'Awful', Doc Rivers Slams Bucks Offense Following Game 1 Loss

The Milwaukee Bucks' playoff run got off to a poor start as they dropped Game 1 of their first-round series to the Indiana Pacers. From the opening tip, it seems that the Bucks weren't ready to deal with what the Pacers were throwing out.

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Indiana blitzed the Bucks from the start, jumping out to a massive lead early on. By halftime, the game was pretty much over, as Milwaukee was staring down the hole of a 0-1 series start.

The offense for the Bucks was pretty bad, and made life very tough on the team. After the game, head coach Doc Rivers had some words about his team's offensive game plan against Indiana.

“I thought our offense was awful,” Rivers said. “We just didn’t play the way we played during this stretch (to close the season) offensively. And I thought we had a lot of missed shots, which allowed them to have a lot of breakouts. We had our mistakes defensively too — they were shooting 60 percent — but I thought, as your defense is connected to your offense, your offense is connected to your defense, and we’re not gonna beat them scoring 98 points.

Doc Rivers: "I thought our offense was awful. I thought our offense contributed to our defense as anything. We just didn't play the way we've played during this stretch offensively. And I thought we had a lot of missed shot, which allowed them to have a lot of break outs."
— Eric Nehm (@eric_nehm) April 19, 2025

Other than star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks couldn't muster up much of anything. The Indiana defense swarmed the Bucks all game long, making life extremely tough on Milwaukee.

Rivers offered more insight to the game plan.

“We’re not going to beat them when we have 15 assists and 10 turnovers. We’re just not. So we got to get back to our spacing, trusting, playing downhill, moving the ball. If we do that, we’ll go to the line more, we will make more baskets. We’ll be able to set our defense up, and I think we’ll be better.”

If Milwaukee is going to get back in this series, it will need to come out more alert in Game 2. Indiana is a strong team, and they showed it once again on Saturday.

But this Bucks squad has been resilient all season long, and there is no reason to cast them aside just yet.

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