“ Many more hope ” Bucks’ Lillard returns this season, says Rivers

Philadelphia – Milwaukee Bucks coach, Doc Rivers, said that Damian Lillard felt good while he recovers with deep venous thrombosis in his right calf and that there is “much more hope today” than a few days ago.

Lillard, who missed his eighth consecutive match Thursday against the 76ers of Philadelphia, did not do the road trip with the Bucks, with Rivers saying that the team “had decided against this” despite a “big report” recently on the recovery of Lillard.

“” Why play with that? “Was our thing, when to fly or anything could affect this,” said Rivers. “We have much more hope today than we did it three days ago, I can tell you. And so we will take everything we can do to see if there is a way to recover it.”

Milwaukee announced last week that Lillard would be indefinitely after being diagnosed with the problem in his right calf. Who differs from the immediate diagnosis of the star of the San Antonio Spurs Victor Wembanyama, who was excluded for the season in February after the diagnosis of deep venous thrombosis in his right shoulder.

The regular season ends in 10 days, and the playoffs will start in 16 or 17 days, depending on whether the Bucks open the game on April 19 or 20.

In the meantime, Rivers said that the Bucks were fully preparing for the probability that Lillard does not come back and how the team will have to change his approach if he does not.

“There is no balance,” said Rivers when asked how the team would overlap the chances of coming back or not. “You work on what we do not have … because there is no guarantee that we will have it.

“We get it back, we know how to play. But we don’t know how to play long -term without him. And so it is really the nine minutes Giannis that we must understand. Before there is a non -Giannis, but you had lady, and now you did not do it.

Before Thursday’s match, Rivers deplored the recent problems of turnover of his team, which led the Bucks confronted with a deficit in total shooting attempts. Rivers, who also cited the team’s problems with the abandonment of offensive rebounds and not forcing turnover, insisted that this had to change so that the Bucks succeed in the playoffs.

“I cannot put my finger there, honestly,” said Rivers about what causes Bucks rolling problems. “We return it in many ways. But I know – we cannot win games. … The other evening, they took 18 additional shots. The previous night, they took 19 shots. You know how much you need to pull the ball to win a match like that?”

The Bucks beat the Sixers 126-113 Thursday to get into equality with the Pistons de Detroit for fifth place in the Eastern Conference classification. Milwaukee has several other matches won in a row before playing her last two of the season against Detroit. Going to the fifth, instead of the sixth, would mean avoiding having to beat the three Knicks of New York, the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland horsemen to reach the NBA final, which makes it a potentially much easier path.

Rivers did not lead to Thursday’s match due to an illness, but he has always been credited with his 1,156th career victory, passing the temple of renown Phil Jackson for the seventh place on the list of victories of the regular season of the NBA.

“Yeah, it’s great,” said Rivers before the match. “It is just said that I had a lot of success. I did a lot of good things in this work, but I also had a lot of help. I had excellent coaches with me. I have incredible staff now. I had very good players throughout my career, but winning is what we are supposed to do and I try to do that, but I do not count, I don’t know.

“That’s not why I do it. I’ll say it that way.”