Bucks need to unlock Giannis
He’s gotten off to slow start in Celtics series
BOSTON – With just over a minute left in the first half of Boston's Game 2 victory over Milwaukee on Tuesday night, Giannis Antetokounmpo pushed the ball up the court in transition after he collected a missed three-pointer by Jayson Tatum.
It was a rare opportunity at that point for the Bucks' star and his team, as Tatum's Celtics were leading 60-40 and making everything easy on their end, and hard for Antetokounmpo on his.
As the floor breathed in front of him, with Tatum and Jaylen Brown expanding out to the wings and Al Horford and Payton Pritchard and Grant Williams contracting in on him, Antetokounmpo lithely galloped his way to the rim through the three Celtics defenders. Horford didn't allow a dunk, but Antetokounmpo extended his long right arm as he often does – only the ball missed the cylinder off the backboard.
As Pritchard got the rebound and turned it the other way, Antetokounmpo balled up his right fist and bent over – holding back a more visible move of frustration before setting off on his way back on defense. At that point, he was just 2for-12 from the field with a single free throw.
He would end the first half with five points and his team down 65-40.
Despite his best efforts in the second half, that was far too large a hole to crawl out of as the Celtics evened the Eastern Conference semi-final at a game apiece with a 109-86 victory.
Antetokounmpo said he couldn't recall that exact moment of emotion, but the entire sequence is an apt representation of how the Celtics have made everything about the 75-plus minutes he's played in two games difficult. Though he finished the second half of Game 2 with a 9-for-15 mark from the field and 23 points, two-point baskets didn't mean much to the Celtics then.
“This is what basketball is about,” he said. “You're gonna make shots, you're gonna miss shots. Being human is about feeling emotion. Sometimes you're going to be frustrated, sometimes you're gonna be happy. But at the end of the day, you play basketball to make the right plays, make good decisions, find your teammates, make plays. That's why you play basketball.
“At the end of the of the day I don't
(2) BOSTON vs. (3) MILWAUKEE
(Best of seven) (Series tied, 1-1)
May 1: Milwaukee 101, Boston 89 Tuesday: Boston 109, Milwaukee 86 Saturday: at Milwaukee, 2:30 (ABC) Monday: at Milwaukee, 6:30 (TNT) May 11: at Boston, TBD (TNT)
May 13: at Milwaukee, TBD (ESPN) * May 15: at Boston, TBD (TBD) *
* if necessary
kind of sit down and play that I'm frustrated. I just keep, you know, chipping away, keep finding solutions for myself and my teammates.”
Over two games, Antetokounmpo is a combined 20-for-52 (38.4%) from the field for 52 points. He is 1-for-6 (16.7%) from behind the three-point line and 11for-20 (55%) from the free throw line. Those are easily numbers far below what he did against Chicago in the first round and over the course of the regular season, but it's been awhile since he's put together games like that in the postseason.
Outside of his first playoff experience in 2015, there have been only two instances where he's had similar production in back-to-back playoff games:
2020: Games 1-2 vs. Orlando*: 22for-48 (45.8%), 4-for-12 (33.3%), 11-for-17 (64.7%), 59 points.
2019: Games 1-2 vs. Boston: 14-for-37 (37.8%), 5-for-9 (55.6%), 18-for-28 (64.2%), 51 points.
“You gotta give their defenders credit,” Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer said. “The guys on him, they're solid, good, good defenders. Quite a bit of help and that's where he's just gotta see it, feel it. Do we kick it and get more threes? He's gotta finish against one-on-one defense. I think it's a little bit of both.
“But you know, Giannis – he always figures things out.”
Antetokounmpo wouldn't go so far as to say he always does – "I try. I try to figure it out." – he and the Bucks have three days off before Saturday's matinee at Fiserv Forum to begin to solve the Celtics' puzzle.
“I go home, eat something, watch something on Netflix, Hulu, HBO, whatever, play with my kids, get some shots up, practice, watch film and get ready for Game 3,” Antetokounmpo said with a smile.
“Like, we know what the deal is. We did our job. They did their job. Now we gotta go back home and do our job again. It's pretty much simple.”
One tried-and-true cure for such ills has always been Khris Middleton. He and Antetokounmpo have incredible symmetry in the two-man game, both with Middleton's timing and accuracy in finding Antetokounmpo as he barrels to the rim but also with the space the threetime all-star creates because of his own ability to take – and make – his own shot out.
That cannot be wholly replicated by another player and Middleton isn't walking through the door anytime soon, however.
Another way to get Antetokounmpo into a rhythm would be to have the league's No. 1 scorer in transition offense get off and running, so even if multiple defenders collapse on him there are either slivers of daylight to exploit or more moving teammates around him to dish off to.
That was hard to turn to in Tuesday, however, because “We were taking the ball out of the net,” Budenholzer said flatly.
Over two games Antetokounmpo has insisted the Celtics haven't done anything extraordinarily different in how they've given him trouble – they just have.
“It's the playoffs,” he said. “Obviously they're going to be physical. They're going to be more physical. There's not going to be a lot of fouls called. We can be more active, we can be more disciplined. But at the end of the day this is the same mentality. The mindset doesn't change. You gotta keep chipping away, keep finding solutions to make the game yours.”