While the Bucks focus on the positive, pressure mounts to stabilize the fight

Optimism, even at 1–3.

“I thought we played relatively well,” Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers said.

Satisfaction is even 1–3.

“I think we played good basketball for the most part,” Giannis Antetokounmpo said.

Confident forward movement, even at 1–3.

“I thought we did a good job in the first half,” Bobby Portis said.

Bill Parcells, NFL Hall of Fame coach, said: You are who your recording says you are.. Bucks? They won’t buy it. A 119-108 loss to the Boston Celtics on Monday dropped Milwaukee to, you guessed it, 1-3. But after two losses to the Chicago Bulls (huh?) and Brooklyn Nets (Yeees), Milwaukee showed fight against Boston, taking a three-point lead at halftime, but was buried under an avalanche of three-pointers in the second half.

“I don’t like moral victories,” Rivers said. “But I thought (for three quarters) we could be like that.”

Great. Three quarters – 2½ if we want to get Really specific – the Bucks looked like equals. Damian Lillard made it big in the first half. Antetokounmpo too. Milwaukee’s defense kept everyone but Payton Pritchard in check. The Bucks’ huge frontcourt slammed the Celtics onto the glass.

In the third, everything unraveled. There are five minutes left in the quarter. At the end of the match, Boston led by eight. The Celtics made seven threes in the third quarter. Bucks? Zero.

“A team like this feeds off of it,” Lillard said. “They stop, they steal the ball, they go, they run, they make threes, and that’s the game they want to play.”

What is how Boston wants to play. The Celtics made 47 threes against Milwaukee, which is actually a staggering number that is actually less than the 51 they averaged coming into the game. Everyone in Joe Mazzulla’s rotation is a threat from behind the arc. Before the game, Rivers highlighted Pritchard’s scoring potential. “I literally circled his name,” Rivers said. In the first half, Pritchard hit seven of his first 10 shots (including 5 of 8 3-pointers) to keep the Celtics at bay.

Bucks? They’re still figuring it out. After Sunday’s loss to lowly Brooklyn, Antetokounmpo said the team lacked identity. Rivers lamented the lack of ball movement. Lillard was disappointed by the undisciplined start. “How are we going to win the game?” Antetokounmpo asked reporters on Sunday. “Are we going to defend for 48 minutes? Are we going to move the ball for 48 minutes? Are we going to attack? We need to find an identity. We don’t have that now.”

Identity issues are common among new teams. Perfectly reasonable, let’s say last The Bucks, who acquired Lillard before the season and fired coach Adrian Griffin midseason. This version has some problems – chronically injured guard Khris Middleton is still out and Milwaukee is breaking through a new defense – but they spent a full training camp together and the core of the team returned intact.

Watching the Bucks, you want to believe that they will do everything right. Lillard is still a walking bucket. Antetokounmpo is a terror in the open air. The point defense — terrible against Chicago and Brooklyn — was significantly better on Monday. Against Boston, Milwaukee made 8 of 31 shots from 3-point range but missed several open looks, and Middleton will likely take shots when he returns to the court.

“Most nights we feel really good about those shots,” Rivers said. “We will tell our guys You gotta keep making those passes because those were great passes to our shooters and they just didn’t fall down today. So live with it.”

Lillard said: “I think when things are going well, it looks like we have faith. And I think overall we’re a team that believes, but I think the best teams, when it’s good, when it’s bad, when you’re down, when you’re up, they believe that they’re going to continue to do the right thing in both cases. sides of the ball.”

In Milwaukee, the situation is urgent. Perhaps more than anywhere else in the league. Lillard, Middleton and Brook Lopez are all 30 and will be joined by Antetokounmpo in December. In fact, the Bucks, at least in this version, are looking at a two-year window to win another championship. And the team that beat them in the third quarter did so without their starting center Kristaps Porzingis on the floor.

Things have to come together. Fast. The focus in the Bucks locker room Monday was on the positive. Defense in the first half, early cohesion on offense, the ability, at least in stretches, to compete with the best team in the NBA. They saw reasons to believe that the difficulties of the early season would be overcome.

“Even if we suck, even if we’re really, really bad, this is the fourth game of the season,” Antetokounmpo said. “You have to be optimistic. This is the work we do. But at the end of the day, we have a great team. I believe we will continue to play better and continue to learn from our mistakes.”