The Milwaukee Bucks did not have an ideal start to the new calendar year. This is after they suffered a deflating 122-113 loss against the Indiana Pacers on New Year’s Day, which also saw their highly impressive 15-game home winning streak come to a bitter end.
There’s no denying that all the momentum the Bucks had been building up of late took a massive hit on Monday night against Tyrese Haliburton and Co. Milwaukee is coming off a four-game Christmas road trip that saw them go 3-1 against three (relatively) formidable Eastern Conference opponents.
For seven-time All-Star Damian Lillard, the big takeaway for the Bucks is that this recently-concluded road trip helped foster a lot of growth within the squad: “Our team is growing,” Lillard said before Monday’s game, via Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I think as time goes by we get more and more familiar with each other. We experienced some turbulence earlier in the season, so now we’re kind of getting our feet in the ground a little bit. We’re establishing ourselves, finding an identity and I think it shows in these type of situations.”
Dame commended his team’s commendable bounce-back win against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday after being behind by up to 15 points in the contest. This also wasn’t the first time the Bucks had to rally from behind to scrape out a win. “(Against Cleveland) at one point I think it was like a 15-point game and I didn’t feel panic,” he continued. “I remember a game in Toronto that felt similar to that a little bit and I was like man, this is probably over, we’re probably not going to come back in this one.
“But [against the Cavs], in our huddles it was calm. Obviously we addressed some things in the huddles and the locker room – at halftime we did – but I didn’t feel panic. We had a different type of composure with us and we embraced the kind of challenge that was in front of us. We showed who we’re becoming by coming out and having that type of effort.”
