If there's a day that Milwaukee Bucks fans would prefer to move on from, it'd be Sunday, April 28th. The team lost a crucial Game 4 contest against the Indiana Pacers to go down 3-1 in their opening-round playoff series. And to make things worse, Bobby Portis was ejected early in the game, making an already difficult task even more challenging for the Bucks.
With five minutes remaining in the first quarter, Portis and Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard got tangled up underneath the basket. This resulted in a shoving match between the two before Portis hit Nembhard in the head.
The fiery forward was eventually ejected from the game, much to the dismay of the shorthanded Bucks. Following the team's loss, head coach Doc Rivers had this to say about the ejection:
“It was a tough break for us, no doubt about that,” Rivers said, per The Athletic's Eric Nehm. “Doesn't matter how long you're in the league, you can still learn — all of us can. I thought it will probably be a lesson for Bobby and for all of us, for our young guys. Playoff games are high emotion. They really are. So that happened, and you can't get it back once it happened.”
What made Portis' ejection more frustrating for the Bucks was how the team entered the game without the services of their two superstar players in Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard. Antetokounmpo has been sidelined the entire series with a calf strain while Lillard was ruled out for Game 4 due to an Achilles injury.
The Bucks fall to the Pacers in Game 4
The absence of Milwaukee's top players, in addition to Portis' ejection, resulted in a third-quarter breakaway from the Pacers. While the Bucks were able to hang on and keep the game close until halftime, Indiana eventually amassed a double-digit lead.
The Bucks rallied early in the fourth quarter, cutting the deficit down to single digits. However, the Pacers responded by pumping the lead back up again, with the tally ballooning up as high as 19 points in the final frame.
Brook Lopez led the Bucks' scoring with 27 points while Khris Middleton added 25 points and ten rebounds.
The 126-113 loss puts Milwaukee a game away from elimination. Still, a 3-1 deficit isn't dampening Rivers' spirit anytime soon. The coach commended his team's effort, emphasizing how he loved the Bucks' self-belief.
“Our guys were playing their hearts out,” Rivers added. “They really were. I loved that our team, no matter what anyone thought, they believed they could win this game and it shows a lot about this basketball team. And what I loved about it most was how they were disappointed that they didn't win the game. This is a great group to coach, I'm telling you. I know we have a lot of stuff going on, just clutter, injuries, but man, I'm loving this team every second that I'm with them. And today is another example of that.”
Rivers and the Bucks will have one more chance to stave off elimination on Tuesday night when they take on the Pacers in Game 5 of their series.
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