Damian Lillard has gone through a lot lately. The former Portland Trail Blazers star has struggled to adapt in Milwaukee. He’s going through a divorce, and his tenure with the Bucks didn’t get off to a good start.
He’s been heavily criticized for his lack of aggressiveness, and his numbers took a dip this season. Nonetheless, the Bucks have been the best team in the league since the All-Star Game, going undefeated over that stretch.
Lillard has also been much better lately. He’s gone back to his usual aggressiveness, and he even led the team to a win over the Los Angeles Clippers without Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Doc Rivers Is Helping Damian Lillard
Notably, Lillard gave his new coach, Doc Rivers, plenty of credit for this turnaround. He talked about how he’s helped him get to his spots and make the most of his offensive traits again:
Damian Lillard running the point for the Milwaukee Bucks.
“It’s helped a lot. For a significant part of the year, it was just trying to find my way,” Lillard told Gabe Stoltz. “Trying to find my spaces where I would have an opportunity. And I just think because I’ve played against Doc so many times in the West and he had to scout against me– so when he came in, he was just like, ‘You guys don’t run this? You guys don’t run that? Like, this is stuff we hated to guard against you.’ And he just slowly started to put some of those actions in.”
The Bucks Are Making Adjustments
On top of their defensive turnaround, the team has looked much better offensively. They’re starting to live up to the expectations that came with having a freakish athlete and one of the best shooters in the league:
“You know, I think it’s helped me settle in even more, especially playing with some of the guys on this team that can shoot the ball and having a guy like Giannis and the dunker behind the defense sometimes is like just stuff that I’ve always run and situations I’ve always been in should be in even harder to deal with now with the players that I’m playing with,” added Lillard.
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Damian Lillard snubs Giannis, names Heat star next to LeBron, Curry in dream team
The Bucks are peaking at the right time, and that’s obviously a major concern for the rest of the league. Now, they’ll have to keep building off this momentum to be at their best come playoff time.
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