Is it already time to hit the panic button in Milwaukee?

After a rough 1-3 start to the season, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks needed a win — and the basketball gods delivered one Thursday night. A rested Bucks team was about to take on a Memphis team the other night in a back-to-back with six players out, including starters Desmond Bane and Marcus Smart.

The result? The Bucks were blown out by 23 points in a game they never led after three minutes and were never within 10 points midway through the second quarter.

Milwaukee has now dropped four straight, is 1-4 on the season and has the third-worst net rating in the league (-8.2) thanks to a 24th-ranked offense and defense. Antetokounmpo was spot on when he said, “Right now we don’t have an identity,” and Khris Middleton returning from surgery on both ankles won’t fix things.

It may be a small sample size, but it’s time to start reaching for the panic button in Milwaukee.

WHAT IS WRONG?

Plenty. But it starts with this:

Missed jump shots and lousy transition defense is a losing combination.

Milwaukee simply lacks shots. Against Memphis, the Bucks were 9-of-42 from 3 (21.4%), and for the season are shooting 33.3% overall from beyond the arc and 28% on over-the-break 3s. It’s not just 3-pointers either, the Bucks are shooting 35.1% on jump shots this season (any shot outside the paint). They are shooting just 33.9% on shots in the float area (inside the paint but outside the restricted area). If they don’t get to the rim, they don’t score, at least not consistently.

Now combine that with a net defensive rating of 154.1 in transition, second-worst in the league, and you have a real problem – the Bucks are missing shots, opponents are grabbing the boards, driving out and scoring in transition.

“The defensive transition was still terrible tonight and so it’s down to me. Everything is on me until we get it right.” Coach Doc Rivers said postgame. “We have to fix this.”

Rivers’ bigger problem may be that the book is out on how to attack Milwaukee’s defense — bully Damian Lillard and other Bucks guards (as Zach Lowe noted). The defensive rotations behind them haven’t been sharp, but there are places to attack Milwaukee now, and teams are going after them.

DAMIAN LILLARD’S SLUMP

On opening night, against an undermanned Philadelphia team, Damian Lillard looked like he was back, hitting 6-of-12 3-pointers en route to 30 points.

Compare that to Thursday night, when Lillard shot 1-of-12 from 3 and finished with four points against the Grizzlies. If it was just one game, we could wave it off, but since opening night, Lillard has shot 6-of-33 from beyond the arc. He collapses and the Antetokounmpo/Lillard pick-and-roll that everyone thought would be unstoppable doesn’t connect like it should.

Milwaukee’s problems are more extensive than just Lillard or Middleton being out — they’re not sharing the ball, there’s little movement on offense, and things are just flat on that end. Milwaukee used to have a defense that carried them through the rough offensive patches, but despite the best efforts of Brook Lopez — who has some spring in his step to start this season — Milwaukee looks out of sync on both ends.

It’s ugly. This is one of the teams under the most pressure this season and if things don’t turn around quickly, the pressure will only build, leading to…

GIANNI TRADE RUMORS START

We predicted before the season that Giannis Antetokounmpo trade rumors would start once the Bucks began to struggle, league sources tell NBC Sports that he was on everyone’s “watch list.” We just didn’t expect the noise to start the second week of the season.

Already the rumors are circulating – via the well-connected Bill Reiter of CBS Sports – that “teams are circling – and hopeful” and that the Heat and Nets are at the top of the list. You can be sure that Golden State would also be interested and willing to throw Jonathan Kuminga into the trade.

To be fair, Antetokounmpo signed a contract extension with Milwaukee just a season ago — after he decided the Lillard trade was proof ownership and the front office was committed to winning — but the ultra-competitive Antetokounmpo is not a patient man. After the ugly loss to Memphis, he sounded like a guy trying to figure out where he’s at, not move on, via Jim Owczarski of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“Losing, it’s frustrating, but we’re doing the right things. Like (Wednesday) night we got to Memphis and we came together as a team, watched film. Not like eight, nine guys playing. We saw movies, we talk about, what can we do better? What we don’t do so well, let’s hold each other accountable. We do the right thing…

“This is part of the season, it’s not going our way. But lose two, lose three, lose four, lose five, lose six in a row; to lose one, it’s always frustrating. But again, my dad used to say, ‘why are (you) whining if you won’t give up?’ So I will not give up.”

Milwaukee isn’t about to trade Antetokounmpo unless he asks out, and right now that’s not on the table. Even if he does, with that contract extension, the Bucks have the ability to drag things out. Still, the pressure is mounting, and the idea that Antetokounmpo could ask out is not ridiculous.

Especially if the Bucks don’t turn things around and start winning some games.