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The Milwaukee Bucks’ trend of falling to teams with losing records continued on Saturday after they dropped a 105-102 home game to the 12-22 Portland Trail Blazers.
After the game, Bucks head coach Doc Rivers was asked whether he needed to adjust his messaging to his players, and he provided this response, per The Athletic’s Eric Nehm.
“I think you guys think we don’t say anything or something,” Rivers said.
“Do you think we’re watching film and just, it’s quiet time? Do you think we’re not saying stuff? We say stuff every day. What’s not happening is we’re getting off to bad starts. We’re not moving the ball. We’re not playing right. We’ve gotta play right. We’ve done that. We’ve gotta get back to doing it.”
The 17-16 Bucks have lost four of their last five games. Two of those losses have been against the 13-22 Nets, and another occurred against the 16-19 Bulls. Now Portland took a game from Milwaukee, which finds itself struggling much like it did during a 2-8 start to the season.
Rivers is obviously frustrated and rightfully so given his team’s performance. Saturday featured a particularly tough game against a rebuilding Blazers team that had lost 10 of 13 going into Saturday and stands at just 4-14 on the road. Numerous Bucks stars struggled, including Damian Lillard (16 points on 5-of-15 shooting against his ex-team), Khris Middleton (two points in 26 minutes) and Brook Lopez (five points on 2-of-9 shooting).
The Bucks have another test against a losing team on the road Monday against the 8-27 Toronto Raptors. A defeat there places the Bucks at .500 and puts them dangerously close to being a losing team themselves. Milwaukee certainly has the talent, though, to turn this around.
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