MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee Bucks Coach Doc Rivers remains confident in his team and has no plans to make any major changes following the 45-point loss to Brooklyn, which matched the Nets' most lopsided win in franchise history.
The Bucks (11-16) haven't won two games in a row since Oct. 28-30 as they struggle to cope with the absence of the two-time MVP. Giannis Antetokounmpowho has been sidelined for the past two weeks with a right calf strain.
“We like our team,” Rivers said Wednesday after practice. “I really like this team. We're not playing very well. We're not playing very well for a lot of reasons. You don't recreate the wheel. You just don't do it. Teams that do that then fail. I'm just being honest. I've been at this long enough.”
Milwaukee won four of its first five games but is 7-15 since then. The Bucks haven't played since their 127-82 loss at Brooklyn on Sunday.
“At the end of the day, it was just a shameful game for us,” guard Ryan Rollins said.
Since then, the break has given the Bucks the opportunity to practice back-to-back, a rarity during the NBA regular season. The Bucks say they've used this time to try to fix what went wrong in Brooklyn.
Milwaukee returns to action Thursday when it hosts the Toronto Raptors.
“I don't think there's been many losses in NBA history like the one we had last game,” guard Kevin Porter Jr. said. “I think a loss like that wakes you up and you never want to be on the end of that stick. Having days off like that and having to sit on that loss definitely makes it worse. I think we all had a revelation.”
But they obviously didn't spend that time thinking about major changes to the scheme or lineup.
“Yeah, we want to do better,” Rivers said. “We want to change things. We like what we run. We like our defensive system as a whole. We just need to do it better. We need to take care of the ball. But we like parts of this team, and that hasn't changed. It's not like, 'OK, guys, we're five games under .500, let's blow it up.' That's not where we are. We don't even think in those terms.”
Milwaukee's slow start has led to increased speculation around the league about Antetokounmpo's future, although Rivers disputed ESPN's report that the nine-time All-NBA player has spoken with Bucks officials about whether he would be better off staying in Milwaukee or being traded.
The Bucks were 2-8 despite being without Antetokounmpo, who left the game with a left adductor strain before injuring his calf muscle.
The Bucks can take solace in the fact that they have some impressive wins. They beat the Boston Celtics three days before the rout in Brooklyn. They beat Golden State without Antetokounmpo earlier in the season. They beat the Detroit Pistons on Dec. 3 even after Antetokounmpo left the team with a calf injury just three minutes into the game.
But they also lost to Washington, Charlotte, Brooklyn and Sacramento, which lost more than twice as many games as they won.
Myles Turner said this has become a “tight-ball league” and noted that the Bucks must consistently show the same effort and energy that was evident in the NBA Cup games over the last few days. He believes the Bucks need to recapture the joy they showed when they played well earlier in the season.
“When you start losing, obviously it takes your spirit down a little bit,” Turner said. “Again, this is simply not the time for excuses. You need to get out there and perform.”
Rivers noted that it's easy to just say a team isn't playing hard enough when it's struggling, but he noted that there are usually a lot of variables that contribute to that. Rivers said a team that plays the right way will naturally look like it's playing harder.
“It’s like the chicken and the egg: first you have to do something,” Rivers said. “Something has to give you the confidence to do it again and again. Let's put it this way: I'm much more focused on execution than I am on feelings and headspace and all that stuff. That's just my opinion.”
