MILWAUKEE (AP) — Doc Rivers and the Milwaukee Bucks each have endured plenty of recent playoff disappointment.
Now they’re joining forces as the Bucks attempt to meet sky-high expectations by winning their second title in four years. Rivers will make his debut on Monday when Milwaukee opens a five-game road trip against the reigning champion Denver Nuggets.
Coaching in Milwaukee represents a homecoming of sorts for Rivers, a former Marquette guard who says he got much of his basketball knowledge from former Golden Eagle coaches Al McGuire, Hank Raymonds and Rick Majerus.
“Coming back here, to a place that changed me as a literal person, is a dream,” Rivers said Saturday at his introductory news conference.
Shortly after his news conference, Rivers received a standing ovation and gave a brief pep talk to the crowd as he was introduced during a first-half timeout in Marquette’s 75-57 victory over Seton Hall.
Rivers replaces Adrian Griffin, who was fired just 43 games into his tenure. The Bucks were 30-13 at the time, a testament to the franchise’s sense of urgency while it has two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and seven-time all-NBA guard Damian Lillard on its roster.
After the Philadelphia 76ers fired him last year following a third straight second-round playoff exit, Rivers began this season working as an ESPN analyst. This opportunity brought him back for a 25th season as an NBA head coach.
“I wasn’t going to just take a job,” Rivers said. “I’ve been contacted several times this season, and I wouldn’t even take the call. I was dead serious. If the right opportunity opened, I would listen. If not, I was fine.”
Joe Prunty will work a third and final game as interim head coach Saturday night against the New Orleans Pelicans before giving way to Rivers, who will coach in an arena where his No. 31 Marquette jersey hangs from the rafters.
“It’s just really cool being in an arena, coaching in an arena and your jersey’s hanging above you,” said Rivers, who was at Marquette from 1980-83 before playing 13 seasons in the NBA. “I can turn to the players and say: ‘Guys, I swear to God, I played basketball. Just look up. I swear that’s me.’ It’s really cool.”
Rivers said his staff will include former Memphis Grizzlies and Sacramento Kings head coach Dave Joerger as well as Rex Kalamian, who worked alongside him with the Los Angeles Clippers.
The immediate task for Rivers is upgrading a defense that has taken a major step backward without Jrue Holiday, who was included in the offseason trade that brought Lillard to Milwaukee.
“Our language and communication defensively, we have to get that right,” Rivers said. “Right now, you can feel it. Some this way, some this way. We’ve gotta get on the same page. We’ve got to do things differently, too, than the past. Jrue and Dame are different players. We have to change some things, for sure.”
Rivers’ head coaching experience represents a sharp contrast from his predecessor. Griffin had been an NBA assistant for 16 years but never a head coach until the Bucks hired him last summer.
Rivers owns a 1,097-763 regular-season record and 111-104 playoff mark with the Orlando Magic (1999-2004), Boston Celtics (2004-13), Clippers (2013-20) and 76ers (2020-23). His first victory with the Bucks will tie Larry Brown for the eighth-most career coaching wins in NBA history.
“We talked a few days ago about identifying a coach who could lead and maximize this team’s talent in a window where we have a real chance to compete,” general manager Jon Horst said. “And we found Doc, we talked to Doc, we went at him with urgency.”
Rivers won a title with the Celtics in 2008 and lost Game 7 of the NBA Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers two years later.
But he never got beyond the second round of the playoffs with the Clippers and 76ers. He’s encountered plenty of criticism for blown series leads over the course of his career.
“The interesting thing to me is I know a bunch of talking heads will talk about some of the negative things because that’s what social media is, but you talk about the success that he’s had and the ability he’s had to get teams into positions to win, whether they’ve closed or not,” Bucks guard Pat Connaughton said Friday night after the hire was announced. “I look at our team and I look at the situation he’s coming into, we get to those situations, I think we’ve got a good chance to close.”
Milwaukee’s had its own postseason issues.
The Bucks won their first title in half a century in 2021 but haven’t advanced beyond the second round since. They posted the NBA’s top regular-season record in 2019, 2020 and 2023 but failed to make it beyond the conference finals in any of those years.
Mike Budenholzer, who coached the Bucks to the 2021 title, was fired last year after the top-seeded Bucks’ shocking 4-1 first-round playoff loss to the Miami Heat.
“It’s going to be fun just to get coached by someone who has something to prove as well,” Bucks forward Bobby Portis said Friday. “Being on a team with other guys who, obviously we all have something to prove. Not saying we failed over the last couple of years, but we didn’t achieve what was sought out to be the goal.”
Rivers believes he can help the Bucks achieve that goal.
“Winning it all, it’s like having a blood transfusion with everybody in the organization, and once you get that in you, you want another one, ” Rivers said. “And that’s my pursuit. I don’t know if there’s anything to prove there. It’s just something that I want to do. Listen, Giannis, that’s what he wants to do. Khris Middleton and (Brook) Lopez — just because they’ve won one doesn’t mean they don’t want to win another. And Dame wants to win one.
“Yeah, I’ve got a hungry group.”
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