Doc Rivers told NBA reporters that he’s been taking notes on Milwaukee Bucks players during the team’s current struggles, especially on the road.
The Bucks are 18-20 away from Fiserv Forum.
“I don’t know. I think focus. I don’t know what it is,” Rivers said when asked about the Bucks’ continued road struggles, via The Athletic. “You know, it’s funny, I’ve actually been sitting back and watching everything. Not just our players, but our travel crew, everything and I’ve made a lot of notes. I will say that. I won’t share that.
“But we don’t bring the necessary professionalism, seriousness on the road. And that’s something that we can fix. And that’s something we’re going to have to fix.”
The Bucks lost to the lowly Washington Wizards (15-62) on April 2 in Washington. They followed that up by losing to the Memphis Grizzlies (26-50) last night (4/3) at home.
“Just a bad loss for us, to be honest,” Bucks forward Bobby Portis said after Milwaukee fell 111-101 to Memphis. “We needed that ‘dub’ tonight, especially at home. You always want to protect home court, especially in April. You wanna win all your games going forward here in April and May and things like that.”
The Bucks are only 15-15 under Rivers. They were 30-13 under Adrian Griffin.
To make matters worse, superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo is dealing with a left hamstring injury.
“I thought Giannis did everything he could,” Rivers said after the Grizzlies game. “Honestly, and I’m not kidding, there were times in the beginning of the third I talked to (head athletic trainer) Scott (Faust) three different times, I wanted to take him out of the game. I thought he was running on fumes.
“As a coach, you gotta make a judgment call sometimes and medical makes the call more. They kept saying he was OK, but I have eyes. And I just didn’t like the way he was moving and that was why I took him out the one time early (in the third quarter). He kept asking to go back in and trainers said he was fine, so we kind of stuck there. But I wish I would have just said no, honestly.”
The Bucks are 47-29 on the season. They are in second place in the Eastern Conference standings.
If the regular season ended today, the Bucks would face the seventh seed in the first round of the 2024 NBA playoffs.
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