Prior to Monday’s gutting 122-113 loss against the Indiana Pacers, the Milwaukee Bucks were coming off a highly successful road stand. They lost out to the New York Knicks in their Christmas Day showdown at Madison Square Garden but at the same time, the Bucks won the three other games in this recent road trip. It was a great overall experience for Milwaukee, which is something they intend to take with them as they face the rest of the season head-on.
The Bucks defeated the Knicks, the Brooklyn Nets, and the Cleveland Cavaliers in their recent road spell. Each of these three teams brought something different to the table, which tested Milwaukee’s ability to make the necessary adjustments. “Every game we’re going to learn something different, get a slightly different look here or there,” Lopez said, via Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “The other night in Brooklyn (Dec. 27), being on the road we were playing a lot of unknown guys hungry for a chance, they played well together. So we got to play with a bit of a smaller lineup, we were switching, running a lot. So we go to look at our lineup there.”
Lopez gave his stamp of approval on the Bucks’ recent run. He knew that his team was put to the test, and the former All-Star center is just pleased to see them come out on top: “(In Cleveland) we played this team, they were coming in and playing fast a ton, shooting a lot of threes and a big (in Jarrett Allen) who’s been playing great – so we got to look at a lot more top-locks (defending off-ball screens), getting guys off the three-point line, playing pick-and-rolls two-on-two and playing a tight, contested game against a good playoff team on the road, which is something we haven’t done a ton yet this year. It was good for us to see we were ready for that,” he said.
