GIANNIS THE STAR OF NBA FINALS STAGE
Endearing Bucks forward Antetokounmpo had memorable moments both on and off the court
It’s hard to fully encompass the performance of Giannis Antetokounmpo in the NBA Finals, but let’s try anyway.
From his dominance on the court to his moments of introspection and levity off the court, he’s become one of the most endearing faces in pro sports, not to mention Milwaukee. At 26 years old, he further accentuated his greatness with an NBA championship, capped off with a dazzling Game 6 effort.
The two-time MVP and one-time NBA defensive player of the year can now call himself a champion.
Fifty points for 50 years
Giannis became the first player to put up 40 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in a single NBA Finals game, and he became the second player to notch three 40-point, 10-rebound games in a single NBA Finals (along with Shaquille O’Neal in 2000). He averaged 35.2 points, 13.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists over the six games in the Finals, all after battling back from what looked like a catastrophic knee injury in the Eastern Conference finals.
He joins Michael Jordan as only the second player in NBA Finals history to score 33 points in a half.
But the Game 6 stat line doesn’t even need historical context. 50 points, one for each year Milwaukee waited for another title.
Fourteen rebounds. Five blocks. In a closeout game. It’s simply a legendary performance,
Game 2: The quiet 40
Phoenix took a 2-0 series lead, but if Game 1 told the Bucks that Giannis would at least be some factor, Game 2 should have foretold that he’d be factor. His 42 points and 12 rebounds came in a losing effort, but it was pretty clear Milwaukee would have their superstar at something at least resembling 100%. But would it be enough against a tough Suns team, one that had kept Milwaukee at arm’s length for most of the first two games?
Game 3: Back-to-back 40
Giannis became the third player in NBA Finals history to record back-to-back 40-point games in the NBA Finals, and he finished with 41 points, 13 rebounds and six assists. The Bucks, playing in their first NBA Finals game on home soil since 1974, showed major signs of life with a convincing 120-100 win.
Game 4: The Block
A legendary recovery to swat an alley-oop intended for Deandre Ayton kept the Suns from tying the game with 1:14 to go. It will forever be remembered as one of his signature plays, and the Bucks had tied the series at 2-2.
Game 5: The Alley-Oop From Jrue
Jrue Holiday stole the ball from Devin Booker in the final 20 seconds with the Suns looking to take the lead, then threw an audacious alleyoop to Giannis for a basket that gave the Bucks a three-point edge late in Phoenix. When the Bucks closed out the 123-119 win, Milwaukee was coming home with a chance to win its first crown in 50 years.
Free-throw line renaissance
All postseason, Giannis at the free-throw line was a story.
In Game 1 of the first round against Miami, he was whistled for a seldom-enforced rule insisting that players shoot their free throws within 10 seconds. A notorious slow worker (who struggles to make free throws at any speed), Giannis was whistled again in Game 3 against the Nets in the Eastern semis, and Nets and Atlanta Hawks personnel complained that the violation could have been called more.
Fans in visiting arenas latched on to the quirk immediately and began counting every time Giannis stepped to the line.
But something strange happened in Game 6. Obviously, home fans weren’t doing any counting, but Antetokounmpo also started making almost all of the free throws.
In the 105-98 win, Giannis hit 17 of 19 shots at the line (90%), by far his best career playoff performance for any game in which he took double-digit attempts. He also went 7 of 7 in Game 7 of the first round against Boston in 2018.
The celebration with family
Before he gave any postgame interviews after the Game 6 clincher, Giannis sought out members of his family in the crowd, including his mother, his partner, Mariah Riddlesprigger, and their son, Liam.
His Instagram Live chat with Thanasis, his
Bucks teammate and older brother who wasn’t able to join the celebration as he isolates because of health and safety protocol, is guaranteed to melt your heart.
‘Khris, we f-ing did it’
And then there’s the family of another kind.
The close friendship between Giannis and Khris Middleton has been well documented; the players both joined the Bucks at the same time in 2013 and endured a 15-win season in their first year. (The Bucks won 16 games in the 2021 postseason alone.)
When Giannis was asked on ABC on live TV what Khris meant to him, Giannis turned to his teammate and unabashedly said, “Khris, we did it huh? We f-ing did it!”
A salute to Jim Paschke
When longtime Bucks TV announcer Jim Paschke announced his retirement, his farewell included a heartfelt conversation with Giannis.
The two have forged a strong connection over the years, and that was on display in the postgame press conference when Giannis delayed the start of questions so he could throw on a shirt with the message declaring “I heart Jim Paschke” (or, more specifically, “I” with a heart and a cartoon drawing of Paschke’s face).
The quote about ego and pride
At many points in the Finals, we saw Giannis the Philosopher, whose postgame nuggets of wisdom circulated widely.
He’d been asked about many of his career highlights, including a Game 4 block that has now been cemented as one of the greatest moments in his career. His thoughtful introspection before Game 5 caught a lot of attention.
“When I think about, ‘Oh, yeah, I did this, I’m so great, I had 30, I had 25-10-10 or whatever the case might be, you’re going to think about that ... usually the next day, you’re going to suck,” Giannis said during media availability.
“Simple as that, the next few days you’re going to be terrible,” he added. “I figured out the mindset to have is, when you focus on your past, that’s your ego. ‘I did this. We were able to beat this team, 4-0. I did this in the past, I won that in the past.’ When you focus on your future, that’s my pride. ‘Next, Game 5, I’ll do this and this and this,’ that’s your pride talking. It doesn’t happen. I kind of try to focus on the moment, the present. That’s humility. That’s being humble. That’s not setting expectations. That’s going out there enjoying the game, competing at a high level.”
‘When this team is humble, this team is very dangerous’
Before Game 6, Giannis had another pearl of wisdom.
“You’ve got to enjoy the moment. Winning a game on the road, we have to enjoy the moment, but the job is not done, we have to realize that,” he said. “You’ve got to stay in the present. It doesn’t mean we’re going to go back home and win Game 6.
“We’ve got to stay humble. We’ve got to be in the present and stay humble as much as possible. When this team is humble, this team is very very dangerous. We play our best when we are humble.”
Eschewing a ‘super team’
Before he signed the supermax extension to stay in Milwaukee in advance of the 2020-21 season, Giannis gave a quote that many Bucks fans loved: “Some see a wall, they go in (another direction). I plow through it.”
His meaning: While elite players can team up with other elite players in free agency to get closer to a title, he was more attracted to building a champion from scratch, in the place where he
Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo overcame early troubles at the free throw line during the playoffs. started. Then, he signed the extension and showed how much he believed Milwaukee could be that place.
After winning the title, he spoke on it further.
“But that’s my stubborn side,” he said. “It’s easy to go somewhere else and win a championship with somebody else. It’s easy. I could go to a super team and just do my part and win a championship. But this is the hard way to do it and this is the way to do it, and we did it. (Expletive) did it. We did it, man.”
Some may take it as a direct slam on the players who have pursued that “super team” avenue, but a more generous read is simply the joy in the realization that his path truly led to the Larry O’Brien trophy.
Hugging his trophies
Giannis keeping both the Larry O’Brien trophy and the Bill Russell Finals MVP trophy close by his side during the postgame press conference was another token of his youthful charm.
Apparently, he never let go. He posted on his Instagram story that the awards had made it to his home, and they were still with him at Chick-Fil-A the next morning.
Liam in the confetti
Young Liam Antetokounmpo, born in February 2020, showed up in the NBA bubble last year as Milwaukee’s most adorable fan, and he has been enjoying the show this season, too. He was on the floor at Fiserv Forum after the celebration playing in the confetti.
Giannis and Riddlesprigger are expecting a second child soon.
Taking it all in
For a moment, he was every Bucks fan, absorbing the moment in an NBA Finals champion hat on the bench, the emotion pouring out as he considered the history that he’d just accomplished. Then, he rose to his feet in jubilant celebration.
The story’s happy ending
The improbable story already has been told a thousand times, and it’ll be told again, perhaps via a new book in August or a dramatized movie on Disney+. Giannis was born to Nigerian immigrants in Greece, part of a family that had to scratch and claw to get by. His raw basketball talent was discovered, and he was selected as an 18-yearold in the 2013 draft as a long-term project.
This video of an interview in February 2013, months before he was drafted by Jonathan Givony, has been making the rounds.
Giannis came to the Bucks, flashed some early promise, and grew into a megastar, one with an insatiable drive to get better who fell in love with Milwaukee and chose to stay. Then, he piloted the franchise to its first NBA title in a half century, delivering an unbelievable run in the Finals. It’s fitting that Disney broadcast the games on its ABC network (and will separately produce the forthcoming movie), because it’s almost too perfect to believe.