On a spooky Halloween night for the Milwaukee Bucks, they lost the “gimme” game to a no contest 122-98 victory over an injury-depleted Memphis Grizzlies team. It was their fourth straight loss after opening the season with a win against a Philadelphia 76ers squad that was missing All-Stars Joel Embiid and Paul George.

The Grizzlies were without starters Desmond Bane and Marcus Smart, as well as key reserves Vince Williams Jr., GG Jackson II, Marcus Smart and Luke Kennard. Rookie guard Cam Spencer was also shelved, but he is not a big part of head coach Taylor Jenkins’ rotation. Milwaukee was missing just one rotation player, starter Khris Middleton. This was a winnable match on paper. But the Bucks were completely smoked; A younger, more energetic Grizzlies team was taking advantage of a Bucks club that seemed perpetually stuck in the mud.

Here are our five takeaways from the disastrous night at the FedEx Forum.

Gary Trent Jr. In many ways, he truly is this year’s Malik Beasley. He’s a solid scorer hoping to improve his value in the league by playing on a veteran minimum contract for a would-be contender, a bit undersized to serve as the Bucks’ starting two guard and can’t guard anyone.

But Beasley had one of his best shooting seasons ever in Milwaukee en route to signing a richer deal with the Detroit Pistons in free agency this summer.

Trent, who is generally a more versatile scorer than Beasley, has struggled from long range this year. He played just 18:09, scoring nine points on 4/12 shooting (0/7 from deep), grabbing two rebounds and a steal. He recorded a -23 plus-minus. This year, the former Duke Blue Devil is averaging just 9.8 points, 1.6 rebounds, 1.0 assists and 1.0 steals on .357/.276/.917 shooting.

Grizzlies’ benched shooting guard Jaylen Wells moved into the starting role after Desmond Bane rehabbing his injury and had a big night at the expense of Trent. Wells recorded 16 points, 7 rebounds and one assist on 5/9 shooting from the field (3/6 from long range) and 3/3 from the foul line.

I wonder if Doc Rivers either promotes Delon Wright to shooting guard or moves Taurean Prince (aka this year’s Jae Crowder) to the two-guard position, now starting in place of injured former All-Star small forward Khris Middleton. It’s time. Trent can’t share much time with Damian Lillard. Speaking of Lillard…

The eight-time All-Star attributed his diminished play last season to an overcautious summer in which he did not practice and anticipated his eventual trade. But he has no excuse now.

Lillard’s terrible defense of Ja Morant actually gave the Grizzlies guard the green light for easy layups. Lillard had one of his worst nights ever as a pro; He scored just four points on 1/12 shooting from the floor (0/6 from deep) and 2/2 shooting from the charity stripe. He had six assists, grabbed two rebounds and recorded one steal.

This rule applies to just about every infield player, and tonight it applies to All-NBA Grizzlies superstar point guard Ja Morant. The 6-foot-10 vet feasted on the Bucks’ fearsome backcourt defense and scored 26 points on 9-of-16 shooting (2-of-5 from deep) and 6-of-7 shooting for his 12th career triple-double. . He shot from the charity stripe, 14 assists and 10 rebounds in just 29 very breezy minutes.

Replacing a better defender next to Lillard is the obvious solution. Even though the Bucks don’t have a lot of upside contract-wise, it might be time to consider a trade.

Even though the Grizzlies were playing on the second night of a back-to-back, Memphis looked like the fresher team.

Memphis took a 70-48 halftime lead, and the Bucks offered little resistance the rest of the way. The Bucks have four players 29 or older (three are 30 or older and Giannis Antetokounmpo will join them in December) and have looked slow and sluggish compared to a more flexible, deeper Memphis roster.

The Grizzlies finished the night shooting 52.4% from the floor (43/82) and 90.3% from the free throw line (28/31). In a balanced scoring affair, seven Grizzlies scored in double figures: starters Santi Aldama, Jaren Jackson Jr., Zach Edey, Wells and Morant and reserve guards Scotty Pippen Jr. and Jake LaRavia.

Milwaukee’s coach should have been aware that Lillard was definitely not fighting on both ends of the court. He at least seemed to realize that Trent couldn’t hit it wide of the goal either, as Wright actually played two more minutes than Trent (albeit playing more garbage minutes in the fourth quarter when the game had already been decided) and scored eight points to make it +10 He scores points by shooting 3-of-4 from the field (2-of-2 from deep) while catching.

This is the Bucks’ fourth straight loss. On paper, Milwaukee has held a large health or skill advantage in four of their five games (the Boston Celtics are the exception). The team won’t get a reprieve until next week. First, Milwaukee will need to beat the undefeated (5-0) Cleveland Cavaliers, who will face them in a mini-home-and-home miniseries on Saturday and Monday. That means a club with a healthy Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard could start the season losing six of its first seven games. At some point, even a head coach like Doc Rivers will face scrutiny if the defeat continues.

Other than some rotational stubbornness (again, it’s time for someone other than Gary Trent to start), this isn’t really Rivers’ fault. Team president Jon Horst turned his nose up at several young draft picks and probably overreacted when trading All-Defensive combo guard Jrue Holiday to add Lillard in the first place. He will need to make deft maneuvers to get out of this mess.

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