Unfortunately for Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo missed entire playoff: 'The game changes, the series changes.'
INDIANAPOLIS – Giannis Antetokounmpo worked the Milwaukee Bucks sideline like a coach Thursday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, getting involved in team huddles, talking up his teammates, leaning over the chairs to look at video replays of challenges.
Unfortunately for him and his team, that was all Antetokounmpo could do during his team’s second consecutive first-round playoff exit following the Bucks’ 120-98 series-ending loss to the Indiana Pacers.
Since straining the soleus muscle in his left calf on April 9, Antetokounmpo was forced to watch the final three games of the regular season and all six playoff games.
“I honestly haven’t talked to him that much ‘cause I know he’s fuming,” Khris Middleton said. “I’ve been there before where you’re itching, you’re fighting, you’re fighting the medical staff to say you’re good but you’re getting held back some.
"I could see the frustration on his face. I mean, I know how bad he wants it, wants to b out there, wants to be the great player that he is and prove to the world how great of a player he still is. I know he’s got a lot going on through his mind right now, just frustration about not being available at this time of the year.”
For the entire series, Antetokounmpo’s head coach and teammates refused to paint his absence as an excuse for anything – particularly any individual game or the series loss.
Pat Beverley firmly reiterated that point in the locker room.
“No excuses – we’d proven we could beat that team even without Giannis,” he said.
But it is a fine line between an excuse and a reason, and not having one of the best basketball in the world is something that eventually the team had to acknowledge walking out of the arena.
“It was of course the key,” Danilo Gallinari told the Journal Sentinel. “Yeah, Giannis, the game changes, the series changes. And also not having Dame (Lillard) 100%. So you lose your two key players and of course it would have been different. But the most important thing when you get to the playoffs is be healthy and we were not healthy, and we lost.”
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With Antetokounmpo continuing his rehabilitation process throughout the series, Bobby Portis was moved into the starting lineup and averaged 14.5 points and 13.3 rebounds per game. He had five double-doubles in the games he played to completion, as he missed the bulk of Game 4 with an ejection.
Portis’ elevation caused a trickle-down effect, though.
With the Sixth Man of the Year finalist now starting, the Bucks’ bench was outscored 184-96 in the series.
And though the Bucks kept the total rebounding close (263-256 in favor of Indiana), the Pacers did pull down 62 offensive rebounds and scored 82 points off those extra chances. And Antetokounmpo was missed on the fast break as the league’s No. 1 transition player (7.8 points per game) – the Pacers outscored the Bucks 77-32 in fast break points.
“I mean, everybody will probably say we can’t use it as an excuse but you have to see it for what it is – he’s one of the best players in the league,” AJ Green said. “It’s definitely something you’ve got to try and figure out. Having him on the floor, obviously teams game plan completely differently. It’s tough, but it’s kind of how basketball is sometimes.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Giannis Antetokounmpo missed entire playoff series vs. Pacers
