Giannis Antetokounmpo’s improved playmaking could be title difference maker

Improving his playmaking under pressure has been a focus for Giannis Antetokounmpo, and it could make all the difference for the Milwaukee Bucks.

If the Milwaukee Bucks‘ Walt Disney World Resort odyssey finishes in October with a championship headed back to Wisconsin for the first time since 1971, it may well prove instructive to look back to the very first points scored by the team after the restart.

Facing one of the league’s best coached, most versatile, and defensively formidable teams in the Boston Celtics, Milwaukee’s first test after returning to action was exactly the kind of game that had the potential to cause them real difficulty.

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Or to be even more specific, it was exactly the kind of matchup where an opponent’s gameplan could have made life considerably more difficult for Giannis Antetokounmpo, the beating heart at the center of all of Milwaukee’s success.

That’s exactly what happened in the playoffs last year when the Toronto Raptors upped the pressure on Antetokounmpo individually, forced him to turn to his teammates, and left Milwaukee to live with the results as they lost four straight games.

It’s true that open shots failing to be converted by role players was key to the Bucks’ demise on that occasion, but it also spoke to the Raptors’ belief that Antetokounmpo wasn’t sufficiently skilled as a passer to make the reads necessary to punish their decision to crowd him.

That has clearly been a focus for the reigning MVP this season, and it’s an area of his game that will only come under even greater scrutiny over the coming weeks and months.

On that note, the fact that the Bucks’ first points in Orlando came via Giannis recognizing the pressure from the Celtics’ defense, spotting Wesley Matthews wide open, and perfectly executing the kick out pass in mid-air for his teammate to finish will hopefully prove to be a sign of what’s to come for Giannis and the Bucks.

It was far from the only such decision from Giannis on the night either, as he led all Bucks with 52 passes, per NBA.com/stats, and trailed only Khris Middleton with his seven assists by night’s end.

Additionally, it only added to some of the phenomenal passes that Giannis had already broken out in the scrimmage games since the Bucks arrived in Orlando.

Antetokounmpo has already pledged that he wants to do all he can to avoid a repeat of how the Eastern Conference Finals unfolded last year, and has been working to that end ever since.

As Bucks assistant coach Ben Sullivan recently told Bleacher Report’s Yaron Weitzman:

"“[The Raptors] were really the first team to play him like that and to that extreme,” Bucks assistant coach Ben Sullivan says. “They had two to three guys, helping only on him, making sure he couldn’t get where he wanted to go.”"

Now more experienced at those kind of looks from the defense, and having fine-tuned his own passing even further, Giannis will hope to have no such issues this postseason. If that turns out to be the case, it may well prove to be the difference between the Bucks’ season finishing in celebration rather than disappointment too.