After winning the 2024 NBA Cup, Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers made it abundantly clear that he was worried about how his team might respond to getting back to the grind with three games in four nights to resume their regular-season schedule.
Rivers talked about it before his team’s NBA Cup victory, after the victory in Las Vegas and again when the team arrived in Cleveland for its first post-Cup game. But after those first three games, Rivers believed the Bucks would have a chance to catch their breath and get back in a groove.
“It’s real; the teams last year said it,” Rivers said of the tournament hangover before the Bucks played the Bulls on Dec. 23. “The good news is we play tonight, and I feel like we have the two days off and we can get back to our senses, if you want to say.
“When we looked at the schedule pre-going to Vegas, you kind of looked at the back-to-back and another game and I looked at it and said, ‘Man, if you get through the Chicago game, then maybe we can get our rhythm back a little bit.’ So, this is a big game for us.”
The Bucks took care of business in Chicago that night and beat the Bulls by 21 points, having an awful lot of fun along the way. A third loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers was obviously not what they wanted, but after that initial stumble, the team appeared to find its footing and won two games by double digits with their two top scorers, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, on the sideline.
But that just isn’t the way things have gone for Rivers and Milwaukee over the last year.
Rather than returning to normal after taking a couple days off for Christmas, both Antetokounmpo and Lillard missed another game on Dec. 26 against the Nets. Initially, Antetokounmpo missed time after the Cavaliers game with back spasms and Lillard couldn’t play because of a right calf strain he suffered in Las Vegas. But by the time Thursday’s game came around, both players were sidelined with an illness and the Bucks lost to the Nets for the second time this season.
After sharing some unpleasant details about the illness and that he had “never been that sick before in my entire life” on Saturday morning, Lillard played against the Bulls, while Antetokounmpo was sent back to Milwaukee to continue his recovery. The Bucks had a chance to pull out a late win, but came up short in crunch time and dropped their second game to Chicago this season.
Instead of building on the good vibes from its best win of the season in Las Vegas, Milwaukee has lost three of its last five games.
After winning 14 of their last 18 games, as well as the NBA Cup final, the Bucks now find themselves at 16-14 through 30 regular-season games. Rather than jumping above the Orlando Magic to take over fourth place in the Eastern Conference standings for the first time this season, the Bucks have dropped down to seventh place behind the Magic, Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat.
“It is (frustrating), but what can you do about it?” Rivers said following Saturday’s loss. “If guys are out, they’re out and you still want to win games. I think we should have won the last two games, but should have and doing it is two different things. I don’t look back. Like, OK, yeah, we could have been 18-12, but we’re not. So what are you going to do about it?
“You’re going to go and keep building. Hopefully we get everybody back, we start playing well and get back to the way we were playing, but we haven’t returned to the way we were playing yet. I did think the first Chicago game defensively, that’s the best we’ve been maybe all year. And, yeah, we have guys out, but other than that, we have not returned back to that and we will.”
These fits and starts have been the reality for the Bucks since Rivers took over as head coach in the middle of last season. There will be a promising game or week or two-week stretch, only to be followed up by a couple disappointing losses or a difficult week. More often than not, the down times have been a product of player availability, and this is no different.
After dropping Khris Middleton’s first game back against the Boston Celtics on Dec. 6, the Bucks rattled off three straight victories with the sharpshooter in the lineup and then beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in his fourth game to take home the 2024 NBA Cup. Then, Lillard and Antetokounmpo went on the injured list. It’s been another two weeks of the Bucks’ big three not sharing the floor.
“For me, it’s just life,” Middleton said of the unexpected illnesses and injuries that have recently kept the Bucks from being whole. “That’s life. I mean, a lot of unfortunate things happen, obstacles, but you just gotta keep moving. One day at a time, one play at a time, one step at a time and control what you can control. I think, for the most part, our group has done that.”
With Middleton missing the first 21 games and some combination of Antetokounmpo and Lillard missing the last five games, the Bucks’ big three has played just four games together this season. Last season, they did not play a playoff game together as Antetokounmpo missed the team’s entire first-round series against the Indiana Pacers, and the trio was together for just eight of Rivers’ 36 games at the helm during the regular season.
So, in 72 games spread across the last two regular seasons and last year’s playoffs, the Bucks’ big three has played together in just 12 games for Rivers.
And yet, Rivers remained positive when asked about Milwaukee’s current position.
“I don’t look at the standings very often, I will say that,” Rivers said. “Usually when you have a good team, a really good team, I would say that’s when you don’t ever look at the standings. When you have a team trying to make the playoffs and one of those teams, which is different, then you look at the standings more because it does matter.
“But when you really believe — and I believe in this team. It would be nice if we could have a stretch of health, just one stretch where all three of our guys are playing. That would be helpful — you don’t care much about (the standings), you really just focus on how you’re playing and how you’re trending.”
For now, that belief and the best moments throughout the season, like beating the Thunder in the NBA Cup, are what the Bucks have to lean on as they try to break through into the upper echelon of contenders. While there have been brief glimpses of what this group can become, those moments have been far too limited to truly believe in its ability to put together four winning playoff series consecutively, and the numbers bear that out.
As of Monday morning, the Bucks are 15th in offensive rating and 12th in defensive rating. They are outscoring their opponents by .9 points per 100 possessions, which puts them 15th in net rating on the season. There is a lot of work to be done, and that work can only be done with everyone together on the floor.
(Photo of Damian Lillard: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
