MILWAUKEE — Long before he was Head Coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, Doc Rivers built a foundational relationship with the City of Milwaukee. A member of Marquette’s esteemed ‘M Club’ Hall of Fame, Rivers finds it surreal to coach in an arena where his own jersey hangs.
During an appearance on Courtside with Gale Klappa, a podcast under the Bucks+ Audio banner, Rivers reminisced on his Marquette days, discussed his decision to take the Bucks job mid-season, how he can positively influence the Damian Lillard & Giannis Antetokounmpo dynamic, team defense and much more.
“I never, in my wildest imagination, ever thought that I would be coaching in Milwaukee, coaching in a building where my jersey hangs above my head every day, so that kinda makes you straighten up and want to follow through and get it right,” Rivers said. “Sometimes, you don’t know that you miss a place until you return back to a place. The people are great. It’s been a really good experience.”
Rivers, who received his nickname, ‘Doc’ when he showed up for a Marquette summer basketball program in a Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving shirt in 1980, was a three-year starter and 1982 Converse All-American with the Golden Eagles before launching his 13-year playing career in the NBA. He described his experience returning to Milwaukee as ‘surreal’ and ‘amazing,’ but not without its challenges.
The veteran head coach, who won a championship leading the Boston Celtics in 2008 and was named one of the NBA’s 15 greatest coaches of all-time, joined Milwaukee mid-season to reform a collapsing defense and create more structure for a high-ranking, underperforming club.
“This has been difficult, but it’s not like I didn’t expect it, you know? I knew taking this job at this time — a team with a great record, a team that was about to go through the toughest part of their schedule — change, any kind of change would be difficult, but I took it on because I wanted it,” Rivers explained of his decision to take the job.
“You’ve got a group of guys that if we get it right, man we can win this thing, and we have high-character players, and you can feel that whenever you just walk around the team in the arena.”
Doc Rivers told Klappa his first order of business was to figure out how to channel the best versions of both Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard without isolating any of his other regular rotation players. His next goal? Improve the defense, which he largely attributed to better conditioning across his locker room.
So how do you get a veteran team conditioned to play longer and harder after joining the team midseason?
“You build [conditioning] by giving them benchmarks on what we should do every night, how we should play, how we should look, and then you also do it with minutes,” Rivers explained. “This late in the season, there’s not a lot of practice time. There’s not a lot of time we’d spend on conditioning, and so the key for us to play to exhaustion during the game.
“We’ll take you out, bring you back in, and each game you do that, you’re always going to play longer and better at that, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
To this point, one of the most rewarding parts of joining the Milwaukee Bucks, as you might expect, has been coaching Giannis. The superstar has surprised Rivers with his advanced passing ability, and while Rivers knew that Giannis was a capable passer, he didn’t fully fathom the depth of the Greek Freak’s playmaking ability.
“I know I like being on this side, I can tell you that,” Rivers said. “Just being on the other side when you’re preparing for [Giannis], it’s like a big, gigantic snowball coming at you, and really fast.”
After a tumultuous start to Doc Rivers’ tenure, the Milwaukee Bucks have found their footing with six consecutive wins and the second-best Defensive Rating in the NBA during their last 15 games (109.3). Rivers told Klappa that he always knew this team had the talent and personnel to compete defensively, but felt they needed the proper structure to get there.
Now, the Bucks have the tools they need to finish the season strong and make another run at an NBA Championship.
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