Wednesday night’s highly-anticipated showdown between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Portland Trail Blazers went down the wire. Ultimately, it was the home team that prevailed as the Blazers escaped with a hard-fought 119-116 victory in Damian Lillard’s return.
The Bucks, however, did not have a shortage of chances to win the game. In fact, Dame had an opportunity for some clutch-time heroics in the dying seconds of the game. Lillard, though, wasn’t even able to get a shot up.
Milwaukee Bucks Coach Doc Rivers Reacts to Brook Lopez’s Crucial 3-Point Attempt
The Bucks had drawn out a play for Lillard with less than 20 seconds remaining and the Blazers up by one point. Portland knew what was coming, though, and they closed out on Lillard impressively, thereby forcing Brook Lopez to take what would have been a go-ahead shot from beyond the arc.
Dame had to pass, Brook took the three and came up short pic.twitter.com/dVOOvKgdhA
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) February 1, 2024
Bucks head coach Doc Rivers himself admitted after the game that that play was specifically drawn up for Lillard. At the same time, however, there’s just no way the new Milwaukee shot-caller was going to throw Lopez under the bus:
“We got what we were looking for: Dame,” Rivers said, via Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Giannis set a great pick. Dame came off, I thought it was gonna pull it, go a little quicker. Brook was wide. I loved the look back to Brook. Probably should’ve fired right back to Dame if he wasn’t going to take it. So we got what we were looking for, it just didn’t work out.”
In the end, Lopez got a clean look. He’s also a legitimate threat from distance, which is why you can’t really blame the All-Star big man for taking the shot. As Rivers said, the shot just didn’t find the bottom of the net.
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