As the Milwaukee Bucks have struggled this week, Doc Rivers held a film session on Saturday with the team’s top nine rotation players in Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard, Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, Beasley, Bobby Portis, Patrick Beverley, Pat Connaughton and Jae Crowder.
Rivers gave each player the opportunity to speak their mind on what they have been seeing and what they believe is needed for the team to operate moving forward.
“It’s only the start of these tough and necessary conversations,” one source described the session.
The Bucks lost at home to the New York Knicks on Sunday following their losses last week to the Washington Wizards, Memphis Grizzlies and Toronto Raptors.
Despite the struggles, Milwaukee’s veterans still believe in their capacity to win a title this season.
“I mean, as crazy as it might sound, I feel good,” Lillard said. “Obviously, I hate how the last two weeks or so, however long it’s been, has gone. It’s uncomfortable and it’s frustrating to lose games that we should win and then have a game like tonight where we start off playing well and then have a bad third quarter and get those guys believing and then they take over the game. But when I look around the locker room, I just feel good about it.
“I see Giannis, Khris, Bobby and Brook and Jae and Pat, Beas. When I look around, I just have a true belief in what we have, our experience, how long we’ve been around. And I know that sometimes it gets dark. This league is a tough league. Sometimes you have hard times. And I think that’s what it is for us. And when this kind of stuff happens, everybody’s going to say how bad it is. And ‘This is the problem.’ (or) ‘They gotta do this; they gotta do that.’ But when you just keep fighting in these situations, you never know when it’s going to turn.
“That’s why you gotta stay together, you gotta keep believing. And these are the moments where you find out who’s a real one and who’s not, because everybody’s going to be saying negative stuff and how wrong it is and how bad it is, and you can fold or not fold. That’s what we’re going to learn about ourselves going into the playoffs, based on the experience that we having right now.”