The Milwaukee Bucks continued their quest to stay afloat without superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo against the Detroit Pistons on Sunday, but it was another futile effort as they fell to 8-9 on the season with 129-116 loss. 

The Bucks are now 1-3 without Giannis on the season and they’ve lost three in a row without him since breakout guard Ryan Rollins scored a career-high 32 points to lead his team over the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 30.

On Friday, Rollins again led the Bucks with 24 points as Antetokounmpo remained out of the lineup with a groin strain. The breakout guard made 9-of-21 attempts from the field overall and 3-of-8 from beyond the arc in addition to hauling in five rebounds and dishing out seven assists. 

The Bucks also got a significant contribution from forward Bobby Portis, who tallied 18 points on an impressively efficient 7-of-10 overall clip from the field. Portis made 4-of-5 attempts from 3-point range, grabbed seven rebounds and dished out two assists.

“I feel like in games like this, especially without (Giannis), you need to get off to a good start,” Portos said. “You don't need to get down early. We're shooting the ball with confidence, we're shooting the ball with confidence all year, so it feels good coming off the fingers. Just letting it ride.”

While the Bucks played a mostly solid and consistent game on Sunday, a 14-0 Pistons run in the second quarter ended up making all the difference. Portis acknowledged that those runs are just part of basketball, but still made it clear that his team didn’t bring the necessary edge to defeat a Pistons team that has quickly risen amongst the league’s best.

“You know, teams go on runs all the time,” Portis said. ‘Basketball is basically a game of runs, but I just think their physicality got to us tonight, just playing it simple. They brought the fight to us, we didn't bring the fight to them.”

Despite all of the Bucks’ shortcomings on Friday, Portis made sure to credit the Pistons’ game plan and broke down how it affected the Bucks on Friday.

“They were pressuring us in the backcourt,  causing havoc, turnovers, things like that, so definitely something that we can clean up and get better at just being more physical, pushing guys off us, getting open.  You know, credit to them, though, they brought their game plan in, they've been playing like that all year, that's their identity.”