MILWAUKEE — Bucks point guard Jrue Holiday explained the situation to Giannis Antetokounmpo, despite knowing the Bucks’ two-time MVP probably didn’t want to hear it.
“I said to him this morning, ‘I know you want to come back, but if you don’t, just know we’ve got you,'” Holiday said late Wednesday night. “Our team has the ultimate trust in each other and we know how Giannis is doing. We know Giannis is going to try and make that Superman effort and come back and play 48 minutes and do what he does, but like I said we can hold the line until he comes back.
Holiday and his teammates definitively proved that Wednesday night with a 138-122 Game 2 win over the Heat. Seven of the nine players who played minutes of rotation for the Bucks Wednesday posted double-digit points, but Holiday led with 24 points, five rebounds and 11 assists.
As a team, the Bucks set an NBA single-game record by hitting 25 3-pointers and a monster first-half performance. And while they still needed to play well in the second half to finish the game, the Bucks equaled a franchise record by scoring 81 points and going into halftime with an 81-55 lead after going down to 32 points.
“We were hot,” Grayson told Allen (16 points). “There was one track where it felt like everything was going in and a lot of that just piled up after the stops. And we got out and ran and we were able to get some 3’s in transition and move the ball great. It was a great evening all round.”
Although the team upgraded Antetokounmpo to questionable in the afternoon with an hour and 45 to the notice, Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer told reporters Antetokounmpo would be out for Game 2 with the lower back contusion. That injury kept Antetokounmpo out of practice for the last three quarters of the Bucks’ Game 1 loss, as well as the days leading up to Wednesday’s game.
“He got better every day,” said Budenholzer before the game. “He’s improving which gave us optimism he might be able to play but unless you’re (declared) questionable it’s not an option.
“The only way to give us the opportunity for him to play was to make him questionable and he’s continued to improve, but organizationally and talking to him and working with him and the sports performance group, the decision was made that he falls out. The guys who are ready, the guys who are available are ready to go and we will continue to watch him and expect him to improve while still being optimistic that he will be ready to play soon.
Bucks forward Bobby Portis, who recorded 13 points, 15 rebounds and five assists in Antetokounmpo’s place on the starting lineup, told reporters after the game that the team learned Antetokounmpo would be out for the game around the same time as the rest of the world found out as the Bucks and Antetokounmpo tried to use as much time as possible to make the decision.
“It takes the whole team. You saw that tonight,” said Khris Middleton after adding 16 points, six rebounds and seven assists to the win. “It wasn’t just one guy who carried us.
“A lot of people expect me or Jrue to take on all the burden that Giannis is doing, but what he’s doing we can’t achieve. So we have to do that in committee. …But that’s what it’s all about, being a team. We believe we have the best player in the world, but we believe we have the best guys around him, the best team and that gives us confidence. If one drops out, we still feel like we have a chance to compete at the highest level.”
It all started for the Bucks on Wednesday with Brook Lopez and they made that clear with the opening tip. If you were curious about what the Bucks were planning to do or who was going to take the shot on the game’s first possession, just watch Portis at play.
The Bucks’ sixth Man of the Year nominee never shy away from an open shot, and he didn’t even look at the rim when he caught the ball behind the 3-point line in this pick-and-pop with Holiday has. Portis planted his feet, caught the ball and immediately began searching under the rim for Lopez.
“He has a discrepancy down there with some of the lineups they’re throwing at us,” Allen said. “To sort of counteract that, they’re trying to collapse down there, so I think feeding him early helped draw their attention to the color early and gave us more open-mindedness.”
Starting Wednesday’s game with 6-foot-5 forward Max Strus covering for Lopez, the Bucks went out of their way to establish Lopez’s presence in the paint, just like they did last time when Antetokounmpo missed a home playoff game — Game 5 of the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals — as Lopez hit a career playoff high with a dominant 33-point win.
Sharing the floor with Antetokounmpo, Lopez knows he has to stand at the 3-point line to make room and that Antetokounmpo will jump to the rim for drop-off passes and alley-oops. If Antetokounmpo is out, Lopez is allowed to get back in color and hang around the edge.
“We love him to shoot 3s, but even if he has a size advantage, we want him to be in the paint as an outlet,” Middleton said. “So me and Jrue do the same thing but knowing we have a 7 foot on the rim give it a shot. Ride it, be ourselves, but knowing that he’s there for us at the rim and we can always blame him. We have confidence that he will catch it and finish it.
By the end of the first quarter, Lopez had 14 points on 7-of-9 shooting and he knew he had done his job for the night.
“I think regardless of whether Giannis was there or not we realized we had an advantage in color on both ends of the floor and that was just a focus for us tonight just to establish color.” said Lopez. “It’s great to watch because you see the opposing team just swoop in when you cut to the paint and see the guys bang out 3 seconds.”
With the Heat stuck in the well-established color on Lopez’s defense, the Bucks began spraying the ball around the perimeter, splashing out some 3-pointers. In a 46-point second quarter, the Bucks went 9 of 15 from the deep and after Pat Connaughton didn’t play in Game 1, the party started with a deep catch-and-shoot 3.
During that period, he hit all four of his shots, including three 3-pointers. He blocked a shot and then pulled out a pass that he finished with a transition lay-in. He snagged a rebound, put the ball on the floor and hit Holiday for a corner 3. Connaughton went all out for the Bucks in the quarter and served as the spark for the Bucks’ 24-2 run that opened a 32-point lead .
It was a big moment for Connaughton, who found himself behind Allen, Jae Crowder, Joe Ingles and Wesley Matthews in Budenholzer’s playoff rotation and on the bench in Game 1. Matthews suffered at the end of Game 1 with a right calf strain Connaughton got into the rotation on Wednesday and capitalized on the opportunity with 22 points (6 from 10 3-point shootouts), four rebounds and three assists.
“It felt great,” Connaughton said. “I think a lot of you know me, and I think if I asked you guys what I think is my best quality as a basketball player, I would get a plethora of different answers at times. But one answer I don’t think I would get is just being a competitor. I think this is the time of year to remind people.
“It won’t always be the same. In today’s NBA, they’re trying to put you in a box — you’re a shooter, you’re a defender, you’re a little bit different, and so I get back to showing people what I can and have in different ways an impact on the game and this is a season that I love. This is a time of year that I grow into. This is a time of year that, as you look back, ever since I’ve been in Milwaukee, I’ve always tried to live up to the occasion.”
Finally, Connaughton needed a break in the second quarter, and Ingles picked up right where Connaughton left off. With the Heat already faltering, Ingles stepped into 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions, increasing the Bucks’ lead to 32 points.
Ingles was solid, if unspectacular, in his first playoff game with the Bucks on Sunday with nine points in 15 minutes in Game 1, but Game 2 was different as he downed five 3-pointers and trash-talked after every single one.
Ingles accumulated 17 points, four rebounds and four assists in 25 minutes, including two 3-pointers within a minute of the third quarter, to give the Bucks a 34-point lead, their widest of the night, 4:24 ahead End of third quarter.
And his new teammates took notice.
“He has all the confidence in the world in himself,” Middleton said. “The slowest guy out there, probably the most unsportsmanlike guy out there, but he’s a ball player. He loves the big moments. He loves the big ones. And he’s a competitor. He loves to compete.”
Ingles, the Bucks’ resident trash-talker, wouldn’t let Middleton’s trash-talk slide.
“The slowest? On the floor?” asked Ingles upon learning of Middleton’s post-game barb. “Hasn’t he seen his own movie?”
Though it may never have really gone, and as Holiday’s morning reassurance to Antetokounmpo shows, the Bucks’ pride was back and found a perfect avatar in the 35-year-old, 3-point shooting, trash-talking forward. Without their best player and arguably the best player in the entire league, the Bucks dominated the Heat in Game 2 after suffering a punch in the mouth in their opening game of the 2023 NBA playoffs.
And they know they must maintain the same bravery and focus to finish this series with or without Antetokounmpo.
“How much fun is it watching Joe talk after he’s done every one of his 3’s? To the opposing team, turns around and does his little yell and all? asked Lopez. “We had fun tonight. We just have to keep that energy going.”
(Photo by Joe Ingles: Jeff Hanisch / USA Today)