Deemed not ready for NBA, Jennings drops 55 on Warriors

Milwaukee Bucks rookie point guard Brandon Jennings went crazy against the Golden State Warriors, dropping 55 points in victory, including 29 in the third quarter alone. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

Brandon Jennings didn’t want to go to college. He believed that if he was going to play, it would be for a paycheck, so, unable to enter the draft due to the age restrictions, the highly touted point guard became the first player to forgo college and make the leap from high school to professional European basketball. In making the decision to sign a one-year contract with Italian club Lottomatica Roma, the Oak Hill Academy star who won every major player of the year award as a senior believed he would see a substantial amount of action, thereby increasing his notoriety for the following year’s NBA Draft.

But things didn’t go as planned, and Jennings spent a majority of the season riding the bench. When he did play, he wasn’t all too successful, averaging 5 points, 2 rebounds, and one assist in 27 games while shooting just 35 percent from the field and 20 percent from three-point land.

His struggles on the European stage would presumably hurt his draft status, but his lowly statistics did no such thing. Recognizing the potential, the Milwaukeee Bucks selected the skinny 6′1″ 20-year old with the tenth overall selection. Milwaukee thought enough of his talent not only to make him a top-ten pick, but to let 23-year old starting point guard Ramon Sessions leave via free agency. The job was Jennings’, whether he was ready to take the reins or not.

It appeared he wasn’t. He averaged a satisfactory 10 points and 5 assists during the preseason, but was woefully inconsistent, scoring three points and dishing one assists one game and then scoring ten and racking up 12 assists the next. He had plenty of skeptics, and many deemed after the former performance that he simply wasn’t able to play in the NBA just yet. But boy has he proved them wrong.

Jennings narrowly missed out on a triple-double in his regular season debut against the Philadelphia 76ers. He scored 17 points, grabbed nine rebounds, and handed out nine assists, one rebound and one assist short of becoming the first player since Oscar Robertson to post a triple-double in his first game. To prove this performance wasn’t a fluke, he scored 24 points the following night against the Detroit Pistons, and 25 points three days later against the Chicago Bulls.

He struggled in his fourth game, posting a line similar to that in the preseason, scoring 9 points on 4-16 shooting while compiling just three assists in 27 minutes. He has since bounced back from this mediocre performance in a big way. He scored 17 points against the New York Knicks, one of nine teams that passed up his services, and then exploded for 32 points against a horrible defensive Denver Nuggets team to go along with 9 assists.

He played an even worse defensive team last night, facing a Golden State Warriors team that, coached by Don Nelson, is currently in disarray. Nelson grooms his players to be offensively oriented; they don’t have a single player that takes pride in defensive intensity, or playing defense at all. Playing Golden State, which came in allowing 110 points per game, Jennings went nuts on Milwaukee’s home-court.

He didn’t score in the first quarter, which makes his feat that much more remarkable. He was 0-3 shooting with a turnover. Then, beginning a layup to begin Milwaukee’s second quarter, he started to heat up. Fellow rookie Stephen Curry had the assignment of guarding him, and though he blocked his shot on the next possession and forced a missed jumper a minute later, his defense would soon wane.

Jennings hit a three-pointer three minutes after making a free-throw, giving him six points in 14 minutes. He reached double figures by halftime, skying for a tip-in and a dunk to give him ten points at intermission. He had a quiet first half, and his Bucks were down by eight. There was no sign that he would be in for a big night, that was until shots starting falling in the third quarter.

He drained a 16-footer over Curry with two minutes gone by, cutting a deficit that reached ten back down to eight. He hit another jumper, dwindling the margin to seven, and a three-pointer that whittled it to six. A possession later, he made it a four-point game by crossing over Monta Ellis and driving in for a layup. He cut the Warriors lead to three with a three-pointer, to one with a layup, tied it with a free-throw, grabbed the lead with a mid-range jumper, and extended the Bucks advantage to five with his fourth three-pointer. In the quarter’s first eight minutes, he amounted 20 points, picking Golden State apart for uncovered jumper after jumper and layup after layup. He was just getting warm, too.

He became a point guard for a few possessions, finding guard Charlie Bell and center Andrew Bogut for layups, before harkening back to the player who averaged 32 points per game in his high school career. With blazing quickness and the ability to stop on a dime, he continued his magnificent period, exploding in for a layup, pulling up for a floater in the lane, canning a long three-pointer from the top of the key, then a jumper from the angle. In the third quarter, Jennings scored an incredible 29 points. He made 12-13 shots, including 4-5 three-pointers. With this, his first half was a distant memory. He now had 39 points for the game, with another breathtaking quarter ahead of him.

His first points of the final period were free-throws, coming with nine and a half minutes remaining, putting him over the 40-point plateau. In spite of his scoring outburst, a jumper by Ellis gave the Warriors a 110-109 lead with just under four minutes left. Jennings said enough is enough and started his late surge. A nine-foot, high arching jumper regained the lead for Milwaukee, and a three-pointer without a defender within five feet increased the margin to a slim two. He made Golden State’s deficit six with a mid-range jumper, and then six again, thrusting the dagger deep in the Warriors heart by hitting his seventh and final three-pointer with 34 seconds left, icing a magical win for the Bucks.

He hit two free-throws with ten seconds left, creating the final margin of 129-125 in Milwaukee’s favor. Those two free-throws gave him 55 points, and an amazing 45 in the second half. In all, he made 21-34 field goals, 7-8 three-pointers, 6-8 free-throws, and still found time to dish five assists. His performance, in front of a raucous crowd of 15,000, was beyond belief, and overwhelmingly silenced every critic who thought he was nowhere near ready for the NBA, a league that he has dominated during his young career.