Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers did not exactly instill confidence in his ability to lead this team to a championship by the way they finished the regular season. The Bucks lost six out of their last eight games heading into the Playoffs, which is obviously far from ideal.
At this point, it’s no surprise that fans and experts alike have begun questioning Rivers and whether or not he’s the right man for the job.
Milwaukee Bucks News: Patrick Beverley Comes to Doc Rivers’ Defense
Rivers has been through his fair share of postseason wars during his tenured head coaching career. The fact of the matter, however, is that he hasn’t found much success over the past few years. Case in point is how the Rivers-coached Los Angeles Clippers blew a 3-1 lead to the Denver Nuggets in the bubble during the 2020 NBA Playoffs.
Bucks veteran Patrick Beverley remembers that series well. He too was part of that Clippers side that suffered an astonishing series loss to Denver. According to Beverley, it’s completely unfair to pin all of the blame on Rivers:
“I’m not the type of player that looks at 3-1 leads – I take every game as the game itself,” Beverley told Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I’ve been with Doc when we started two rookies and we took the Golden State Warriors, champions with Kevin Durant, six games (in 2018-’19). We did historical (expletive). Been on teams where we have two superstars and we’re in the bubble and we came up short. So I don’t think you can put 3-1 leads entirely on a coach. I think it’s a bit of everybody.”
As Beverley implied in his statement, there’s no point crying over spilled milk. They are in a much different situation now with the Bucks.
Having seen first-hand what Rivers has done in the past, Pat Bev remains extremely confident in the one-time NBA champion coach’s ability to lead Milwaukee back to the promised land.
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