Posts Tagged ‘Giannis Antetokounmpo’
My Discussion Regarding the Milwaukee Bucks and Their Series Loss to the Indiana Pacers
Folks, I have neglected my blog lately. I am sorry about that. I’ve been running out of hours in the day, and writing, whether it’s blogging or some fiction or whatever else, is taking a big backseat to Life (TM) these days. But as I am a fan of the Milwaukee Bucks, and as they were in the playoffs, I made sure to either listen or watch every single game this past week. (Considering I try to listen or watch every game during the regular season as well, that’s not too surprising.) And I have some thoughts.
Here we go.
I was fortunate enough to watch the Bucks play the Pacers in their last two playoff games (I listened to the others). I was seriously impressed by how hard the Bucks played despite their overall series loss to the Pacers (more on this in a bit). They were brilliant in Milwaukee in Game Five, which they needed to be in order to force Game Six in Indiana. One of their two big stars, Damian Lillard, played in Game Six after having to sit out the two previous playoff games, and did rather well, especially considering he was dealing with a strained Achilles tendon. He led all scorers, in fact…but despite good defense from nearly every Bucks player (including Lillard, and his forte is definitely not defense), the Bucks ran out of gas. They lost, 120-98, and the Pacers now advance to the next round.
Mind you, the game was not quite as lopsided as the score says. The Bucks coach, Doc Rivers, took most of his players — the starters, the main bench people, etc. — out of the game starting at around the four-minute mark. I believe the Bucks were down by sixteen at that point, and while that’s potentially doable if someone like Lillard hit a bunch of three-point shots and the extremely tired and gassed defense was able to get four or five stops in a row, it would’ve been a very long shot. I think Rivers did the right thing in pulling out guys like Lillard, Bobby Portis, Khris Middleton (who had a brilliant series of his own, especially in Games Four and Five), Patrick Beverley (aka “PatBev”), and Brook Lopez. Those guys should all hold their heads up, as they did the best they could all the way around.
Why do I say this? Because the biggest star on the Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo, was not able to play at all. He averaged something like forty points a game against Indiana, even though the Bucks as a whole had not done all that well against them. So, if you count him, and you see all these other players doing what they just did in stepping their games way up (or in Middleton’s case, reminding everyone why he was an All-Star a few years ago), I think at minimum the Bucks would’ve forced Game Seven in Milwaukee. At maximum, they would’ve won.
One stat for Game Five tells pretty much the whole story. There had never before been a playoff team, without its top two scorers (in the Bucks case, those were Lillard and Giannis), that had actually won a playoff game before. But the 2023-4 Bucks did just that. Middleton and Bobby Portis (a Sixth Man of the Year candidate; he finished third for the second year in a row) both scored twenty-nine points, and had twelve and ten rebounds, respectively. In addition, PatBev played the point position and passed the ball around — something he usually is not called upon to do — and scored thirteen points with twelve assists. Center Brook Lopez also scored twelve points. The Bucks played outstanding defense, held the Pacers to just 92 points in Game Five, and beat them 115-92.
In other words, without Giannis and Lillard, they were more like the “little team that could” (except for how tall they are, of course). They believed in themselves, and it showed. It was good that they got one more win at home and got to hear the love from the Milwaukee fans, because they really did pour it all out onto the floor.
So, the Bucks should hold their heads high despite losing the series to the Pacers. They did their best. Lillard came back in Game Six, and, while obviously not healthy, scored twenty-eight points and played far better defense than I’d expected. Portis had twenty points and fifteen rebounds. (The Indiana crowd hates Portis, so this was I hope some small amount of solace for Portis going into the offseason.) Lopez played one of his best games of the year, scoring twenty points and pulling down five rebounds. PatBev, while obviously tired and injured — he’d been playing despite an oblique injury for the past several weeks — again pulled down five assists and scored six points. (Remember, he’s not usually called upon to do either one. He was used primarily as a defensive “energy” guy, which makes sense: Beverley has been a member of the NBA All-Defensive Team three separate times.)
I was — am — happy with my favorite team. I wanted them to win Game Six just as much as they did…well, maybe not quite as much, but certainly I wanted them to win.
They didn’t win, no. But they did their level best. I can’t get angry with any of them.
For other sad Bucks fans out there: You need to remember that in any playoff scenario, a good team is going to go home in round one. Maybe several good teams will go home in round one. It doesn’t matter if it’s the NCAA Basketball Tourney, or the major league baseball playoffs, or the wildcard games in football…a good team or two always ends up going home sooner than expected. Oftentimes, it’s because key players were injured and/or were not able to play up to full capacity.
And we both know who wasn’t able to play at all, while several others couldn’t play up to their full capacity (but did their best and came darned close to it).
What I saw from my favorite team, the Bucks, was perseverance, grit, teamwork, and a never-say-die attitude. I hope most of the players will be back next year (I think it’s a lock that Lillard and Giannis aren’t going anywhere, and I’d be stunned if Middleton went anywhere either), as I think if folks like PatBev (a midseason acquisition) had played with everyone all year long, it’s possible this team would’ve forced Game Seven even without Giannis (a former two-time MVP of the NBA, a past multiple winner of the all-defensive team, and, like Lillard, a member of the all-NBA 75th anniversary team).
What I will take away from this loss is this: You can hold head up high when you do your level best. You may not win all the time. You may not be able to meet your own goals (PatBev said right away he wanted to win the NBA Championship just as soon as the Bucks traded for him; he also had some negative history with Damian Lillard, and said he had to “get right with Dame”). But you will still impress people if you give it your best shot, and most especially if you go outside of your comfort zone and do things completely unexpected of you. (That would hold true for the vast majority of the 2023-4 Milwaukee Bucks.)
Congrats to the NBA Champion Milwaukee Bucks!
Folks, last night I watched the Milwaukee Bucks play game six in the National Basketball Association’s (NBA’s) finals against the Phoenix Suns. Bucks stars Giannis Antetokounmpo (there’s a reason Bucks announcer Ted Davis calls Giannis “the Alphabet,” folks), Khris Middleton, and Jrue Holiday, along with many other excellent players like P.J. Tucker, Thanasis Antetokounmpo (yes, Giannis’s elder brother), Pat Connaughton, and fan favorite Bobby Portis, helped the team win the first NBA championship for the city of Milwaukee (and for the Bucks franchise) in fifty years.
All I can say is what I’ve said in the title: “Congratulations!”
The Bucks as a team are excellent, but the people who make up the team are even better. Giannis is a good person, known for his philanthropy and down-to-Earth attitude. (Giannis also overcame a huge injury, that of a hyperextended knee, in order to play exceptionally well in the NBA Finals, finishing game six with fifty points. Yes, fifty points on a bad knee! But I digress.) Middleton is a hard-working sharpshooter and a devoted family man. Holiday is married to an Olympic athlete, is planning to play on the US Olympic team this year (along with Middleton), and was quick to integrate himself into the team and helped a great deal with his unselfish attitude and play.
Of course, there’s also coach Mike Budenholzer to thank, as he worked tirelessly to put together a game plan that would give Giannis, Khris Middleton, and Jrue Holiday the ability for each of them to do what they do best. Plus, he’s been great at working the bench players into games, and seems to have a sixth sense as to when someone needs a rest.
For that matter, I’d like to thank Bucks General Manager (GM) Jon Horst, as no team succeeds without a great GM.
So, while the state of Wisconsin and the city of Milwaukee continue to celebrate, and rightfully so, I wanted to say thank you to the entirety of the Bucks organization. Everyone — from the ticket sellers to the beer vendors to all of the assistant coaches and trainers plus the Bucks announcers on TV and radio — played a role in this championship. And every one of them deserves to be proud, not just of the Bucks, but of their own hard work on the Bucks’ organization’s behalf.
Narrative Framing, the Milwaukee Bucks, and You
Folks, over the past week or so as I’ve battled an illness, I’ve been thinking about how we shape our own narratives. (Again, as this is one of my besetting sins as a novelist.) And that led me to ponder the Milwaukee Bucks, which have had one of the best years in their team’s history and have made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals…which you’d think would be good enough for anyone.
But as the Bucks were expected throughout to go to the NBA Finals, people have been up in arms (including yours truly) when they lost game 5 to the Toronto Raptors at home to put them down three games to two. They now face elimination in game 6.
The thing is, if you think about it, just getting to the Eastern Conference Finals is wonderful. The Bucks were “one and done” last year. And, I believe, the year before that.
But this year, they swept their initial playoff series, against the Detroit Pistons. And then they won easily over the Boston Celtics in the second round.
This, mainly, along with a stellar regular season, is why Bucks fans have taken a doom-and-gloom attitude.
And that led me to consider how else we tend to frame our own narrative in our lives. Do we think of the bright side? (Should we is another question, but that’s for another day.) Or do we think of what’s not working rather than what is, and concentrate on our failings rather than our successes?
I don’t know about you, but I tend to think about the failures, myself. I think about how I could’ve done this, that, or the other better. Sometimes, in the moment, it’s almost like I see myself from above and wonder, “Why can’t I do better than this? Why is it that I can barely explain myself? Why is it that I can’t make better decisions? Why do I run out of time?” and so on.
I wonder if that’s where the Bucks are at, right now. But I strongly suspect, as their season is not over, that they aren’t.
Are they happy to be down 3-2 and facing elimination? Of course not. (Who would be?)
But they have things they can still do. And I believe they’re most likely concentrating on them, and how they need to just do a few more things to get a win (in sports parlance, a W)…they may even be focusing on past success against the Raptors, and be looking at what they’ve done differently (and worse) in this series that hasn’t been working.
Forward, they are probably looking. Not back.
Now, does this make any difference in what happens in Game 6? You better believe it does. They can go in there and do their level best, knowing their season will be over if they don’t give it everything they possibly have.
And of course they could still lose. But if they do, they’ll know — providing they gave it their all, and tried their best, and focused their minds and bodies properly — it wasn’t their time to shine after all.
That can be a bitter lesson, sometimes. Because we try our best, and we want to shine all the time.
But no one — not Michael Jordan, not LeBron James, not Wilt Chamberlain, not George Mikan, nor any other basketball superstar over the years — has ever shined all the time. Because it’s not humanly possible.
So, let’s take a step back, and frame this differently, OK?
The fact is, the Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo is a great player. He may well win the NBA Most Valuable Player award this year, and if so, it’ll be richly deserved. And he’s led the Bucks to an excellent season.
These pluses are not negated, nor should they be, if the Raptors do succeed in beating the Bucks.**
How does that relate to your own, personal situation, though?
In essence, you need to learn how to frame your own narrative. Stop beating yourself up because you can’t seem to get ahead no matter how hard you try. Think about your successes once in a while, rather than always and only your failures. And do what you can to remember that you are a vital person with a role to play whether it seems like it or not.
That’s how you can learn from the doom and gloom over the Milwaukee Bucks and their current situation.
What do you think about this blog? Tell me about it in the comments!
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**As a fan, I will admit that if the Bucks can’t win game 6 and force a game 7, for a few days I will go around with a bad taste in my mouth. (That comes with the territory.)