The duty of stopping a participant like Giannis Antetokounmpo — has there ever been a participant like Giannis Antetokounmpo? — represents one thing of a collaborative quagmire.
You want a participant without delay massive and robust and nimble sufficient to remain in entrance of him. You want others, ideally long-armed males, pestering him with their fingers from the periphery. Then you definately want somebody to face tall and defend the rim from the inevitable onslaught.
The Boston Celtics have all of these issues. They confirmed as a lot final week, in spectacular vogue, when Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and the remainder of the Nets had been swallowed up of their quicksand protection. And, nonetheless, it is probably not sufficient.
On Sunday, Antetokounmpo led the Milwaukee Bucks to a complete, 101-89 win at Boston in Sport 1 of their Japanese Convention semifinals matchup, quieting, for an evening, the hype effervescent across the Celtics after their spectacular four-game sweep of the Nets.
Within the course of, in making one of many N.B.A.’s hottest groups look regular for an evening, the Bucks had been additionally making a degree: The nationwide basketball dialog — that nebulous factor that floats throughout tv and social media and newspaper columns — could inexplicably overlook them at occasions, however they’re the defending champions, they usually make use of one of many world’s most spectacular athletes.
The league’s Most Precious Participant Award this 12 months could also be seen as a two-man contest between Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets and Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers. And cleaning soap operas and prepare wrecks could draw the main target of followers to different big-market groups. However all of the whereas, Antetokounmpo and the Bucks are going about their enterprise as one of the vital formidable golf equipment within the league.
For Antetokounmpo, then, this collection represents a chance: How higher to burnish your towering repute than towards the league’s most feared protection?
“He retains studying the sport,” Bucks Coach Mike Budenholzer mentioned of Antetokounmpo, who overcame some early struggles to register a triple double: 24 factors, 13 rebounds and 12 assists. “Generally it’s scoring it. Generally it’s sharing it. He is aware of he’s received to do each.”
The Celtics made a loud entrance onto the playoff stage final month with a flock of long-limbed, athletic defenders working collectively within the switching, scrambling, disorientingly aggressive defensive system of their first-year coach, Ime Udoka.
Durant appeared perplexed by all of it. After the collection, he willingly sang Boston’s praises.
Durant and Antetokounmpo get pleasure from comparable statures within the N.B.A. They’re each virtuoso artists. However they work in numerous mediums. If Durant is a painter with a palette of positive watercolors, Antetokounmpo is a sculptor wielding a mallet and a chisel.
If Sunday was any indication, the physicality of Antetokounmpo and the remainder of the Bucks’ roster may characterize a key distinction between the primary and second rounds for the Celtics.
When the Celtics tried to funnel Antetokounmpo this fashion or that, he merely skipped round them, a sports activities automobile swerving by site visitors. If Boston’s defenders — massive males, all of them — tried extra bodily strategies to throttle him, they bounced feebly off his physique.
Halfway by the fourth quarter, the Celtics appeared, for as soon as, to corral Antetokounmpo right into a useless finish. Trying round and realizing he was trapped — “I’m going to get caught,” he mentioned he instructed himself — he flipped the ball off the backboard and snatched it out of the air once more for a two-handed dunk over Jayson Tatum’s head.
“That’s pure expertise, pure intuition,” Budenholzer mentioned. “He’s an incredible participant. He does issues which are distinctive and particular and well timed. That’s a type of performs the place you’re simply completely satisfied he’s on our aspect.”
Extra necessary than one famous person’s solo work, although — and one other doubtlessly essential distinction between the circumstances of Durant and Antetokounmpo — had been the contributions of Milwaukee’s supporting solid.
The highlight on Antetokounmpo has sizzled brighter within the absence of Khris Middleton, the group’s second-best participant, whose participation on this collection stays doubtful after he injured his left knee in Sport 2 of the primary spherical final month. A 3-time All-Star who averaged 20.1 factors and 5.4 assists per recreation within the common season, Middleton instructions loads of consideration along with his capacity to create his personal shot and rating in isolation.
With him watching the sport from the bench in a navy blue jacket, a lot extra of the Celtics’ focus may movement towards Antetokounmpo, with the ball spending a lot extra time in his fingers.
However these bemoaning Middleton’s absence could also be overlooking the Bucks’ remaining solid of reliable satellite tv for pc contributors, gamers able to sinking a shot after a protection has collapsed on Antetokounmpo.
Jrue Vacation, celebrated typically for his protection however a formidable scorer when known as upon, chipped in 25 factors, 9 rebounds and 5 assists. Grayson Allen led the Bucks’ reserves with 11 factors, making three of six 3-point makes an attempt.
“I attempt to be so simple as doable,” Antetokounmpo mentioned. “My teammates had been there, they had been open they usually had been pulling down pictures.”
Nonetheless, all of those gamers, everything of the Bucks’ universe — their offense, their protection, their collective temper and persona — revolves round Antetokounmpo.
How a lot gasoline does he should burn? He performed all however just a few seconds within the first quarter, took a brief break initially of the second and received some reluctant relaxation within the third after an ill-advised fourth foul. In any other case, he huffed by 38 punishing minutes, incomes respite on the finish solely as a result of the sport was clearly determined.
Afterward, he set free a protracted groan as he folded himself right into a chair to speak to reporters.
“Perhaps I’m bizarre,” Antetokounmpo mentioned when requested whether or not he felt roughed up. “I thrive by physicality. I like feeling beat up after video games. I don’t know why. My household thinks I’m a weirdo.”
For a Celtics protection nonetheless smarting from a steamrollering, these could also be ominous phrases.
