Bucks head coach Doc Rivers addressed Giannis Antetokounmpo’s exit with 34 seconds remaining, saying, “I asked our team five different times. I didn’t like what my eyes were seeing personally. Giannis was defiant about staying in… to me, I had had enough. I didn’t ask. I just took him out. It wasn’t he actually wanted to go back in. It just that was a no for me.”
Rivers emphasized there was no conflict with Giannis after the game: “There was no disagreement or anything like that. Down 23 to start the fourth, it looked like there wasn’t a ton of energy… I completely disagree with that. Honestly, we didn’t make shots, but the score was 102-100.”
Discussing the Bucks’ shooting struggles, Rivers said, “We were 12 of 40 from the three tonight and 30 of them were wide open. We knew that coming into it. Overall, I thought we generated the right shots for the right guys.”
He credited his players for adjusting with Giannis limited by his calf, adding, “You could see he was struggling beating people off the dribble because of his calf. So we start using him as a picker more. That’s where Ryan got downhill, Cole got downhill a couple of times, and that created shots for us.”
Rivers also highlighted Ryan Rollins’ performance: “Ryan just didn’t have the shot early and then kind of just obviously found himself playing better. I thought he was trying to find his spots playing off of Giannis… drove, kicked threes. We couldn’t get any of them to fall. It’s been great for him because he created some threes for us, but none went in.”
On the late-game sequence, Rivers explained, “The shot laid from Kuz with only what, four and a half seconds left… we pushed it up, we had a play for a free throw made free throw… 4 seconds. I would love the ball to have been advanced, but everyone was trying to get down the floor. It was a bad miss.”
Addressing the team’s mindset during the recent struggles, Rivers said, “When you’re struggling like this, you search, we’re searching, you got to keep them positive… I thought they competed tonight. That’s the only thing I disagree with. I thought they played hard. If the ball goes in, I think it looks like we’re competing way more than what it turned out to be.”
The Nuggets held off the Bucks 102-100 despite Milwaukee cutting a 23-point deficit to one, with Jalen Pickett hitting crucial free throws after Giannis left due to the injury. Denver shot 40% overall, while Milwaukee hit 49%, showing the Bucks’ difficulty turning late-game momentum into a win.
