PHILADELPHIA -- Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers said that Damian Lillard is feeling good as he recovers from deep vein thrombosis in his right calf and that there is "much more hope today" than there was a few days ago that he can return sometime this season.

Lillard, who missed his eighth straight game Thursday against the Philadelphia 76ers, did not make the road trip with the Bucks, with Rivers saying the team "decided against it" despite receiving a "great report" recently on Lillard's recovery.

"'Why mess with it?' was our thing, when flying or anything could affect that," Rivers said. "We have much more hope today than we did three days ago, I can tell you that. And so we're going to take everything that we can do to see if there's a way we can get him back."

Milwaukee announced last week that Lillard would be out indefinitely after being diagnosed with the issue in his right calf. That differed from the immediate diagnosis of San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama, who was ruled out for the season in February after deep vein thrombosis was diagnosed in his right shoulder.

The regular season ends in 10 days, and the playoffs will begin in 16 or 17 days, depending on whether the Bucks will open play on April 19 or April 20.

In the meantime, Rivers said the Bucks are fully preparing for the likelihood that Lillard will not return and how the team will have to alter its approach if he doesn't.

"There's no balance," Rivers said when asked how the team would straddle the chances of him coming back or not. "You work on what we don't have ... because there's no guarantee we are going to have him.

"We get him back, we know how to play. But we don't know how to play in the long term without him. And so it's really the nine Giannis minutes that we have to figure out. Before there was either a non Giannis, but you had Dame, and now you don't have that. So that's what we're working on every day and I haven't been great at it yet, so we got work to do."

Before Thursday's game, Rivers bemoaned his team's recent turnover issues, which have led to the Bucks facing a deficit in total shot attempts. Rivers, who also cited the team's issues with giving up offensive rebounds and not forcing turnovers, insisted that had to change for the Bucks to have success in the playoffs.

"I can't put my finger on it, honestly," Rivers said of what's causing the Bucks' turnover issues. "We turn it over in a lot of ways. But I do know this -- we can't win games. ... The other night, they took 18 more shots. The night before, they took 19 more shots. You know how well you have to shoot the ball to win a game like that?"

Milwaukee entered Thursday's game a half-game behind the Detroit Pistons for fifth place in the Eastern Conference standings. Beginning with Thursday's game against the tanking 76ers, the Bucks have several winnable games in a row before playing their final two games of the season against Detroit to close out the regular season.

ESPN's Basketball Power Index entered Thursday with the Bucks set to tie the Pistons with 45 wins for that fifth spot in the East playoff picture. Getting to fifth, instead of sixth, would mean avoiding having to beat all three of the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers to reach the NBA Finals, making it a potentially significantly easier path.

Rivers, who did not coach Thursday's game due to an illness, entered the day tied with Hall of Famer Phil Jackson for seventh place in all-time NBA regular season wins with 1,155, and would surpass the 11-time champion with a win over his former team.

"Yeah, it's awesome," Rivers said. "Just says I've had a lot of success. I've done a lot of good things in this job, but I've also had a lot of help. I've had great coaches with me. I have an amazing staff now. I've had some pretty good players throughout my career, but winning is what we're supposed to do and I try to do that, but I don't count, don't look. I don't know.

"That's not why I'm doing it. I'll put it that way."