some of our practices, with the exception of our game at Charlotte and some little lulls that we've had, I think from the outside looking in you wouldn't say 'That's a team that quit.' We had a game we could have won at Dallas. We had the Clippers on the ropes. We had the New York game the other day. It's the old 'would've, could've, should've.' We could have been .500 in our last 10 games or 6-6 in our last 12 pretty darned easily. It hasn't happened. But, our guys haven't quit. They've come to practice and they've given it their best. Our roster is depleted, so guys are playing a lot of minutes. It's tough to win games, but character-wise, the guys are standing up to the challenge and being professional.

OMC: Given your position, with the draft lottery looming, a lot of people assume that the organization is losing games on purpose. What do you say to people who think you are "tanking?"

LK: It's tough. Part of my goal here... I'm really looking forward to not being in these types of discussions at the end of the year. That's the challenge -- to get out of the area that we're in so that we can be talking about playoff seeding and then, hopefully, in a few years, we can be talking about advancing. But, it's baby steps right now. Right now, we're at the bottom end of the spectrum. It's not fun.

OMC: Does it upset you that people think you're losing on purpose?

LK: I get back to trying to control what I can control. I can't control what people on the outside are saying about our team and what they think about what we're doing. It's real important that I'm trying to do what's right for our franchise and players and staying committed to that goal. I'll get distracted if I start paying too much attention to what is going on outside.

OMC: Do you think the lottery system needs to be revamped? If it was not weighted the way it is, teams wouldn't be accused of tanking.

LK: No. the way it works is the way it works. Parity is important. Look at a situation like Memphis. They've got a 50 percent chance of getting one of the top two picks. Now, is it fair to have the same chance for a team that was one game out of the playoffs? If you're really trying to create parity, then I don't buy that it needs to be the same for everybody.

I think it's important to give a team a probability to get one of those picks if you've struggled as much as the teams at the bottom end of the spectrum have. Mathematically, that's the way to go.

OMC: When the season ends, will you watch the playoffs?

LK: Yes. We're going to get real active as a staff. I think there is a lot to be learned. We will do things similar to what we do during the season where you've done this team and Brian (James, an assistant) does the next one and Lester (Conner, another assistant) does the next one. I'm going to assign our staff teams to follow.

Let's say the Spurs plays somebody and they've got five days to prepare and come up with a game plan on how to beat whoever it might be. You've got to assume that people with that much preparation time and that level of success are doing something right. I'm all open for learning.

We'll look at how they are trying to beat Dallas in the semifinals and make little notes within our file of how we're scouting them not just before we play them next year, but just to say "Hey, this is a pretty good philosophy" or way to play it. We're going to be active throughout the whole playoffs as a staff trying to pick up and learn and figure out ways to beat Cleveland. How did somebody play them? It's real important to do that.

OMC: Will you do the scouting in person or in front of a flat-screen TV?

LK: Most of it will be on video. I don't even know if it's practical for us to scout games in person during the playoffs.

OMC: Video scouting has come a long way since you were a player, hasn't it?

LK: We made the most of what we had then, but it's pretty crazy. It's all broken down into offensive clips and defensive clips so you don't have to sort through the free throws and the timeouts. I've got it all right here (in the office). I come in the morning after (a game) and it's 'OK, let's look at Orlando's offense' and then it's one clip after the next. You can get pretty specific. And we've got a group of guys who do personnel. If you want to see what somebody is doing individually, you can do that.

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