A capacity crowd of 18,717 was on hand Saturday night to watch the Bucks take on Cleveland -- the team's fourth sellout of the season -- but its safe to assume a fairly large percentage of the crowd was in the Bradley Center to watch LeBron James.
Unfortunately for that group, James took the night off.
"I kind of feel bad. They came to see LeBron but ... oh well," joked Andrew Bogut after the game. "There will be people who say it was a great game, there will be people who say 'LeBron didn't play, if he would have played they wouldn't have won'."
What the crowd did, see, however, was a Bucks team that fought, scraped and battled its way to a 92-85 victory; it's third in a row, ninth in the last ten games and 15th in the last 20.
LeBron or not, a victory over the Cavs, the top team in the East, is a pretty big accomplishment for a team that, before the season, was written off by most people as a collection of below-average players with cap-friendly salaries, save of course, for Bogut and Brandon Jennings.
All of a sudden though, the Bucks are clicking and, more importantly, aren't just trying to sneak into the playoffs; they're battling for a mid-level spot. The victory Saturday puts Milwaukee at 33-28 and thanks to Toronto's loss today, just one half game ahead of the Raptors for the fifth spot in the East.
What the Bucks are doing isn't flashy. Sure, Jennings has razzled and dazzled at times this sesason but for the most part, the team is a rare example of one that lives up to its marketing slogan. In Milwaukee's case, it's working hard and playing hard.
"The guys have been playing awful hard for the last five or six straight weeks now," said head coach Scott Skiles.
Entering play Saturday, the Bucks were 24th in the NBA with an average attendance of 14,821 per game. That number will climb, with back-to-back games against powerhouses Boston and Utah coming up this week, but slowly, the Bucks are starting to generate some interest - especially if the Bucks keep finding ways to win.
"Both teams have all-star caliber players but they're coming to our building so ... we'll find out," Skiles said. "I'd like to go 15-5 again."
When Barry Alvarez took over as head coach at the University of Wisconsin in 1989, he had a message for fans that had drifted away during the program's three-decade fall from grace.
"People better get season tickets right now because before long they probably won't be able to," Alvarez said the day he was hired.
He was right.
Granted, the National Basketball Association is a much different animal - especially when it comes to finances and economics - but general manager John Hammond is creating a similar circumstance at the Bradley Center.
If the Bucks keep winning, people will start showing up. And who knows, they might even come out regardless of whom the Bucks are playing.
