The New Year has not been kind to the Bucks. Over the past two months, Milwaukee has lost not only basketball games, but also key players, playoff position, optimism and, noticeably, its defensive identity.

Since the calendar flipped to 2017, the Bucks have gone 10-17, seen forward Jabari Parker suffer a season-ending knee injury, fallen to 10th in the Eastern Conference and allowed opponents to score 100 or more points in 24 of 27 games. In Wednesday’s embarrassing home loss to the Nuggets, Milwaukee gave up 63 first-half points and trailed by 26 at halftime.

Head coach Jason Kidd called a timeout less than four minutes into the game, shaking his head at the showing. Giannis Antetokounmpo looked weary and, in a troubling role reversal, was the one getting dunked on. The Bucks’ defense, predicated on swift helping and clockwork rotations, appeared a step slow and frequently disorganized. The BMO Harris Bradley Center crowd booed loudly.

Following the 110-98 loss, which left Milwaukee at 26-33 and three games back of the No. 8 seed in the East, Kidd said the young team "didn’t understand the urgency" of fighting for a playoff spot. In the locker room, players lamented the lack of energy and said they were out of position and unaware on defense. The Bucks attributed some of the recent defensive drop-off to changing personnel – they lost Parker, got Khris Middleton back, made a couple of minor trades and saw Michael Beasley go down with a knee injury last week – and much of it to poor effort and execution.

When asked after practice Thursday about the defense, John Henson gave a short chuckle. "The defense has dipped," he said. "The scheme is hard, but that’s what makes us good."

Milwaukee’s manic, help-heavy defensive scheme comprises a lot of constantly moving parts. It relies on crisp, almost-automatic rotations and intuitive positional understanding in order to compensate for all the trapping and switching and overloading the ball side on pick-and-rolls. It also prizes communication. Without the sweat and the smarts – and without experienced or high-IQ players familiar with the scheme – the Bucks look uncomfortably lost on defense and give up easy, open shots. The Nuggets made nine of their first 11 field goals.

"When it does work, it’s flawless," Henson said. "But if a link in the chain is off, we’re not as successful."

Jason Terry agreed with and elaborated on Henson’s understated assessment.

"No question we all have to be in sync, on both ends of the floor, but especially defensively," he said. "And communication; we have to talk. In this scheme you have to talk – one guy has to know where another guy is, and then there’s always a quarterback on the floor."

Now two years removed from the 2014-15 season when Milwaukee’s second-ranked defense – with coordinators like Zaza Pachulia and Jared Dudley on the team – took the NBA by storm and surprise, the Bucks seem to be going backwards. Since Jan. 1, they have the league’s fourth-worst defensive rating (110.8), its second-worst effective field-goal percentage (54.6) and its second-highest opponent three-point shooting percentage (38.4).

"A lot of it is due to personnel, obviously we’ve had to adjust our roster," Terry said Thursday. "But the scheme is great. We have a good scheme, we just have to understand it and execute it consistently, and that consistency hasn’t been there and that’s why the numbers dropped down. Our goal is to be in the top-10 and we were on pace before the injuries."

But the 39-year-old Terry, who in his 17th season and is only somewhat joking when he refers to himself as both a player and a coach, also alluded to another problematic issue he sees on the current Bucks squad.

When asked what he wanted to see from the Bucks down the stretch – there are 23 games remaining – Terry kept it simple but provocative, essentially issuing a "man-up" challenge to his teammates.

"I just want to see that fight consistently, every single night," he said. "Now, our makeup, our DNA – to a man – is not tough, so to speak. But you can make up with it with hustle, with effort plays, hard fouls, just aggressive play out there, and I think that is what’s going to get us to the playoffs."

Is this really a playoff team?

"It can be, yes," Terry said. "If we do the things I just mentioned consistently for the rest of the season, we will be in the playoffs."

Terry said he was trying to be an example for the younger guys and show them how to play tough and have an edge, though he added "there’s only one of me and I can only help so much." He said he believes the Bucks will bring in more veterans for a role like his in the future.  

In less than four minutes, Terry mentioned consistency six times – and anybody who’s been playing in the NBA since the last century knows a little bit about it – and that seems to be a confounding concept for a potential-filled team that has yet to progress from talented and exciting to provably, dependably good.

"Every night, consistency," Terry said. "Because at the end of the day as a professional, that’s what you owe to yourself and to your fan base and your teammates, is to come out and fight hard."

This season, the Bucks have blown out the defending-champion Cavaliers, thrice routed the rival Bulls by at least 20 points and beaten the Spurs on the road; they’ve also lost twice to the Sixers and endured a stretch last month in which they lost 12 of 14 games. The same night Middleton made his return from injury and debuted, Parker was lost for the season with a torn ACL. Against the Nuggets, Kidd started Brogdon and Vaughn – the latter of whom had averaged 5.9 minutes over the previous 11 games – to try and shake things up, but reverted to the usual lineup almost immediately. One (Euro) step forward, one (Monroe midrange) step back. 

Some nights, the Bucks come out raring to go, only to have a third-quarter collapse; other nights, like on Wednesday, they start slow and get in an early hole. On Friday, Milwaukee hosts the Los Angeles Clippers, who’ve had their own ups and downs recently – losing three in a row, then winning four straight, and entering having lost three of their last four. Which Bucks team will show up?

"It took us a half to wake up and play (against Denver), and then we fought back and all that is good," Terry said. "Tomorrow I expect us to come out and play from the beginning; we’re going to play hard. And with our energy and effort, it’ll put us in a position to win.

"The key for us to win at the end of the game is sticking to our game plan, being disciplined, sharing the ball offensively. When we’ve done that consistently, we’ve had more than our share of good victories, and we understand that’s our key to success."