NBA day: coaching shakeups
Social updates from the league’s chaotic final weekend report Doc Rivers is out in Milwaukee and other late‑season storylines included unexpected individual performances reshaping narratives. Those items were part of the same final‑day chatter that preceded tonight’s postseason play‑in slate. (x.com) (x.com)
Doc Rivers is out as Milwaukee Bucks coach after a 32-50 season that ended Sunday and snapped the franchise’s nine-year playoff streak. (nba.com) The Bucks announced Rivers’ departure on Monday, April 13, one day after a 126-106 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers closed the regular season. Rivers went 97-103 across 2 1/2 seasons in Milwaukee. (nba.com) The move sends Milwaukee into its third coaching search in three years after Adrian Griffin was fired at 30-13 in January 2024 and Rivers finished that season at 17-19. ESPN reported the Bucks will still pay Rivers an eight-figure salary for 2026-27 and are discussing whether he could stay in an advisory role. (espn.com) Milwaukee’s collapse played out alongside injuries and a widening fight over Giannis Antetokounmpo’s status. Antetokounmpo did not play after March 15, and NBA.com reported his injury situation had become a point of disagreement with team management. (nba.com) The timing matters because the postseason starts now, not next week. The National Basketball Association’s play-in tournament runs April 14-17, with Miami at Charlotte and Portland at Phoenix on Tuesday night, and the first round opens April 18. (nba.com) That gave the final weekend two tracks at once: teams chasing seeds and a league already shifting into offseason decisions. NBA.com wrote before the weekend that 14 of the 20 postseason seeds were still unsettled. (nba.com) The same stretch also fed the player-performance chatter that can rewrite how a season is remembered. NBA.com’s late-season roundup highlighted Bam Adebayo’s 83-point game against Washington on March 10, the second-highest single-game total in league history, and Austin Reaves’ 51 points against Sacramento on Oct. 26. (nba.com) Milwaukee’s season ended with none of that momentum. Rivers said in the team statement that he had “truly loved” his time in Milwaukee, and the Bucks now head into another coaching search while the rest of the bracket starts moving tonight. (nba.com)
