There are just no two ways about it. The Milwaukee Bucks were awful on Tuesday night, and this led to an embarrassing blowout loss to a Jimmy Butler-less Miami Heat side at the Fiserv Forum, 123-97.
The Heat dominated this game early on, outscoring the home team 40-28 in the opening quarter. The Bucks tried to claw their way back into the game, but Miami pretty much did not look back from that point on.
Doc Rivers Reacts to Milwaukee Bucks’ Brutal Loss to Heat
After the game, a disappointed Doc Rivers got brutally honest about the effort he saw from his squad — or rather, the lack thereof:
“It was the first night that I didn’t think were into the ball like we’ve been,” Rivers said, via Eric Nehm of The Athletic. “I thought we backed up tonight. We reverted back tonight defensively.”
The Bucks had been making significant improvements on the defensive end of late, but it seemed like everything went out the window on Tuesday against their Eastern Conference rivals.
Bad on Both Ends
It wasn’t just defense that was problematic for the Bucks, though. This team has usually relied on its elite offense to carry them through even on bad nights, but this simply was not the case for them on Tuesday:
“I thought, as bad as it looked defensively, I thought our offense was way worse tonight,” Rivers said. “I thought it started early. We were shooting 51 percent at halftime. And I thought we were playing just awful offense. … Ball didn’t move a lot tonight, not the way it’s been moving.”
That’s tough.
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