Rivers, Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo speak on Bucks loss to Lakers
Doc Rivers, Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo speak on the Bucks 123-122 loss to Lakers on March 8, 2024.
LOS ANGELES – The Milwaukee Bucks suffered a heart-breaking last second loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night at Crypto.com Arena, falling 123-122 in the final moments.
A D’Angelo Russell floater gave his team the lead with 5.9 seconds remaining, and Damian Lillard’s step-back, go-ahead attempt was blocked by Spencer Dinwiddie.
“There was only four seconds left, so Doc (Rivers) drew the play up for me to get a catch and pretty much get downhill and attack,” Lillard said of the final play. “Got the catch, I lined him up, crossed him up, got to my right hand and he was on the side of me and he was coming downhill like he was trying to recover and I went into a step-back. He just made a good play on the ball.
“Usually guys, you know, they’ll kind of plant when they goin’ one direction and try to recover but his feet never stopped moving when I looked at the replay. He was going this way and his feet just kind of kept crawling up underneath me. Usually, I would shoot that shot a little bit quicker but I felt like I had a little bit more space than I did and he just made a good play on it.”
An official review of a Giannis Antetokounmpo shot just after the buzzer confirmed Dinwiddie’s block indeed ended the game.
“Oh, give the ball to the best closer in this game today,” Antetokounmpo said of the Bucks’ final play with Lillard. “He’s going to make a play. Whatever the outcome of that play is, you gotta live with that.”
Russell’s 44 points helped offset the absence of LeBron James for Los Angeles, who got 22 points from Anthony Davis and 18 from Austin Reaves. The Lakers improved to 34-30.
The Bucks (41-23) were led by Antetokounmpo’s 34-point, 14-rebound, 12-assist triple-double. Lillard had his ninth double-double of the year with 28 points and 12 assists while Malik Beasley (14) and Brook Lopez (11) also reached double figures for the Bucks as starters. Pat Connaughton had 17 and Bobby Portis 14 off the bench.
D’Angelo Russell’s best game of season leads Lakers
After a relatively quiet start to the game with five points in the first quarter, Russell scored 11 of his team’s 40 points in the second quarter to help Los Angeles take control of the game. Russell and Austin Reaves combined to go 5 for 6 from behind the three-point line while Jaxson Hayes and Cam Reddish got behind the defense for attacks at the rim. Reddish made a layup while Hayes had a dunk and made 4 of 6 free throws.
“Gotta go watch film and see what mistakes we made,” Antetokounmpo said of the second quarter. “I feel like there was a couple times that our low man wasn’t early in the paint, was able to get into the paint, get to the free throw line, get some dunks and then when we were early they kicked it out. We were playing so much in the grey area that cost us, maybe like 10, 15 points. That’s from the top of my head.”
In the third quarter Taurean Prince was the Los Angeles role player took advantage of the Bucks as he scored eight points in the third quarter, including 2 three-pointers.
But Russell continued his hot shooting into the fourth, knocking down two early threes to improve to 7 for 8 from behind the three-point line. He then scored his 30th and 31st points of the night on a tough floater over Brook Lopez, becoming the first guard to score 30 or more on the Bucks since Devin Booker did it for Phoenix back on Feb. 6.
BOX SCORE: Lakers 123, Bucks 122
Russell then shook free to knock down his eighth three-pointer of the night in front of the Bucks bench to give the Lakers a 108-103 lead with 5:31 to go in the game.
The guard then took his game to the rim, drawing a blocking foul on Lillard for a three-point play that cut the Bucks lead to 122-121.
“I thought the biggest play for them was the three-point play — that was a crusher,” Rivers said.“
You live with contested twos, you know? He made ‘em. But you would rather have that than the other shots. I’ll live with that. I still want to watch it. I think the first half they were shooting almost 60% so I didn’t think we had a great defensive night tonight. I thought in the first half they killed us on their rolls and that should’ve been covered. We usually have a low man there, we didn’t tonight.”
After the Lakers forced a stop, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham kept the ball in the hot player’s hands.
First, Russell worked on Beasley before he forced a switch to draw Lillard. Russell then worked the Bucks’ guard to 13 feet and knocked down another one-handed shot to give his team a 123-122 lead with 5.9 seconds left.
It proved to be the game winner.
“We had a lot of, just miscommunications,” Lillard said. “I was on the ball, they called Brook up to get a switch to put Brook on the ball, they got the switch, Brook called the switch, it’s one of our coverages – when Brook gets put in that type of situation on the perimeter we run somebody at the ball and we just double the ball, make ‘em throw it out and we rotate. I knew the clock was winding down so once I saw Brook on the wing by himself I went to double and I was coming from the side of him, so when I came over to double Brook backed out and he kind of started going downhill and he ended up shooting a floater. It was just a miscommunication at the wrong time at the end.”
Rivers acknowledged maybe he could’ve have Pat Beverley in the game in that instance, but if the Lakers shot missed Rivers wanted Lillard on the court for those final offensive seconds.
“’D-Lo’ got going downhill, we had them in the pick-and-roll, maybe I should’ve made more a play on the ball, trap him a little bit,” Lopez said. “I didn’t want to give up a layup behind me ore something like that. But, a guy’s having a game like that you probably should go up and take the ball out of his hands.”
Russell scored 21 of his 44 in the fourth quarter. He also had nine assists and six rebounds.
“I think a player like you that you gotta get into him, be a little more physical,” Antetokounmpo said. “I feel like he was playing freely out there, was able to get to his pots. He was shooting jump shots. Obviously he did have the great game, lead his team all the way to the end, wo the game for them, made great passes, made great shots, great decisions. He was incredible for tonight. But for players like that you know they’re going to be more aggressive than usual, you gotta be more physical. Sometimes there’s gonna be plays that you gotta maybe deny them, get into them, send them to the paint, just make it a little bit tougher, take them out of their comfort zone. At times we were able to do it, but we didn’t do it enough.”
Anthony Davis had a typically strong all-around game with 22 points, 13 rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots – but without LeBron James other players had to step up on the offensive end. Russell was the one who ended up with the lion’s share, but Hayes, Reddish and Prince (24 points on 7 of 13 shooting) made key buckets when needed.
Giannis Antetokounmpo’s passing gives Bucks chance late
Antetokounmpo set a career high with his eighth triple-double of the season when he found Connaughton open in the corner for a three-pointer that put the Bucks up 114-112 with 2:25 to go in the game.
Antetokounmpo continued distributing in the clutch after that, setting up a Lillard four-point play off and then finding Connaughton cutting baseline for a lay-in that gave Milwaukee a 120-115 advantage.
The Bucks’ MVP candidate recorded his career best triple-double in his 61st game this season. He had seven triple-doubles in 61 games in 2020-21.
He is currently fourth in the league in triple-doubles this season behind Sacramento’s Domantas Sabonis (22), Denver’s Nikola Jokić (20) and Dallas’s Luka Dončić (15).
It is the 43rd career triple-double for Antetokounmpo, tying him with Fat Lever for No. 12 all-time. Antetokounmpo is seventh among active players.
Did you notice?
With 10 minutes, 23 seconds to go in the third quarter Lakers forward Rui Hachimura decided to challenge Lopez at the rim, and Lopez rejected the powerful dunk attempt from the 6-foot, 8-inch, 230-pounder – leading to a wide-eyed incredulous reaction from Hachimura and a simple shake of the head from Lopez.
Davis then said what you can do, I can do better as he first blocked a Lopez layup attempt and then rallied to block a Antetokounmpo dunk attempt within five seconds of one another a few minutes later to force a Bucks shot clock violation.
Not to be left out, Antetokounmpo swallowed up another Hachimura dunk attempt late in the fourth quarter on an impressive block that led to a Connaughton free throw.
Five numbers
5-4 The Lakers record without LeBron James this season.
14:07 Consecutive minutes Antetokounmpo played to begin the second half. He was on the floor for the entire third quarter and the opening 2:07 of the fourth. Despite the long stint, the Bucks could not get over the hump on the Lakers who led 97-94 when he exited in the early fourth.
25-4 Bucks record when Lillard scores at least 25 points. He had 28 on 10-of-23 shooting.
40 Points scored by the Lakers in the second quarter, giving them a 67-63 halftime lead. That followed a 40-point first quarter by Golden State on Wednesday. Before these last two games, Milwaukee had not allowed a 40-point quarter since Miami reached the number in a Feb. 13 victory over the Bucks at Fiserv Forum.
The only other teams other than Miami to score 40 points in a single quarter were Dallas (44, first quarter) and Utah (40, fourth quarter).
2,564 Career made three-pointers for Lillard, fourth-most all-time in NBA history. His first three-pointer of the night vs. the Lakers moved him out of a tie with Indiana’s Reggie Miller. Only Stephen Curry (3,680), Ray Allen (2,973) and James Harden (2,910) rank ahead of Lillard.
More: How Giannis Antetokounmpo learned to get over himself to play the best basketball of his career
LeBron James ruled out vs. Bucks
The NBA’s all-time leading scorer was downgraded to out for the Los Angeles Lakers with a left ankle sprain. James has been managing the ankle since the all-star break and had played the last seven games.
When is Khris Middleton playing?
Khris Middleton was ruled out for the Lakers game early, meaning he will miss his 13th straight game since severely spraining his left ankle against Phoenix on Feb. 6.
He spoke for the first time since that injury on Monday, and he said they are “just trying to get the swelling out.”
“Had a lot of swelling initially when I twisted, or rolled, the ankle,” Middleton said. “A lot of it has gone out. Just waiting on this last little bit to go, so I can move freely without pain or anything like that.”
More: Milwaukee Bucks all-star Khris Middleton speaks on ankle injury: ‘I need to be playing’
Friday’s missed game is of importance as it means Middleton will not play in 62 games and he will miss out on a $1.5 million bonus. Middleton was on his way to meeting that threshold after playing in 43 of the Bucks’ first 51 games.
The fact that Middleton will not earn the bonus didn’t affect whether the Bucks are over the second “tax apron,” as they were over it anyway. It will only affect the Bucks’ 2023-24 luxury tax payment and his cap hit for 2024-25.
Christine Lake is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. With an extensive background in sports journalism, he covers everything from major league championships to grassroots sports events. When she’s not on the field or at the stadium, you’ll find Christine coaching youth sports teams.
