-14.5 vs. Raptors ❌ -12 vs. Grizzlies ❌ -12.5 vs. Wizards ❌ Bucks are the first team in the last 30 years to lose three straight games outright as double-digit favorites.
Doc Rivers' Milwaukee Bucks and yet another awful loss against a lottery team: "I'm frustrated and the players are frustrated"
NBASaturday, 06 April 2024 at 22:17
The Milwaukee Bucks received the visit of the Toronto Raptors this Friday night in the Fi-serv forum. Doc Rivers' squad continues to have problems in this last stretch of games in the regular season. Milwaukee has lost three straight now against three lottery teams, that's not the image you want to have being this near to the begining of the playoffs.
Giannis Antetokounmpo was ruled out for this matchup with the Bucks in need to get a win in front of their home crowd to get a boost that helps them secure the second seed in the Eastern Conference. It's almost hard to believe (and hard to explain) how this Milwaukee team struggles figuring out their opponents, especially lottery teams.
They've managed to lose their last three games playing against the Wizards as visitors, but then they lost to the Memphis Grizzlies at home on Wednesday and tonight playing against a Toronto Raptors squad that had lost 15 games in a row. Just inexcusable. To add more salt into the wound, none of those loses were decided in the last shot.
"I'm frustrated and they're frustrated. I guess that's a good thing, but that's not gonna get you anywhere. Frustration gets you nowhere. We gotta work ourselves through this. We can feel it, you can feel it during the game. You go through this things, I've through this. You go through. You gotta work yourself out. Even one of the officials said it. Man, you can feel the heaviness of your team right now," said Bucks' head coach Doc Rivers in press conference after the game.
When asked about that heaviness and if it could be related to the mental psyche or to health issues, Rivers answered:
"The health we're going to be fine, I really believe that. I think that when we get to the playoffs everybody will be fine, health wise. It's the mental toughness. A ref makes a bad call...okay; someone grabs you...okay, you gotta keep playing through it. Maybe that's my biggest job right now, but we have to play through stuff," stated Doc.
Milwaukee will try to bounce back from this bad moment on Sunday, again playing at home versus the New York Knicks. That second place is up to the grabs for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
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