NBA FINALS GAME 2 Phoenix guards the difference again
PHOENIX - Unfortunately for the Milwaukee Bucks, they have fallen into a pattern of dropping the first game of a series.
To get to the NBA Finals, they proved to be the Maison of the comeback, stitching improvements into successive games against Brooklyn and Atlanta in a way even Louis Vuitton would be envious. And in Game 2 at Phoenix Suns Arena, the Bucks went in looking to add three elements to their Finals line off a Game 1 loss:
Points in the paint
A tempered Phoenix transition Tighter defense on Chris Paul and Devin Booker
They did two of the three, and they made Paul and Booker work. It’s just that the two Suns’ stars ripped apart the seams of the Bucks’ defense in every clutch moment in a 118-108 victory to send the Bucks home down 0-2 in the best-of-seven series.
Only four teams in NBA Finals history have come back from 0-2 down to win the title. The 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers and 2006 Miami Heat are the most recent. The previous teams were the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers and the 1969 Boston Celtics.
The couple of times the Bucks built momentum late in the third quarter and in the fourth quarter, the pair of Paul and Booker always seemed to counter a strong defensive effort with a clutch bailout shot.
Booker hit 3 three-pointers in the fourth quarter and Paul hit a corner three to keep the Bucks from getting any closer than five points in the deciding quarter.
“I think we do exactly what we did: Stay calm, stay collected,” Bucks guard Jrue Holiday said. “I think the third and fourth quarter, we outscored them in the third and we tied in the fourth. I think there are times in the game where if they hit those big shots, you’ve just got
Suns guard Devin Booker watches his three-pointer drop during Game 2 of the NBA Finals. Booker had 31 points.
to stay calm like we did. And then once we get down, what, seven points, six points, we have to try to get over that hump.”
The Bucks halved a 10-point fourthquarter deficit thanks to an 8-3 run that made it 93-88, but then Giannis Antetokounmpo had to exit the game briefly to deal with a cramp. In the moments he was out, Paul assisted Deandre Ayton on a bucket and Booker hit a three to make it 98-88. Antetokounmpo returned but immediately turned it over, and Booker hit another three to push the Suns’ lead to 101-88 with 7:18 to go.
It was too large a deficit for Milwaukee to overcome, as they couldn’t respond with their own clutch offensive plays.
An Antetokounmpo baseline jumper made it 103-97, but Pat Connaughton missed a three — and Paul responded with his own three-pointer off consecutive Phoenix offensive rebounds.
“We couldn’t get that rebound that
we needed,” Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer said. “So I thought the group, after being down 15, 16, whatever it was, Giannis took a big load and we were right there with 41⁄2 to go.”
Booker finished with 31 points on 12of-25 shooting, including 7-of-12 from behind the three-point line. Paul had 23 points and eight assists.
Antetokounmpo had 42 points and 12 rebounds. He also had four assists, three blocks and a steal.
Per ESPN stats and Information, it was Antetokounmpo’s 10th game this postseason with at least 30 points and 10 rebounds, joining Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elgin Baylor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players with 10 such games in a postseason.
Unfortunately he didn’t get much help, as Khris Middleton scored 11 points on 5-of-16 shooting and Holiday had 17 points on 7-of-21 shooting. Connaughton had 14 points off the bench. Brook Lopez scored eight points on 4-of-10 shooting while P.J. Tucker added seven points and five.
With 49.4 seconds left in the first half Antetokounmpo and the Bucks got a scare when he ran into Paul in the middle of the paint while Holiday came down to set up the offense. Antetokounmpo laid on the court for a minute, and briefly grabbed at his injured left knee, before getting up and breathing it out while the court crew wiped down the court. Antetokounmpo quickly answered the immediate question of his ability to finish out the half by closing quickly on Chris Paul in the corner on the next trip down.
“In that position, I think both of my knees collided together,” Antetokounmpo said. “But I wasn’t, you know, paying attention to that. I was paying attention in executing our plays. Putting myself in a position to be aggressive. Putting my teammates in a position to be successful and focusing on the game. I wasn’t focusing on my knee.”