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On Saturday afternoon, the Milwaukee Bucks fell behind 0-1 in their first round playoff series vs the Indiana Pacers with a blowout loss in Game 1. While Giannis Antetokounmpo did his part, virtually none of his supporting cast showed up ready to play, and the Bucks will now be praying that Damian Lillard is able to play in Game 2 to give them some much-needed offensive support.
After the game, Bucks head coach Doc Rivers got 100% real on the team's struggles to put the ball in the basket.
“I thought our offense was awful,” said Rivers, per Eric Nehm of The Athletic on X. “I thought our offense contributed to our defense as anything. We just didn't play the way we've played during this stretch offensively. And I thought we had a lot of missed shots, which allowed them to have a lot of break outs.”
Rivers also added that “we’re not going to beat them when we have 15 assists and 10 turnovers. We’re just not. So we've got to get back to our spacing, trusting, playing downhill, moving the ball. If we do that, we’ll go to the line more, we will make more baskets. We’ll be able to set our defense up, and I think we’ll be better.”
A disastrous performance from the Bucks
Perhaps the most discouraging thing about this loss from the Bucks is that the Pacers didn't even play particularly well and were still able to pick up an easy win.
In fact, at one point in the fourth quarter, Milwaukee had managed to cut the lead to 12 as Indiana went on a major cold spell, but the Bucks were equally as unable to score during that stretch, and the Pacers quickly pushed the lead back up to blowout territory after finding their footing.
Damian Lillard has been cleared of the blood clot that sidelined him down the stretch of the season, and it's possible that he could return for Game 2 on Tuesday. That would certainly help the Bucks' chances of generating some points.
