Nickel: The challenges for Rivers in coaching the Bucks continue to add up

"People think if you're the champion that you don't get hit. It's the exact opposite. Champions get hit over and over and over. It's just that the champion is the one that decides to keep moving forward. It's how many punches can you take and keep moving forward until you can win." ~ Doc Rivers

One of the best shows to air on television in the last five years was the 2020 Netflix series The Playbook - A Coach's Rules For Life. The entire series is a must-watch for anyone who lives and works in the world of sport, and certainly any fan with a deeper curiosity for how champions are nurtured and motivated, curated and challenged, not when you finally see them cradling their trophies, but when they're bleeding and sacrificing and clawing their way up.

Doc Rivers is one of the championship coaches featured. He talks about winning the 2008 NBA title in Boston, about dealing with racism and protests in Los Angeles, about his incredible parents and his upbringing, and, about some of the principles that have guided him as an NBA coach, a career that began a quarter century ago.

Today, leading his fifth NBA team, it’s been fascinating to watch Rivers, 62, try to settle in with the Bucks. The oldest head coach the team has ever had in its 54-year history, Rivers is – as of this writing on Sunday morning – trying to save the Bucks from their current six losses in seven games streak, clinging to a barely impressive second-place standing in the Eastern Conference (47-31).

Rivers has had the coaching job for merely two and a half months in the strangest chapter ever in Bucks history.

His predecessor, first-year coach Adrian Griffin, was such a bad fit the Bucks front office fired him in January – despite the Bucks 30-13 record – but that record was a deodorant. The Bucks were questioning everything from sets to rotations, schemes to identity. When Giannis Antetokounmpo sat on the bench for a breather, paper and pen in hand, drawing up plays with his brother in the middle of a game, it was telling.

Before that, the Bucks fired Mike Budenholzer nearly a year ago, his 2021 championship notwithstanding, apparently.

Parachuting to the middle of this wildfire is Rivers. He has been critical – and he’s been criticized. He’s tried to read the room as much as he has tried to lead the room. There’s been improvement in ball movement and defense, but Rivers’ record since taking over – just as Milwaukee’s schedule ramped up its degree of difficulty with the third-toughest in the league – is pitiful, 15-17.

The Bucks are the same hot mess of generational talent, high character guys with outstanding basketball IQ. Sometimes the Bucks really look like contenders, ageless and powerful. Sometimes they look like an assembled all-star team with no fraternity.

The occasional Buck walking up the court is also a dead giveaway to the loss of the youthful bounce, but age should not be an excuse for this team to lose like they have.

Sometimes they roll up 140 points. Sometimes their defense is nonexistent. If there’s ever such a thing as playing up or down to the opponent, Milwaukee has done it this year.

They’re  one of the great mysteries of the NBA season.

So here’s the question. Does Rivers – who played in the league from 1983-96 … “guys today I think I was playing in the 1400s” – have the attention of the Bucks team right now? Enough to get on board with what he thinks is the best path forward?

"I hope so,” said Rivers with a laugh on March 23 after one of the dozen or so full practices he’s been able to conduct with the Bucks. And then he mused: “… Do we ever have our kids full attention?

"There's times where you stop and let them talk – that's as strong as telling them to stop talking. And I did that this morning. Everybody was talking about the NCAA games and film everybody was joking around; I just sat there and then  the room got quiet.

“And then there's times you got to say, ‘stop.’"

The Bucks aren’t going to go anywhere this year if they don’t allow themselves to be led by Rivers. Rivers' résumé features that title with the Celtics and the 2010 Eastern Conference Championship – and maybe that's not enough to impress everyone.

But they've already fired two head coaches in the last 11 months who weren't good enough. If they dance this year it's going to be with Rivers and it's got to be under Rivers. When he first joined the team, he even said – more than once – enough already with all the talking. Decisions had to be made, roles had to be clarified. But is Milwaukee on board?

“I think Doc’s doing everything great; Doc’s helping us become a better team,” said guard Pat Connaughton.

"I think he's at this point in his coaching – he's experience everything. The good and the bad. I think he just has to be the coach that he is," said Damian Lillard. "With his voice, his leadership – and it's our job to trust that and to just be in line with what he's given to the guys, to receive it. And we all have to be connected in doing that."

But the Bucks and Rivers have not had any time to figure each other out on a deeper level, to test their trust in one another, and not surprisingly, then, there have been issues. Just a few examples:

~ Rivers was alarmingly critical of the team after a recent loss at the Washington Wizards when he saw a lack of professionalism as a whole, on the road. It was a stunning accusation for a team featuring longtime cornerstone players Giannis, Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez and Connaughton.

~ Rivers was also criticized by Lillard for being subbed out on a defensive play. Rivers had to tell his star player that it wasn’t anything personal. It was reported on a national TV broadcast.

~ Rivers is learning the mental makeup of Giannis –  which is ‘go until you die’ basically. But Rivers is going to have to ask or tell Antetokounmpo to sit and rest when he doesn’t like what he sees, as he referenced a few games ago with Giannis playing through hamstring pain. “I have eyes,” said Rivers.

Little disagreements like that can add up quickly and lead to consequences.

For example: On Friday during shoot around before the Bucks played Toronto, Antetokounmpo practiced on that bad hammy. When Rivers checked in with him after practice, Giannis admitted that he didn’t feel great. Rivers scratched Giannis for the game  – but missed the opportunity to practice certain sets with just Lillard and Middleton, who haven’t played a lot together yet.

“We didn't make the decision with Giannis until after shoot around,” said Rivers. “The first thing Rex (assistant coach Rex Kalamian), who works with offense said: ‘It would have been nice to know that before – we could have done all the Khris stuff.’

“But I said, it is what it is. We will run it in the game and see how it looks.”

Middleton played very well, and Lillard did too before fouling out, but the two could not completely take over in tandem without Giannis, and the Bucks lost in stunning fashion Friday night to Toronto, a team with one of the worst records in the NBA.

"We've got to figure it out on the fly. That's why we're professionals," said Middleton. "We got to figure it out. I think we're better than this, honestly. I don't want to disrespect anybody on the side but I think we have enough talent to to take care of some of these games with whoever is playing."

✂️ Giannis on Doc Rivers' leadership

With these extraordinary circumstances, Antetokounmpo appreciates the challenges Rivers faces as well.

"He's trying to figure us out," said Antetokounmpo. "How we are as players, how we are as people, how to communicate with us. How hard to push us; what position he should put (us in)."

Back in January, when Griffin was fired, forward Bobby Portis was throwing his stuff together in his bag, getting ready for that brutal five game West Coast road trip. Portis was asked what he hoped to get from Rivers’ leadership.

"I think he's a championship level coach,” said Portis then. “I think he's just someone who also has something to prove-  like all of us.

“We'll be three years removed from the championship - which seemed like it was yesterday, 900 days ago. He hasn't won a championship either in 15 years.

“We all have something to fight for, something to prove.”

Middleton, when asked the same question a few days ago, said he wanted Rivers "just continue to challenge us. We're all men, we all want to be challenged. We all want to be great. Simple with that."

When Milwaukee lost to Toronto Friday night, Fiserv Forum hadn’t been that silent since the Toronto loss in the playoffs in 2019, or since the pandemic locked out the fans in February of 2021.

“I told them, I said, this is on me. I got to figure out what we got to do to play at a higher pace,” said Rivers.

"I've never been through something like this. But we'll go through it together. This will be our story. It really will be if we get through it - could be maybe the best thing to happen … or this could be the worst.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Doc Rivers faces several challenges leading the Bucks