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Bucks' Greer leads Krystkowiak to win in coaching debut

Mar 16, 2007 - 5:21 AM MILWAUKEE (Ticker) -- Larry Krystkowiak's first game as an NBA coach was a memorable one. He got help from another little-known member of the Milwaukee Bucks.

Rookie Lynn Greer scored a career-high 14 points and Michael Redd added 29 as the Bucks used hot shooting en route to a 101-90 victory over the San Antonio Spurs, who had their season-high 13-game winning streak snapped.

Andrew Bogut collected 13 points and 12 rebounds for the Bucks, who shot 53 percent (39-of-73) from the field and 8-of-18 on 3-pointers.

"There haven't been too many good stories for our team this year, but tonight was one of those rare nights," Redd said. "We played unselfish, with passion and with a lot of heart. We wanted to get this win for ourselves too."

Hours after replacing the fired Terry Stotts as coach of reeling Milwaukee, Krystkowiak guided his squad to an upset victory over the NBA's hottest teams. Stotts was fired on Wednesday after one-plus seasons with the team.

"It feels awesome," Krystkowiak said. "It is a really special evening, I'm still kind of soaking it in. I'm really proud of the guys, how they played one of the better teams in the league. I hope they can bottle that energy and passion."

Krystkowiak was originally hired on June 22 as an assistant coach. He takes over a team mired in last place in the Central Division and tied for 13th out of 15 teams in the weak Eastern Conference.

"It's a little bit natural if you look at coaching changes throughout history, you get a little bit of adrenaline and spark," Krystkowiak said. "I anticipated the guys would play hard, and we would have had problems if our guys didn't play hard regardless of who the coach was."

The inexperienced coach got help from the little-used Greer, who shot 4-of-6 from the floor, including 3-of-3 from the arc, in 15 minutes. An undrafted rookie, Greer had played only six minutes the entire season entering Thursday's game.

"That was a lot of fun," Greer said. "I'm just glad Coach K had the confidence to put me out there in the fourth quarter. I felt very comfortable out there when I was out there for more than just a few minutes."

After spending four years playing in Europe and the D-League, Greer was happy to get a chance to show what he can do.

"It's difficult to sit on the bench knowing you can play in this league but taking advantages of your opportunities is very important," Greer said.

Redd, who shot 13-of-20 from the field, admitted that he was happy for Greer.

"Lynn was huge, he played exceptionally well," Redd said. "He does that all the time in practice, he basically was able to transfer all that into the game."

Brent Barry scored 20 points and Tim Duncan added 13 and 13 rebounds for the Spurs, who had outscored opponents by an average of over 15 points during their season-best streak.

"We played terrible, like we were playing a month and a half ago, and all the improvement we've had over that time was gone," San Antonio guard Manu Ginobili said. "We've got to give our best effort every night. We let them get too comfortable and they made some big shots and got too confident."