In the Milwaukee Bucks’ first two wins of the season, Damian Lillard has averaged 32.0 points, which includes his 39-point explosion in his debut against the Philadelphia 76ers.
In Milwaukee’s two losses, however, Dame has scored just 10.5 points per game. During that span, he’s shot just 28.6 percent from the field.
Milwaukee Bucks Star Damian Lillard Struggles Again Vs. Raptors
It was another forgettable evening for Lillard on Wednesday as the Bucks suffered a lopsided loss to Toronto, 130-111. Dame scored 15 points on 4-of-9 shooting, to go along with two rebounds, six assists, and two turnovers. This obviously isn’t your typical Lillard stat line, which just goes to show how ineffective he was against the Raptors.
It is worth noting that over the course of Milwaukee’s first four games, Dame is averaging a career-low 13.8 attempts per game. For context, Lillard’s previous career-low in shot attempts came during his rookie year when he took 15.7 shots per game.
We obviously have to take all this with a grain of salt considering how the 33-year-old has played just four games for his new team. At the same time, however, there’s also no denying that this is something that cannot be ignored completely.
Adrian Griffin Plays Down Lillard’s Lack of Shot Attempts
Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin was asked after Wednesday’s loss to comment on the fact that such a high-usage superstar such as Lillard took just nine attempts against the Raptors. The first-year shot-caller had this to say:
“To me, you just take what the defense gives you,” Griffin said, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Jim Owczarski.
“They’re going to put two, three people on him somebody’s going to shoot an open three. And when we did that we got opens shots. (Malik) Beasley, he knocked own a couple wide open (shots) because swing-swing, open three. Sometimes it may not be your night as far as shot attempts but finding different ways to be a playmaker and make the team pay for putting multiple bodies on Giannis and Dame. I have to do a better job with that. But it’s still early and those guys are doing the best they can to try to figure out each other’s strengths and play with each other. And it’ll come with time.”
It sounds like Griffin isn’t sweating it. As he said, things will get better with time. At this point, we can still confidently say that Dame Lillard is just too good for him not to figure things out with the Bucks.
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