Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways From Loss To Cleveland Cavaliers

A Quiet Night For Giannis

While Brogdon’s night was a welcoming sight to see, the same couldn’t be said for Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s performance.  Giannis delivered his first quiet night since returning from the All-Star break and there was a lot left to be desired from his overall play for the night.

That didn’t seem like the likely outcome early on, however, as Giannis looked to be in full control of the team’s performance. That was clear in all areas, ranging from his scoring to his facilitating, with this nice dime to a rolling Greg Monroe feeling like the first of many highlights for Giannis in the game.

As the game wore on though, Giannis was largely nowhere to be found before finishing with nine points, seven rebounds and eight assists in 42 minutes.

Part of that was due to the Cavaliers’ defensive gameplan, but the brunt of it falls on Giannis’ shoulders. Whenever opportunities came his way, there was a lack of assertiveness in his play and it was almost blinding to see as the Bucks tried to keep the game within reason late.

Not to make any excuses for his performance, but it’s definitely easy to come to your own assumptions after seeing Giannis’ workload over the last two nights as he only rested for 18 out of 96 minutes over the last two games.

That’s certainly not the entire reason for his lackluster night, but at some point, that kind of playing time will catch up and it looked like it was the case last night.