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Damian Lillard says he's happy in Milwaukee but still seeks comfort in Bucks offense
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- Damian Lillard says he's happy in Milwaukee but still seeks comfort in Bucks offense
Damian Lillard knows how it looks.
He learned as a teenager to keep his emotions on the court in check and instead adopted a visage that matches the cold bloodedness in which he approaches the dwindling seconds of a game. It's part of what makes "Dame Time" memorable: Lillard, the unblinking lighthouse in the tempest of celebration and despair.
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While the stone face is part persona and personality, he understands more people are paying closer attention to his every mannerism than usual.
"Sometimes if I'm not smiling, it's not because of basketball," he acknowledged. "That's my life, my kids, and stuff like that."
Milwaukee may not have been on Lillard's mind when he initially made his trade request to leave Portland in the summer of 2023, but he's found what he's looking for in a Bucks team that will contend for the championship he seeks. He's also been very open about how uprooting himself from his family and off-court support structure built in the Pacific Northwest over 11 years has been the hardest part of this year.
He stretched his legs out onto the court at Ball Arena in Denver, black knit hat tight around his head and Milwaukee stretched across his chest.
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"I am happy," he matter-of-factly said to the Journal Sentinel. "I am happy. We win, man."
His steady countenance didn't last long.
As he spoke, Jae Crowder and Khris Middleton were yelling at him and talking trash as they tried to hit halfcourt shots. Lillard broke and laughed before shouting back.
"Being a together team and also knowing how to find a way to win games and work through to get where we want to get to, to me that's encouraging 'cause of the experience that I've had," he continued. "So I'm happy with that. We win a lot, man. It could be worse. We could be losing and things could be just a lot worse than it is. I'm happy with it.
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"As I've said many times, the hardest part with me as a dad is just being away from my kids. That's the part that's draining and that can weigh on you when you are somebody that's in your kid's life."
While the last five months have brought so much change, Lillard insists he's content. But it doesn't mean he's been comfortable with how the season has played out.
Despite an all-star season, the 33-year-old point guard knows how it looks. His numbers are down. There are times the offense feels clunky, where he's looked passive.
Lillard still believes, though, that under Doc Rivers' direction, what it looks like will soon match how he feels.
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"Since I've been here, it's been just trying to find my way the whole time," he told the Journal Sentinel in Minneapolis on Friday. "It's never just been just me here and doing what I do. That's been the transition. It's like settling into where there's no thought, there's no looking, there's no figuring. It's just like I'm just being .
"I think it's getting to that point."
How Doc Rivers can make Lillard comfortable
Everyone thought it would be easy . Or at least easier than this.
On paper, Lillard's addition to the team would make him and Giannis Antetokounmpo the most unstoppable two-man combination in the NBA. They knew it would take work , but there was belief the two future Hall of Famers would just "figure it out."
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When Rivers he dug into the film, something was clear.
"They never did," the new Bucks head coach said flatly. "But that's OK. That's what I told Dame (in Memphis). We had a long talk. Don't panic about it. Sometimes it clicks the first time you see each other. Sometimes it takes the whole season and, in the middle of the playoff, it works out. But what you can't do is panic about it. Just keep working. As long as you both have the right intentions, it's going to work out and there's no clock on it. And that's what I'm trying to get them to see."
While Antetokounmpo is putting together an MVP-caliber season of over 30 points and six assists per game, Lillard has struggled with his shot. He's looked out of place. Their connectivity on the pick-and-roll has buffered for far longer than anticipated.
Rivers addressed that immediately after taking over on the bench on Jan. 29, putting them in more actions together more often.
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"He sees what makes us our best," Lillard said of his new coach. "Obviously me being paired with Giannis. The best part of me being here is me being paired with Giannis. He's addressed that right away. It's like, play together more and he's kind of scripting actions for us to do so we can have a foundation of it and then over time you learn how to play off of it. That's what it means, ultimately. That's that we gotta be able to do."
Rivers added that the pair has the "want to" in terms of making that combination work.
"But then there's times when they're together, they're both trying not to be aggressive for the other one, and I don't want that either," Rivers added "I need Giannis to be aggressive. I need Dame to be aggressive. And when they hit it, it's when they both are aggressive at the same time and giving each other room at the same time.
"That's when we become unguardable."
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And while the focus of conversations all year long have been about the Antetokounmpo-Lillard two-man game — and that is something Rivers is clearly addressing — another key issue has been what Lillard and his teammates have been doing, or not doing, when he has not had the ball in his hands.
"It's just understanding that, when he's off the ball, he's not just a spacer," Pat Connaughton told the Journal Sentinel. "When he's off the ball, how do we find ways to get a pindown for him, how do we find ways to get a DHO (dribble handoff), how do we find ways to get him involved in an action that doesn't involve him starting with the basketball?"
That lack of clarity was what has created discomfort for Lillard as he's adjusted to the Bucks.
"Sometimes if I'm off the ball, it might get swung to me but our spacing might not be good to where I can get something of quality," he said. "My ability might allow me to get to a space and get a contested step-back. But you don't want to make a living like that. So I think that's what it means.
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"It's a lot more that I can be doing."
Rivers unequivocally agreed, though he did note, in early February, he wants Lillard to attack more decisively if Antetokounmpo had brought the defense to an opposite side of the court.
"Offensively, it was a starting point," River said of his emphasis on getting Lillard comfortable once he took the job. "I had to catch up on film and I noticed that there are times where Dame's not involved and Dame doesn't have the ball. And Dame's dynamic with the ball. So after makes, I bet 70% of the time, Dame didn't have the ball. And, you know, spacing to get Dame in his spots. Running something he ran in Portland that makes him comfortable and not running what we always run and just throwing him in there. We're just trying to make him more comfortable."
Lillard tried to further illustrate what that has meant to him.
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"It's not like the team is making me not comfortable, it just hasn't been addressed: How do we make things more simple for Dame to kind of find his moments in a more comfortable way instead of just trying to search for it random spots and random moments, you know?" Lillard said.
"I think (Rivers) came in and recognized it. 'It made sense 'cause this isn't how he's normally played.' Not just off the ball. I can play off the ball 'cause I can shoot, I can play off of other guys. But it's just been not something that we've addressed a lot. It's just been like 'we'll figure it out.' Kind of like that. I think it helps that he recognized that."
Antetokounmpo was relayed these feelings from Rivers and Lillard, and processed it.
He leaned forward, his knees folded up nearly to his chest after his team beat Minnesota on Feb. 23. Even though Lillard's shot wasn't consistently there against the Timberwolves, the point guard was decisive and made huge shots in the closing moments to seal a Bucks victory.
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Antetokounmpo nodded as he began to speak.
"Doc is trying to help everybody, but he needs to help Dame — he's one of the best players on the team," Antetokounmpo told the Journal Sentinel. "There's no denying he can make plays down the stretch. He wins games. You need to make him feel as comfortable as possible. He's the operator. He operates our offense, you know? So you have to make him feel like he's the best player.
"I think everybody's making an effort to make him feel that way, including myself, including coach Doc, including Khris and the whole team. I think it's working."
More: The trade for Damian Lillard is an echo of past championship moves for the Milwaukee Bucks
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When will 'Dame be Dame'?
From the very beginning of the training camp, Antetokounmpo has declared the Bucks Lillard's team and that "Dame has to be Dame" for the Bucks to achieve their goal of winning a championship.
Of course, it's not that simple. And perhaps no one understands the complexities of the situation the star duo is in better than Kevin Durant.
After nine seasons in Seattle and Oklahoma City, he signed with Golden State before the 2016-17 season. The Warriors had already won a championship, and for all of Durant's ability and star power, he was joining Stephen Curry's team.
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Durant first recognized Antetokounmpo's willingness to vocalize his intent for Lillard to take over — and literally handing his new teammate the ball in crunch time — as a vital component to their ultimate success.
"Most definitely," Durant told the Journal Sentinel. "When you realize that you all play a part and the definition of team is you pick up where I may be lacking at."
Durant then turned to Lillard.
"It's an adjustment period for Dame, too, 'cause he's coming from a situation where everything was about him and it's a harsh reality," Durant recognized. "You can talk about it all you want like 'I want to play with great players,' 'I want to be on a championship contender.' And once you get over there, you realize it's not all about you. Which way you gonna go? There's a fork in the road at that point."
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It's been clear which way Lillard chose.
When pressed at various points during the season about why he hasn't decided to dominate the ball — even pull up from 30 feet — he's simply said there's no reason to.
"We know he can," Antetokounmpo said earlier in the season. "I'll be very honest with you, doing that more when he was playing in Portland — and obviously they were a great team and made the playoffs a lot of years, I think eight out of 12 years — he was in a position that he had to do that every single night.
"Here, even me, we are a part of something greater than us."
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It's something Lillard recognized days after arriving in Milwaukee, when he looked around on media day on Oct. 3 and said he'd never been part of a team like this. Antetokounmpo, of course, was there. So was Middleton. So was Brook Lopez. Lillard already had implicit trust in Pat Connaughton , a longtime friend and former teammate from Portland. Malik Beasley has been one of the league's best three-point shooters and Bobby Portis has been a reliable post presence.
The way the Bucks have played offensively has been a winning formula to date . So, while Lillard may not be having the season he's used to, his presence has had an impact.
"I mean, we talk about shifting off of guys to clog the paint but he's one guy you can't shift off as much just because of his range," said Detroit coach Monty Williams, who game-planned against Lillard in Portland for years as the head coach of New Orleans and Phoenix. "You have to shift higher. And there are times in the shot clock where you just deny him. You never even thought about doing that with Dame in Portland because he had the ball for 90-plus feet.
"Now, with Giannis and Khris and even Portis having the ball, he's off the ball a lot. That's a bit different. But at some point, he's going to have it and you gotta have your defense ready for that. They just have so many weapons."
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Yet nearly everyone in Milwaukee has recognized that formula hasn't to find the right consistency.
"He just tells me to go more," Antetokounmpo said of Rivers' early direction to get Lillard more comfortable. "Go more dribble-handoff, set more screen, roll, kick the ball ahead more, whenever I see Dame, go set one for Dame and try to make something happen, just try to keep on building that connection as much as possible. I think we've done a great job from the beginning of the season to where we are right now, I think we've come together. But it's gotta be more. It's gotta be more. "
There have been flashes of that, of course, particularly in closing situations.
Antetokounmpo leads the NBA in overall fourth-quarter scoring (8.4 points per quarter) and Lillard is No. 7 in clutch scoring among players with at least 20 games where the score is within five points in the final five minutes of games.
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He's the one with ball, setting up the offense. He's leading the NBA in free-throw shooting.
Yet "Dame being Dame" is associated with explosive scoring games and three-point shooting — deep three-point shooting. Lillard knows this, too, and how it has looked.
He's shooting 34% from behind the three-point line, the poorest percentage of his career in a full season. He's making just 42% of his shots overall, his lowest in a full season since 2015-16.
"I know that I'll shoot the ball better," he said. "I feel like I'm not shooting the ball well this season and there's a lot of things that play into that. Sometimes you just miss. Sometimes you just want it too bad. Sometimes it comes different than what you might be accustomed to. I know that this is a great situation for me and got a chance to win. At some point, the dots will connect and it'll be what it's supposed to be and hopefully it's at the right time."
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While the season calendar is shortening by the day, there are still 6½ weeks of regular-season games to keep building toward that time. Creating a more comfortable space for Lillard in the offense is a focus of Rivers and Antetokounmpo, and the belief is that will help him, and the Bucks, navigate toward that right time and place.
"I think I've shown my value at the end of the games if anything, already," he said, looking at his boisterous teammates. "I'm happy, man. I like the situation I'm in."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Damian Lillard says he's happy, but seeks comfort in Bucks offense
