A BATTLE IN BUBBLE
Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo creates a myriad of defensive challenges — just as James Harden does for the Rockets
As James Harden makes teams adjust, Milwaukee presents its own MVP tonight.
Invited to consider the many problems Bucks star and reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo causes, Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni decided that rather than go there, he might like to sleep Saturday night.
“I don’t have an hour to talk to you,” he said, uncharacteristically taking a pass on a topic too unpleasant to manage a customary oneliner.
Now he knows what it is like to head to practice the day before facing James Harden.
He actually almost surely already knew, having had to come up with plans to defend not just Antetokounmpo, but the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant and other extreme forces of nature, as the Rockets will when they play the Bucks on Sunday in their second restart game.
Antetokounmpo, however, is unique, with combinations of size, speed and relentlessness that have allowed him to improve upon an MVP season.
“He puts a lot of pressure on you,” D’Antoni said. “He’s going to get some. Don’t give him anything easy, don’t foul him, make him — if you can — shoot jump shots. And try to stay home as much as you can without abandoning all your principles.
“That’s why they’re superstars. That’s why he’s been the MVP. That’s why they’re one of the best teams in the league, the best record in the league. It creates problems, and we’re going to have to do the best we can to solve them.”
There is also the potential that feelings about playing the Bucks could be personal. Antetokounmpo joked about Harden before and after the All-Star Game, saying he chose Kemba Walker over Harden because he “wanted somebody that’s going to pass the ball” and after the game said that his team “wanted to find whoever James Harden was guarding.”
Neither comment made a lot of sense because Harden has long been a much more prolific passer than Walker and because he made standout defensive, rather than offensive, plays late in the All-Star game.
Harden later told ESPN he did not get the joke and countered, “I wish I could be 7-feet, run and just dunk. That takes no skill at all. I gotta actually learn how to play basketball and how to have skill. I’ll take that any day.”
To Antetokounmpo, the comments seemed to be all in fun. In an Instagram Live interview, he later called Harden the NBA’s toughest player to guard and when listing his all-time top players, he cited just one active player, Harden.
The Rockets’ concern, however, is not with winning a debate about the past two MVP winners.
The Bucks have been the league’s best team for a variety of reasons, most on the defensive end. But everything starts with Antetokounmpo, with an offense built to keep him surrounded by shooters and let him work in the middle of the floor as with the Rockets with Harden, the Mavericks with Luka Doncic and the Lakers with James.
“They have an … ability to get to the basket at will,” Rockets center P.J. Tucker said from experience, having often had that unenviable defensive assignment. “That’s the hardest part, to try to keep them out of the paint, to make them take tough, pull-up shots. Against those guys, it’s almost impossible to do. That’s why they’re so good.
“When they have shooters, you can’t be on the elbows and boxes. You have to stay out on the shooters. That makes it very hard.”
The Bucks’ offense is so balanced between Antetokounmpo’s attacks of the rim and the shooting provided around him, they have the best eFG percentage (which takes into account the value of 3-pointers) in the NBA.
Even with teams doing everything they can to cut off his drives, the first line of every game plan against the Bucks, Antetokounmpo leads in scoring in the paint and on the break.
If Antetokounmpo averages 32 points per game in the remaining seven “seeding” games, he would join Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players in NBA history to average at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and five assists while making at least half their shots.
That might be an achievement similar to Harden’s. He moved past Calvin Murphy on Friday to become the Rockets’ all-time second-leading scorer. He has compiled statistics to put him in clubs with Chamberlain and Michael Jordan. But he will rely much more on his perimeter shooting than Antetokounmpo. While Antetokounmpo leads the NBA in 2-pointers, Harden leads in3s.
“It’s different. James will go more to his step-back, his pull-ups,” Tucker said. “Those guys (Antetokounmpo and James) will get to the basket. Their game is attacking the rim a lot more, even though James does get in there for layups. But for him, you have to contest his shot, make him take a tough shot. With those guys, they just get to the basket. They’re strong, and they’re big.”
Antetokounmpo and James are also opponents the Rockets will face in two of their next three games, a schedule that would seem to keep a coach tossing and turning as much as the challenge of coming up with a way to stop them. But rather than list the problems Antetokounmpo poses, D’Antoni chose to look at the bright side.
“Playing the best teams in the league, it (provides) good film, good test, great work to get ready for the playoffs,” he said. “I’m happy with that.”