3 Takeaways from Milwaukee Bucks loss in preseason finale

Takeaways from Milwaukee Bucks preseason finale: Jrue Holiday and Giannis Antetokounmpo are ready for the regular season

My final takeaway from the Milwaukee Bucks’ preseason finale on Wednesday night is that the Bucks’ two best players that will be available opening night are ready for the season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers. There does not appear to be any rust on these two and they both played very efficient basketball on Wednesday night.

Jrue Holiday scored 20 points on 8-of-15 shooting including 3-of-6 behind the 3-point line plus six rebounds and four assists. Holiday did also have seven turnovers and as previously mentioned with Jordan Nwora, turnovers are something the Milwaukee Bucks as a team need to clean up. Jrue Holiday did spend a chunk of time defending Kevin Durant, something that were Khris Middleton and Wesley Matthews healthy and available, would happen a lot less frequently.

Giannis Antetokounmpo led all scorers in this final preseason game, Giannis finished with 24 points on 6-of-21 shooting. Now you may ask “how can you say Giannis is ready for the regular season after missing 15 shots?” To me the bigger takeaway from Giannis Antetokounmpo’s preseason finale is his free throw number, 12-of-15 from the free throw line. Added with the 7-of-10 he made in his other preseason appearance that makes Giannis 19-of-25 from the free throw line in the preseason, a respectable, potentially opponent game-plan ruining 76 percent. Over four percent higher than his career 71.8 percent, I recognize two games is a tiny sample size up against Giannis’ career body of work, but consider the Eurobasket tournament, where Giannis made 84.4 percent of his free throws. It seems as though he has applied his unmatched work ethic to this area in the offseason.

In addition to his 24 points on Wednesday night, Giannis added 14 rebounds, four assists and three steals, all in 32 minutes of work. Take a second to imagine the monstrous stat-lines Giannis would put up if he played 38 minutes a game like some other players do.

Stay tuned to Behind the Buck Pass during the regular season for previews and takeaways for every game.