Tired of seeing his team score 85 points a game, George Karl found a lineup that got him 71 Tuesday night. This passes for progress with the Milwaukee Bucks.

Coming off a catastrophic trip west, they proved they can be equally ineffective home and away and against teams from either coast. It had been two years since they'd lost five in a row, and it only seems that long since they've lived up their advertising.

While filling out the missing person's report for Ray Allen's jump shot, they might also want to get a search warrant for their reputation as the best team in the East. They built that on the jump shots, and when those don't fall, they do.

Karl had that in mind when he filled out his lineup Tuesday, taking note of the 85, 84 and 83 points the Bucks scored in three of their previous four games.

"I don't like scoring 85 points," he said. "I'm going to put my best offensive team on the court.

"Maybe that's wrong. Maybe I should put energy on the court. Maybe I should put size on the court. We have different combinations with different guys who can start for us and give us different things."

That's like deciding which flies to float in your soup. Regardless of the ingredients, Karl got a recipe for 31% field-goal shooting and a nine-point fourth quarter.