The Bucks' record and the way they have been playing so far this season would indicate that they are not a playoff team. Even so, the Bucks' coaches present everything to their players - even at this early stage of the season - within a framework of what would work for them in the playoffs.

"We coach and approach every day like we're getting ready for the postseason," said Skiles. "That's what we do. What is going to allow us to win in the postseason? I think that's how you have to approach it. That's how you end up getting to that point because you approach it like that all the time."

With Michael Redd back after missing 14 games with an ankle injury, it was suggested to Skiles that with another offensive weapon now on the floor, maybe the Bucks had more of a margin of error on the defensive end. That maybe every error they made defensively would not kill them.

Skiles agreed that theoretically, the more offensive weapons a team had, the more mistakes it could get away with on the defensive end. But, added Skiles, looking the other way when mistakes were being made only meant that they would come back to haunt you.

Skiles elaborated on his "getting ready for the playoffs" philosophy during the team's recent Western trip, saying that he didn't really pick up that approach from any other coaches he has known, that he just felt it was the correct way to go about things.

"I think that's what you have to do," he said. "You have to anticipate how you're going to have to play if you're going to play at that (playoff) level. You can't just go through your season and then all of a sudden say, 'OK guys, now we have to turn it up. Now it's the post-season'. You have to at least be addressing the things that you know will hold up in a playoff series. Things that you know you need to do.

"I think it just helps you as the season goes on. One thing it does is keeps guys' minds on attempting to try and play in the postseason, which everybody wants to do anyway. But it's good and bad. You can play on good things too and say, 'Hey, if we keep doing this well, we're going to be a good post-season team.' And things you're not doing well, you have to stay on top of it."

An example of Skiles' approach occurred after a home victory over Charlotte last week. It was an ugly victory and Skiles said afterward that he was pleased to have won the game. Yet on the other hand he wondered aloud after the game, "Why do we have so many blown defensive coverages? Why do we have trouble concentrating after timeouts? Why do we have guys not looking like they've run any of our plays before?"

Skiles said that the team then had a good film session the day after the game, looking at 25 or 30 clips of some things they did well and some of the things they didn't do so well.

Skiles was asked how he balanced getting the team to play playoff-type Basketball with staying focused on the present and not getting too far ahead of itself.

"It's easy," he said. "One of the things we've been trying to get across from the beginning of camp is that we want to play possession by possession. I know everybody says that and everybody is trying to do that but that's what we want to do.

"When we're watching tape and kind of picking apart possessions, we can say, 'Look right here is very good. This is how we need to play if we're going to be a great team. And these are things right here that we need to do better.' And so we go possession by possession.

"But the goal is always to get better and to play playoff-type Basketball."

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