Doc Rivers wasn’t going to let Patrick Beverley get him in trouble on Thursday.
Before Thursday’s game with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Milwaukee Bucks’ trade for Beverley was not yet official. So, when asked for his comments on Beverley, the Bucks head coach declined to speak about a player he coached for three seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers.
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Instead, Rivers talked about what a hypothetical trade for a point-of-attack defender might mean for the team.
After the Bucks’ 129-105 loss to the Timberwolves, Rivers could finally speak about Beverley because the Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers made the trade official during the second half of Thursday’s game.
During his postgame interview, Rivers informed reporters that Beverley had sent him a text message when news had broke about the trade. But because the trade was not yet official when Beverley texted him, Rivers did not respond for fear of breaking an NBA rule.
“He is a very, very high-IQ player, especially defensively and even offensively with his movement and stuff and setting picks,” Rivers said. “He’s also an instigator. He’s a big talker defensively, not meaning trash talk, meaning he talks on defense. And I think those are some of the things that we need.
“At times, he has great defensive nights. At times, he overdoes it and those are the nights (when he) and I know we have to talk. I’ve coached him before, but he’s a good spirit for your team and one of the most competitive players I’ve ever coached. And people like that, it’s contagious. And I think that’s good for our team.”
Beverley, 35, put up 6.3 points, 3.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 19.6 minutes per game in 47 games for the 76ers this season. He is shooting 43.2 percent from the field, the highest percentage since his third NBA season in 2016, but he’s only 32.1 percent from 3.
As Rivers noted, Beverley was not brought to Milwaukee to light up the scoreboard.
Beverley’s defense will be especially helpful in the backcourt. All season, the Bucks have struggled to contain opposing guards. Part of the reason for those defensive struggles has been the team’s personnel at those positions.
Primarily, the Bucks have used three players — Damian Lillard, Malik Beasley, Cam Payne — who are far more gifted on offense. With Beverley in the mix, the Bucks have a guard who can help bring out a greater focus on the defensive end.
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“I think he’s different from what we currently have,” Lopez said. “And adding that to our guard concoction, it’ll be a nice combination, a good mixture. Nice result there.”
In his 12th NBA season, Beverley is not as quick as he once was, but his instincts and timing allow him to make plays such as this:
While the Bucks dropped to 1-5 under Rivers with another short-handed loss on Thursday, players throughout the roster have felt more confident in what the Bucks are doing defensively. And they think Beverley can help take that even further.
“The defense has already been better and now you just add another layer to that,” said Lillard, who missed Thursday’s game with a left ankle sprain. “He’s a pest. He’s an irritant. He’s physical. He takes pride in it. He understands it. He’s vocal about it and that kind of challenges everybody else to raise their level when he’s on the floor doing it.”
Lillard can speak to that experience as he has been going at it with Beverley for years. The two have been involved in verbal jousts, both in person and on social media, since Beverley mocked Lillard for missing two clutch free throws in the NBA bubble when Beverley was with the Clippers and Lillard was with the Trail Blazers.
After that game, both players took to social media to comment and their contentious relationship has continued since as neither player has backed down.
Shortly after getting news of the trade on Thursday, Beverley called Malik Beasley, who he had played with last season as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. And while they went through the players on the roster, Beverley told Beasley that he needed to get his “relationship right with Dame” when he arrived in Milwaukee.
This go crazzzyy❤️❤️ #FearTheDeer https://t.co/BuukbdxfRa
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) February 9, 2024
After Thursday’s game, Lillard shared a similar sentiment.
“We are professional basketball players,” Lillard said. “And as competitors and as men, we’re going to have some differences. Me and him, we just have our fair share of them. And I don’t think he would shy away from the reality of that and I’m definitely not going to, but I don’t not respect him as a man. I don’t not respect what he brings to a team or to the game.
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“And now that we’re teammates, we’re not just become overnight best friends, but I think we both are going to have that respect for each other that is going to allow the door to be open for us to be able to work together and try to accomplish our ultimate goal and that’s that’s the only thing that matters.”
It will be important for the Bucks to smooth over the relationship between Beverley and Lillard, but both players seemed amenable to that idea on Thursday and work on their relationship will begin as soon as Beverley joins the team on Friday.
Beverley arrived in Milwaukee on Friday night, but Rivers said it is unclear if Beverley will suit up for the Bucks on Friday night or wait until the Bucks play the Denver Nuggets on Monday.
Part of Beverley’s success on defense comes from effort. There may be times when he is overmatched, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to find a way to make a play.
“He’s great defensively,” Lopez said. “He brings a lot of energy. He’s someone who can help lead us out there just through his enthusiasm, through his energy, through his competitiveness.”
And while Beverley has shown a penchant for forcing turnovers throughout his career, he also can contribute to the defense by just being solid in basic coverages.
Under Rivers, the Bucks have started to use more help on pick-and-rolls rather than just defending them two-on-two with pure drop coverage. But as long as Brook Lopez is on the roster, there will be value in guards being able to fight over screens and affect shots with rear contests, as Beverley did while playing with Joel Embiid in Philadelphia:
It doesn’t necessarily need to be a block like it was on this play against Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland, but closing the gap between guards and centers and making opponents uncomfortable in those in-between spaces is important. It’s something the Bucks have struggled to execute consistently this season.
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One of the other areas that Beverley can help in is the Bucks’ transition defense, which has been better under Rivers. But in the first half of the season, the Bucks had one of the NBA’s worst transition defenses. Under former coach Adrian Griffin, the Bucks struggled with floor balance in transition and opposing players also knew they could attack smaller defenders (Lillard and Beasley) and likely make their way to the rim.
With Beverley among the players getting back or working to recover in transition, fast-break opportunities will not be as easy for opponents.
More than anything, the Bucks will benefit from Beverley’s relentlessness on the defensive end. Beverley still gives maximum effort on the defensive end and knows how to defend.
“Enforcer type of guy with a gritty attitude,” Portis said. “Plays with a swag, with confidence, brings tenacity to a team. I feel like he impacts winning in a lot of different type of ways, some ways that don’t show up in the box score and need that from him. He’s going to help us out tremendously.”
Beverley will help out on defense, there are intangibles he brings that aren’t always best for a team trying to win games. As Rivers mentioned, there are nights where Beverley is not quite as solid defensively and those nights tend to be where he gets too focused on trying to get into another player’s head.
And while Bucks players could only guess how Beverley might be as a teammate, one of Beverley’s former Timberwolves teammates had a strong opinion of what the new Bucks guard brings to Milwaukee.
“A lot of fire, a lot of energy,” four-time All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns said. “He’s going to bring a lot of things that don’t show up on the stat sheet. He did a lot of that for us. He gave us a swag, gave us a toughness. He gave us that edge that’s needed to be a great team.
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“I think that with him here, they got a lot for their money.”
— The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski contributed to this report
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Harper: Patrick Beverley-Cameron Payne trade grades: Bucks upgrade; 76ers plan for future
(Photo of Patrick Beverley and Doc Rivers: Adam Pantozzi/ NBAE via Getty Images)
