“Right now we should really be 3-0,” Jennings said. “We were up at halftime against Charlotte, and we lost a lead. And tonight we were up (24) at half and let a team come back. That is something we really need to focus on, especially going on a West Coast road trip. On the road in hostile environments you have got to be able to contain the lead and take over.”
Jordan Crawford, benched in favor of Nick Young after scoring one point in a loss at Atlanta on Wednesday, led Washington (0-3) with 24 points. John Wall had six points on 1-of-9 shooting and four turnovers.
Ersan Ilyasova had 16 points, and Carlos Delfino, who missed the first two games of the season with a sprained right wrist, added 15 off the bench for Milwaukee (2-1). Andrew Bogut had 13 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks.
Jennings has scored 22, 24 and 22 points in three games this season.
“He has been very efficient,” Bucks coach Scott Skiles said. “He is doing a good job in the first half of the games of moving the ball around and seeing people and kind of taking his scoring opportunities as they come. And then as the game has gone on he’s gotten a little more aggressive, especially when we’ve struggled a little bit in those stretches.
“That’s what the good players do.”
The first half went about as badly as it could go for the Wizards – starting with a technical foul called when Roger Mason Jr., who was not on the active list, checked into the game.
Mason had come in for Crawford with 3:27 left in the first quarter and scored on a baseline jumper seven seconds later. However, during a timeout at the 2:53 mark, the Wizards were whistled for the technical. The basket was later taken away from Mason and credited to Rashard Lewis. Jennings made the technical free throw to make it 25-18 Milwaukee, and Ronny Turiaf’s dunk made it 25-20 before the Bucks poured it on.
Wizards coach Flip Saunders took responsibility for Mason being disqualified from the game. The Wizards public relations staff also took the blame.
The NBA provides a roster to teams to circle who will be inactive for each game. The list excluded Mason’s name, and neither Saunders nor the PR staff caught the mistake before sending the final active roster to the league office.
The Bucks statistical staff noticed the mistake when they tried to enter Mason’s basket.
“It’s my fault,” Saunders said. “I didn’t notice it. I take responsibility for that. I thought he would have given us some help.”
Said Mason: “It was just human error. Just a mistake. It happens.”
Milwaukee outscored the Wizards 40-21 the rest of the half to take a 65-41 lead. The Bucks, 22nd in the league in field goal percentage coming in, shot 61.5 percent in the half to Washington’s 34 percent. Young and Wall combined to go 1 for 11 in the first half.
That’s all for today.



