Doc Rivers and Bobby Portis react to the Bucks’ loss to the Pistons
Doc Rivers and Bobby Portis react to the Milwaukee Bucks’ loss to the Detroit Pistons on Nov. 22, 2025.
The Detroit Pistons handed the Milwaukee Bucks their fourth straight loss on Nov. 22 at Fiserv Forum, winning 129-116 as the Bucks once again struggled to put points on the board without superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo. It was the second full game Antetokounmpo missed after he strained his left adductor in the second quarter of an eventual Bucks loss in Cleveland on Nov. 17.
It was Detroit’s 12th straight victory, which improved their Eastern Conference-leading record to 14-2. The Bucks fell to 8-9.
“Just stay together,” Bucks forward Bobby Portis Jr. said of the mindset for Milwaukee going forward. “It’s a long season. We’re 17 games in, there’s 65 more opportunities for us to be better, and we will be better. You go through these bumps in the road throughout the season and nobody’s going to feel sorry for you − it’s the NBA. You gotta keep your head up, keep going, keep doing the things that got us here. Keep trending in the right direction, keep building good habits every day and you turn around and look up and we’ll be on a five, six-game win streak. It’s that simple. Just stay in the now and don’t worry about the losses and things like that.”
All-NBA point guard Cade Cunningham led Detroit with 29 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds as the Pistons shot over 60% from the field while the regulars were in the game.
The Bucks did a good job rebounding against the league’s No. 3 rebounding squad (Milwaukee was plus-3 in total rebounds) and shot 51.2% from the floor overall and 46.5% from behind the 3-point line until late in the game.
But, they couldn’t string enough stops together to mount a comeback after falling behind by double digits in the second quarter.
“Obviously we don’t have our guys,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said. “But you get down like that we just didn’t have the firepower to fight back.”
Bucks point guard Ryan Rollins, a candidate for the league’s Most Improved Player award, had a tough game against Detroit’s stingy perimeter defense. He scored 24 points on 21 shots and had seven assists, but he also earned a technical foul for yelling at a referee and had an offensive foul reviewed for a flagrant when he hit Ausar Thompson in the face with the back of his arm near midcourt.
Portis scored 18 points and had seven rebounds for Milwaukee while AJ Green (15), Kyle Kuzma (13) and Myles Turner (11) also reached double figures.
Second quarter dooms Bucks
A hot Bobby Portis Jr. scored 14 points on 5 of 5 shooting in the first quarter and gave the Bucks a 26-25 lead with a minute left in the first quarter, but over the last 61 seconds of the first and through the second quarter the Pistons outscored the Bucks 44-26 and broke the game open to take a 69-52 lead at the break.
“Their physicality got to us,” Portis said. “Teams go on runs all the time. In basketball it’s basically a game of runs. But I just think their physicality got to us tonight, that’s plain and simple. They brought the fight to us. We didn’t bring the fight to them. They blew up DHOs (dribble handoffs), they were pressuring us in the backcourt, causing havoc, turnovers, things like that. So definitely something we can clean up and get better at.”
Milwaukee made 55% of its shots overall in the decisive second quarter but was just 2 of 6 from behind the 3-point line while the Pistons went 4-for-7 (57.1%) and shot 72.7% overall (16 of 22). The Pistons outscored the Bucks 39-26 in the frame, including a 14-0 edge early that flipped a one-point deficit into a 13-point advantage the Bucks couldn’t recover from against the league’s No. 1 scoring defense.
“We don’t really have the margin for error to get down to get down against a team like that, especially a solid defensive team,” Rivers said.
Kyle Kuzma doesn’t finish game due to illness
Bucks starting forward Kyle Kuzma fell ill early on Nov. 22 but wanted to play against the Pistons, but after 16 minutes, head coach Doc Rivers decided that was enough for the forward. Rivers said Kuzma did not attend shootaround in the morning.
“You could see it early. I almost took him out early and probably should have. Of all the nights you want him not to be sick, guarding Cade, you could just see. All those pressures he didn’t get up one time and it was a tough one. He wanted to play. I wish I hadn’t had played him.”
Bucks slip on the margins in loss
The Bucks rued a lack of execution late in regulation against Philadelphia in what would become an overtime loss on Nov. 20, but Detroit took advantage of the small things throughout to control the game.
“Then all the loose balls battles, the offensive rebound battles, if we look at the score at the end of the game like oh, yeah, we lost by such-and-such points it be like sometimes the little battles that you lose that kind of defeats you,” Portis said.
These were just a few examples:
Pistons big man Jalen Duren fell down early in the first quarter, but his desperation pass off his backside pinged between a couple of Bucks before he ended up with the ball back, and he fed Ausar Thompson for a layup.The Bucks took a 26-25 lead with 61 seconds left in the first quarter, then proceeded to allow five points in the final 31 seconds to allow the Pistons to take a 30-26 lead into the second quarter.Ryan Rollins absorbed contact from all-NBA Pistons guard Cade Cunningham while in the air, and after making the layup Rollins yelled at the referee – who promptly hit him with a technical. Cunningham made the free throw and then assisted on a Jaden Ivey 3-pointer on the free possession afterward to give the Pistons a 65-52 lead.Detroit was able to quickly stifle any momentum the home team tried to manufacture early. On six different occasions through the first and second quarters Detroit immediately answered Milwaukee baskets that either got the crowd rocking (a made 3-pointer) or gave the Bucks a lead. While teams trade baskets very often throughout a 48-minute stretch, in the defining opening quarters the Bucks couldn’t get a stop to get the crowd behind them and build a multi-possession lead.AJ Green: “Things like that, it’s really just the discipline of the little things like getting back and everybody being on the same page to get another stop. I think it’s smart players that recognize that and say ‘let’s get it out and go right away’ again. We just gotta have the discipline to get back.”Milwaukee came into the game turning the ball over 14.5 times per game, the eighth-fewest total in the league. But, Detroit had come in having forced 17.8 per game (No. 2), and they got the Bucks to lose their grip 17 times when the regulars were in the game. But more than the giveaways, it was the 30 additional points created for the Pistons. The Bucks forced 13 turnovers of their own, but managed to create 14 additional points.Bobby Portis Jr: “I just think their pressure kind of got to us a little bit, kind of turned us over. If we could’ve taken care of the ball a lot better it could’ve been a better outcome.”Pistons now the top of the Eastern Conference
Late in the evening on Jan. 3, 2022, Giannis Antetokounmpo walked off the podium in the Jim Paschke Interview Room at Fiserv Forum and still couldn’t believe his Bucks had just lost to the Detroit Pistons.
The woeful Pistons snapped a six-game Bucks winning streak at that point in the 2021-22 season and a 13-game win streak the Bucks had built since 2018-19 over their would-be rivals to the east.
Milwaukee, which was defending its championship that season, righted the ship over Detroit after that and started another winning streak that had once again reached 13 straight.
“This is why the season is so tricky,” Doc Rivers said. “I told our guys, they hadn’t beaten us in two or three years. Last year we beat them in extra time, right? I said they’re gonna come in with every gun loaded and they played that way tonight. I thought they physically wanted to send a message, and tonight at least they did.”
Rivers was right, because Cade Cunningham brought it up on his own to his team before the Pistons won on Nov. 20.
“It’s motivation for our guys to try to end that,” Detroit head coach J.B. Bickerstaff acknowledged before the game.
Antetokounmpo watched from the bench as he missed his second straight game with a strained left adductor muscle, and his team had few answers for a tough Pistons team that has separated itself as the new head of the class in the Eastern Conference.
Detroit won just 23 games in the 2021-22 season, but it didn’t hit rock bottom until winning just 14 times in 2023-24. Now, the Pistons win over the Bucks on Nov. 20 was their 14th in the first 16 games of this season. They now own a seven-game lead in the loss column over the one-time conference title contenders from the Cream City.
Bucks try to get AJ Green loose
Immediately after the Bucks knew Antetokounmpo suffered a significant injury in Cleveland on Nov. 17, head coach Doc Rivers acknowledged one of the players who would be most affected by the star’s absence would be AJ Green.
Rivers immediately pointed to Green as a player who could explode offensively if given the chance as a 48% 3-point shooter, so the coach knew teams would pay more attention to him without Antetokounmpo.
Green only averages 6.8 shots per game (6.4 are 3-pointers), but as a player whose offensive game is built around off-ball movement and filling space to take advantage of Antetokounmpo’s gravity, playing without the 7-foot playmaker is more of a problem for the 26-year-old.
Here is what happened with Green in the three games without Antetokounmpo heading into the game against Detroit:
Oct. 30 vs. Golden State: 3 of 7 shots made (win)Nov. 12 at Charlotte: 1 of 4 (loss)Nov. 20 vs. Philadelphia: 3 of 5 (loss)
Rivers has long maintained there is no set number of shots he’d like to see Green put up in any given game but, the Bucks were 3-4 in games where he put up 5 threes or fewer.
“I mean, I’m just going to be myself,” Green said following a practice on Nov. 19. “Be assertive in how I play. But I also think if we do play together, good looks will still be generated for myself, for (Trent), Myles (Turner), Ryan (Rollins), everybody. There’s no expectation, really, I guess. I’m just going to see the game and play the game and go be me and try to win. Might shoot 20 threes, might shoot 3 threes. That’s just kind of how each game flows.”
The Bucks worked to get Green more opportunities against Detroit, and he went 5-for-12 from the floor – the most shot attempts he’s had since putting up 12 against Sacramento on Nov. 1. Green came into the game having shot 10 or more times on three occasions.
Green was 5 of 10 from behind the 3-point line in scoring 15 points, which was the 12th time this season he’s shot at least 50% from behind the arc. It was also the fourth time he’s scored at least 15 points in a game.
5 numbers
0-3: Bucks record vs. Cleveland (0-2) and Detroit (0-1) in the Central Division. They are now 6-6 in Eastern Conference play as well.
2-8: Bucks record when scoring 119 points or fewer. The Bucks came into the game averaging 117.4 points per game, 18th in the league, but have not scored more than 119 points in a regulation game since Nov. 7 against Chicago. They put up 147 points on Charlotte in overtime on Nov. 14.
5-6: Bucks record vs. teams with a .500 record or better on the day of the game.
29: Minutes for Bucks guard Andre Jackson Jr., who appeared in just six of the Bucks’ previous 12 and logged 23 total minutes. Jackson did what he does best, which was play hard in every moment and he scored six points and had five assists. He had a tip dunk that was disqualified by league review in New York as offensive basket interference, and he had what appeared to be a chase down block of a Ron Holland II dunk attempt that couldn’t be reviewed because the Bucks had challenged on the tip-dunk and lost.
Jackson also absorbed a huge screen from Detroit big man Isaiah Stewart and was vaulted four rows deep into the crowd by Javonte Green on a contested breakaway.
56: Points in the paint scored by the Pistons. They came into the game leading the NBA with 59.3 points in the painted area.
Is Giannis playing?
No. The MVP candidate will miss his second straight game with a strained left adductor suffered on Nov. 17 in Cleveland.
He was not on the bench during the Bucks’ loss to Philadelphia on Nov. 20. But was in Oshkosh, along with Thanasis Antetokounmpo, on Nov. 21 to watch Alex Antetokounmpo play for the Wisconsin Herd.
What is the Bucks record without Giannis?
1-2
The Bucks beat Golden State on Oct. 30 and lost to Charlotte (Nov. 12) and Philadelphia (Nov. 20).
Taurean Prince, out (neck surgery)Kevin Porter Jr., out (right meniscus surgery)Giannis Antetokounmpo, out (left adductor strain)Kyle Kuzma, available (illness)Bucks probable starting lineupGuards: AJ Green, Ryan RollinsForwards: Bobby Portis Jr., Kyle KuzmaCenter: Myles TurnerWhat channel are the Bucks on?
The game will be broadcast local on FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin with Lisa Byington, Wesley Matthews and Melanie Ricks on the call.
What time is the Bucks game?
Milwaukee and Detroit are scheduled to tip off at 7 p.m. CT.
Bucks vs. Pistons odds
Detroit is an 8.5-point favorite over Milwaukee, with the over/under set at 223.5 points per BetMGM.