Khris Middleton is carrying the Bucks, but doing it in his own way

After Damian Lillard scored a franchise-record 35 points in a half of the Milwaukee Bucks’ Game 1 victory over Indiana on April 21, Khris Middleton tried to find some words to explain to the Journal Sentinel how seeing that kind of offensive dominance differed from say, the great games he’d seen from Giannis Antetokounmpo.

Inevitably, he settled on the obvious: “He’s a big-time player.”

And when his big games were brought up, Middleton grinned.

“It looks different, doesn’t it?” he asked.

It sure does.

But on Tuesday night, it had the same desired effect – a playoff victory. Middleton’s 29-point, 12-rebound, 5-assist performance helped the Bucks stay alive in their first-round playoff series with Indiana, leading his team to a 115-92 victory and a Game 6 in Indiana on Thursday night.

It was his fourth double-double of the series and third straight. It was his third consecutive game playing at least 40 minutes.

The Bucks didn’t get the results they wanted in losses in Games 3 and 4 to fall behind 3-1 in the series, but the 32-year-old, three-time all-star had put them in position to win each of those games. On Tuesday, he kept the team connected in the first quarter, scoring 10 points when the Pacers went 7-for-13 and took a 31-23 lead. He scored seven points each in the second and third quarters to help erase a 10-point deficit and build a lead the Bucks wouldn’t relinquish.

BOX SCORE: Bucks 115, Pacers 92

He defended 6-foot, 8-inch all-NBA forward Pascal Siakam and 6-11 center Myles Turner, anchoring a defensive scheme that saw the Bucks switch everything to help limit the Pacers’ three-point shooting and offensive rebounding.

“He gave us everything tonight,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers said.

But make no mistake, without Antetokounmpo and Lillard, the Bucks have needed Middleton to be special on offense.

How, exactly, has been interesting to try and get his teammates to explain. It definitely looks different, but it still accomplishes the same goal.

AJ Green grinned ear to ear when asked, but it also took him a few beats to figure out how to describe it.

“It’s just very precise,” Green told the Journal Sentinel. “And executed. The way he does it. Dame can just heat up and you can’t stop it. Giannis, he’s going to keep going at you and you can’t keep up. Khris, you can’t keep up but it’s just precise. I’m going to get to this spot. I’m going to do this move that I’ve done a thousand times and put you here and do this. It’s just like chess. It’s the beautiful side of basketball. And it’s cool the different ways to have success. We have three very different guys and they all get it done. So it’s cool just to watch.”

But for those who have been his teammate for years – or played against him for that long – they insist they’re not learning anything new, or different, about Middleton. If anything, the last handful of games as the primary scorer is only illustrating what they had experienced.

“He’s just a calm, relaxed killer,” Jae Crowder told the Journal Sentinel. “Like, he can take on the responsibility of scoring at a high level and do it with a calmness about himself that eases the whole group. I think we’ve been leaning on that since we had a few guys down. He’s done a great job of just taking on the throne, of just playmaking and letting everything run through him. And he does that at a high level of basketball knowledge as well.”

Think of this play early in the second quarter when Middleton raced (by his standards) up the court and threw a shoulder into Indiana’s Aaron Nesmith on the wing, at about the three-point line. It gave him enough space to then work down to the right block, where it looked like maybe Middleton lost the dribble. But he coolly collected it and gave Nesmith a move that got the 6-5, 24-year-old into the air, flailing as Middleton dropped in a bucket and drew a foul.

Middleton then ended his night by working Nesmith atop the left wing, slowly dribbling himself into a rhythm for a pull up three-pointer from 29 feet.

He only hit nine shots on Wednesday, but he drew six fouls. He had the Pacers off balance, all the while operating perfectly within his own.

The steady execution is what comes to mind for Crowder – who was the on the receiving end of it in the 2021 NBA Finals as a member of the Phoenix Suns. The Suns’ defensive focus was on Antetokounmpo, of course, but there was Middleton scoring 40 in Game 4 to even the series. Then he put up 29 in Game 5 on the road to send it back for the memorable Game 6 at Fiserv Forum.

So, naturally, Crowder was asked how Middleton takes over games differently than Antetokounmpo and Lillard. He took a minute to think about it, searching for the right words. Because yes, it does not look the same.

But it feels the same.

“I don’t know how he does it,” Crowder acknowledged. “But he has a feel of like, alright, I think I need to try to get a bucket here or try to get a shot attempt. It’s just the feel he has for the game. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just his knowledge of the game, his pace of the game, and just how he wants to get to his spots and take over a game. It’s just a feel.”

The work isn’t done yet, of course.

Milwaukee still faces a must-win situation in Indiana on Thursday night to force a Game 7 on Saturday. Two wins are needed “just” to advance to the second round. Who knows if the injured Antetokounmpo and/or Lillard will join him.

But spirits are high for the Bucks, despite the hole they’re in.

There is belief.

And it starts because Middleton has once again risen to the occasion.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Khris Middleton is carrying the Bucks, but doing it in his own way