Milwaukee Bucks: Giannis Antetokounmpo had a nightmare Game 1

As the Milwaukee Bucks got blown out by the Boston Celtics in Game 1, MVP favorite Giannis Antetokounmpo was left to wrestle with one of his worst performances in recent memory.

Before any detailed autopsy of what went wrong for the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 1, or any hypothesis about the intricate adjustments that can turn the tide in their favor once again, there’s an important proclamation to make about Sunday’s blowout loss to the Celtics.

Giannis Antetokounmpo was flat-out bad.

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That occurrence is such a rarity that it can feel as if there’s a sense of reluctance from those who eat, sleep and breathe Bucks basketball to acknowledge it when it ever so infrequently comes to pass.

In this instance, open acknowledgement of Antetokounmpo’s uncharacteristically awful performance shouldn’t be shied away from, though. That’s not to suggest he should be scolded, or made out to be a scapegoat, or even that this one game should act as a catalyst for wider overreactions.

The truth is the Bucks would have a much more catastrophic problem on their hands if Antetokounmpo had brought his very best in Game 1, only for the team to still lose by the 22-point margin they ultimately had to stare down on Sunday.

The next 36 hours or so will undoubtedly be packed with very intelligent analysis as to exactly how the Bucks need to tweak their rotations, adjust their offensive approach and tighten their rotation. But it’s not an indictment of Milwaukee’s roster to acknowledge just how irrelevant all of that may be if their best player — also a legitimate contender for the title of the league’s best player — can’t produce at his usual levels of play.

I could try to talk about Pat Connaughton‘s minutes being the biggest problem of all, or even the issues that unsurprisingly surfaced with the Bucks’ pick-and-pop defense being exploited by a team almost tailor-made to poke holes in the league-best defense, but I’m really not sure how much I could keep up the pretence.

At this level, there’s no doubt that the details are really important, and the latter example certainly represents more than a mere detail. Still, any explanation of what went wrong for the Bucks in Game 1 that doesn’t start with Antetokounmpo’s struggles would be failing to see the forest for the trees.

Instead, let’s talk about a truly awful performance from a player who has deservedly ascended to savior-like status in conversations surrounding Milwaukee basketball. Although he often challenges us to question it with his otherworldly play, Antetokounmpo delivered a poorly-timed reminder that he is, in fact, human.

It would be remiss of me to go any further without acknowledging the Celtics’ outstanding performance and, in particular, Al Horford‘s inspired effort in dominating Antetokounmpo on both ends of the floor.

Brad Stevens’ team made a concerted effort to show Antetokounmpo multiple bodies every time down the floor, and to wall off the paint. But that’s an approach both they and others have implemented only to fail miserably in the past. The difference on this occasion was Horford’s discipline, smarts and strength as the anchor.

Insofar as such a thing exists, Horford is the worst matchup in the league for Antetokounmpo, and there isn’t even a close second. The Dominican veteran has a very real claim to being the most cerebral player in the NBA, and adding that to his immense experience, and a 6’10” frame that carries the rare combination of length, size and strength to slow down Antetokounmpo makes Horford something of a unicorn in his own right.

For all of Horford’s brilliance on Sunday, the truth is Antetokounmpo wasn’t himself before Horford even had a chance to eat away at his supreme confidence.

Antetokounmpo’s first half was largely comprised of the Greek deferring uncharacteristically to others. His offensive efforts lacked purpose, and he had far too many possessions where he simply seemed to dump the ball off to teammates and leave the onus on them to create using their lesser means.

It would have seemed unimaginable in the buildup considering the magnitude of the game, but the Bucks lacked intensity early on, and Antetokounmpo was no exception.

On defense, he was undoubtedly misutilized when tasked with dropping off while guarding Horford, but his failure to push forward and use his size and length to contest at the final moment, when one of the league’s best mid-range shooters wound up to shoot, screamed out a lack of effort and was in stark contrast to Brook Lopez‘s approach in the same scenario.

On the other end, while his teammates weren’t getting to their spots on time, if at all, and therefore failing to meet the core principle for spacing in Milwaukee’s offense, Antetokounmpo was also failing to push the pace and offer real encouragement for his teammates to snap out of their general lethargy.

The result was ugly, stagnant offense, of the kind that hadn’t really been seen by Bucks fans for exactly 12 months, since the Celtics closed out Game 7 and the final moments of the Jason Kidd/Joe Prunty era. If it wasn’t for Khris Middleton‘s shot-making, the game could have spiraled out of control early and the Bucks could feasibly have entered half time trailing by 25 or 30.

As it turned out, the Bucks trailed by just two points, thanks to an immensely effective spell with Antetokounmpo sitting on the sidelines midway through the second quarter. With a lineup of George Hill, Middleton, Nikola Mirotic, Ersan Ilyasova and Lopez, Milwaukee rolled off a 15-0 run in a 2:59 burst. In total, they played just five seconds more together, where two free throws from Gordon Hayward saw them finish as a +13 and with a net rating of 216.7 (not a typo) in a tiny but very important sample.

That unit’s effectiveness compared to what went before, and came after, is by no means a mystery. The Bucks gave the Celtics a lineup with five shooters to worry about, startling size at every position, and all of a sudden there was no easy way out. It helped that Nikola Mirotic was playing as if a certain red priestess had just persuaded the Lord of Light to set his three-point stroke ablaze, but it was also striking how the Bucks suddenly were opened up to play with a purpose and pace that evaded them throughout the remainder of the game.

That success coming with five shooters could just as easily have come with four and one of the league’s greatest driving threats. In many ways, it could have been even more potent with Antetokounmpo on the floor to force the Celtics’ defense to collapse time and again and create a frequent and sustainable diet of open looks for shooters from the corners.

Yet when Antetokounmpo re-surfaced from half time, that wasn’t the strategy he or the Bucks employed.

Unlike in the first half, the 24-year-old had clearly switched to attack mode and was finding himself in better positions in the paint. The problem was his usual intelligence wasn’t to be seen in those situations. Perhaps bristling from an eight-point first half that included just two made field goals and possibly hurt his sense of personal pride, Antetokounpo had a bad case of tunnel vision when he found himself swarmed inside.

With the blinders on, Antetokounmpo would go solo up against multiple Celtics, at times as many as four, while teammates called for passes on the perimeter. The results were as disastrous as they should be in that scenario, even though they’re the kind of odds that Antetokounmpo so often manages to overcome.

On this occasion, though, he was blocked three times, subjected to plenty of hard physical contact on misses as the referees employed a hands-off approach that isn’t a surprise in the playoffs, and even when he did get help from the officials, he provided Boston with frequent respite with just 5-of-10 shooting from the free throw line.

A final points tally of 22 flattered Antetokounmpo, while a game-worst plus/minus of -24 provided a more accurate telling of the story. The fact that Antetokounmpo’s points being inflated by a 3-of-5 shooting effort didn’t do anything to help his team is important also. As much as pundits harp on and on about the need for him to develop a jump shot, every possession where he opts to pull-up rather than drive can be viewed as a win for the opposition. That’s true now, and it may also be true if his shot does take a major jump forward in the future.

Antetokounmpo’s gift is his singular ability to take over games, and to swallow them whole in bursts of play that genuinely have to be seen to be believed. If he’s not taking the game to the opponents in a way that puts them on the back foot and leaves them scrambling for answers, he’s not going to play well.

So what does all of this mean? Is this cause for despair for Bucks fans? Is it proof that Antetokounmpo’s game isn’t suited to the playoffs, Budenholzer is a regular season coach, and the Bucks don’t have sufficient star power to compete with many of their rivals?

The short answer is of course not. Those kind of narratives create major noise on social media, and in larger, and often lazy, analysis of the league, but the truth is that it’s simultaneously not always as simple as those kind of storylines suggest while sometimes also being far simpler than those asking such questions may wish to admit.

A look around the league is filled with examples of tired narratives that were ultimately defeated by the league’s best players and teams. In fact, few of the league’s best have managed to reach the pinnacle without getting their own taste of such noise.

Nobody should really need a reminder of this so soon after Damian Lillard led the Trail Blazers to a sweep over the Thunder just 12 months on from falling foul to that same fate against the Pelicans.

The Bucks’ journey is still in its early stages in the bigger picture, but this could be their turn to deal with such a moment, and one where Antetokounmpo will take the brunt of such focus as the team’s star. It’s far too early to write the Bucks off in this series (sorry, Paul Pierce), and this writer is more than happy to go on record in stating that I still believe Milwaukee will advance to the Conference Finals.

Having said that, if the worst was to come to the worst for Milwaukee, the outcome likely wouldn’t tell us as much about the long-term viability and success of Antetokounmpo and the Bucks as many would be quick to argue.

The reality is Antetokounmpo was incredibly far from his best in Game 1, and unsurprisingly the Bucks floundered without their best player spurring them on. It doesn’t necessarily mean that what has happened is guaranteed to continue happening time after time, and with the potential for six more games in the series, Milwaukee has a chance to disprove such pessimism almost immediately.

Even with another outstanding team effort from the Celtics, and continued defensive heroics from Horford, it’s highly unlikely that Antetokounmpo will be as ineffective as this again. If you can stand to revisit Game 1, the route to a positive performance for Antetokounmpo is by no means impossible to find.

What must change is that he can’t let Boston off the hook. Taking the initiative has to involve upping the pace and preventing the Celtics from having so much time to set themselves. Attacking must include making telling and incisive passes rather than just playing a zero sum game at the rim.

More than anything else, the Bucks need one adjustment most of all heading into Game 2. They don’t need to hastily scrap a gameplan that has served them so well up until this point, nor do they necessarily need to notably upend the starting lineup or the rotation.

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They just need Antetokounmpo to watch the film, stew on Sunday’s disappointment, and deliver the kind of responses he’s produced routinely over the past two-and-a-half years or so. There’s no shame in Antetokounmpo having a poor game, but there’s equally no reason to doubt his ability to bounce back in dominant fashion.

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