The Bucks suffered another loss tonight despite promising performances from Myles Turner and Ryan Rollins. They lost 122-139 to the 76ers courtesy of a 32-point masterclass from Paul George.
The veteran swingman finished the game with 32 points, five rebounds, and five assists, with a season-high nine three-point makes during the game. He shot 52.4% from the field, making 11 of his 21 shots.
Following the game, the Bucks’ head coach, Doc Rivers, blamed tonight’s loss on a lack of defensive effort and communication from the team that created gaps which the 76ers were able to exploit.
“Yeah, defensively it was awful. Awful. As we’re just talking, we have like 12 fouls. We weren’t close enough to foul tonight. I love offensively, which has been our concern; we missed 8 layups tonight where we could’ve had a ton more points. Missed free throws tonight.”
“But their points came from offensive rebounds and turnovers. You take those 2 things away, I could make a case that defensively wasn’t as bad. But that’s part of the game.”
“One of the things we talked about before the game is we wanted to dominate the glass, and we couldn’t turn the ball over. Those are two things that hurt us,” explained Rivers initially.
“I thought Myles was great on both ends. I thought Kuz was fantastic. [Ryan Rollins] I thought he played great. Good to see Gary Trent play with force again. There were a lot of positives.”
“First positives I’ve seen in a couple of games out of our non-Giannis teams. So a lot to build on. But you shoot 51% from the field and 45% from the 3-point line, and you lose the game, that’s not acceptable,” concluded Rivers while trying to be optimistic about their takeaways from tonight.
While Kuzma also had an above-average performance on the offensive end (17 points, 6-12 FG, 2-4 3P), he went viral for all the reasons he would want to forget, as Paul George had him lost when he crossed him over on the defensive end.
However, George believes the blame is not on the players but on Doc Rivers himself. The 76ers’ veteran has averaged 24.3 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 4.3 assists against the Bucks this season while shooting 52.1% from the field and 53.6% from beyond the three-point line.
“I just know Doc. I know Doc, I know his coverages, I know his play calling, I know what he’s looking at, what he’s looking for, how he’s going to guard me,” said George while seemingly throwing shade at the predictable nature of Doc Rivers’ defensive strategies.
George played under Doc Rivers for one season (in 2019-20) on the Clippers. It seems George got a thorough understanding of Rivers’ defensive playbook when they were on the same team.
Therefore, with Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future up in the air this season, Rivers needs to also be careful about his own future. The Bucks reportedly fired Adrian Griffin, his predecessor as their head coach, due to the defensive regression of the team despite a 32-14 team record at the time.
If the Bucks continue to get exposed like they did tonight on defense, they might consider some changes at the top of their coaching staff ladder. They fell to 18-27 following tonight’s loss and will face the Wizards in their last game of January in Washington on Thursday, January 29.
