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Tim BontempsESPN
After Giannis Antetokounmpo hit a jump in the band to end a personal race 7-0 and gave the Milwaukee Bucks what proved to be an insurmountable advantage in a possible 109-105 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night, he celebrated sitting down on the field in downtown Wells Fargo, Philadelphia and staring into the room with a smile on his face.
The smile remained as he returned to the crowd, and as a few fans let in the building, they were sinking Antetokounmpo with boos. But with a victory in hand after a dominant performance – 32 points, 15 rebounds and 5 assists in 43 minutes – the smile was still on Anteokounmpo’s face after the match, when he was asked why he chose to celebrate in this fel.
“Is something wrong with the fun?” Antetokoumnpo said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the fun. I just like to have fun. In the first half, I didn’t have fun. I know, I talked to myself in the middle and said, ‘No matter how bad the game is, you can’t forget. what to do, that is, to have fun. ‘
“Obviously, there are a few times when I exaggerate, but I don’t want to take anything back. I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, I’m going to sit down.” I was having fun. I was talking to my teammates – I was talking to them. I was just trying to be right now. But I was just having fun. “
It wasn’t as fun for the Sixers, who kept the Bucks 12-for-45 shooting in the first half, including 1-for-17 in the 3-point range, and drove up to 19 points ahead blowing it Late. Philadelphia dropped from first place in the east due to the Brooklyn Nets win over Indiana on Wednesday night.
The Sixers Dwight Howard Center, in particular, was an exception to the Antetokounmpo celebration.
“I wanted to go to the Stone Cold Stunner, but I already had a technology,” Howard said, referring to a move popularized by WWE Stone Cold fighter Steve Austin. “It’s basketball. He wanted to have fun, but we’ll see these guys again. Today we let them get back in the game. We did it. We can’t control that.
“But he had a damn great game. He hit a few hard shots late in the game, reigning MVP, and he had a great game. I’m not one to talk trash or say anything negative, but we’ll see again a different result. “
There was a fairly large presence in this game: Sixers superstar Joel Embiid, who was sitting on the sidelines in moccasins and a hood and is left with a bruised bone in his left knee suffered last fall in a victory against the wizards. . But the energy and intensity of both sides was reminiscent of a playoff game – and it was a reminder of what could be booked in June, when these teams would be scheduled to face off in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
However, the Bucks nearly threw the game, blowing a seven-point lead in the final minute of regulation, thanks to Sixers goalkeeper Furkan Korkmaz who hit a 3.4-second pointer to equalize at 93. Then he saved Antetokounmpo Milwaukee in overtime. .
Finally, Milwaukee has put on the road the kind of hard-fought physical game he will have to win this spring if he wants to get through and reach the NBA Finals for the first time since the 1970s.
“We knew we were playing terribly in the offensive end, missing shots,” Bucks striker Khris Middleton said. “But at the same time, we all stayed together, we stayed positive and we knew there was a lot of game left and we would have a shot as long as we continued to play defense and we continued to play at the other end.
“At some point, the game was going to change, and we were going to run away, and thankfully it did.”
He did so, in large part, because of Antetokounmpo’s heroism. After Howard unusually made a long jump to tie the score at 98 with 3:08 for overtime, Antetokounmpo scored on three straight possessions – a hard-left drive for a layup; a 3-pointer pull-up; and hesitation, the spinning jumper on the belt – to make 105-98 with 1:12 left, however making sure the Bucks win.
“When the game starts, you try to get into your rhythm, but you don’t step on the right path … It’s just hard to get into a rhythm,” said Antetokounmpo, who scored 28 of the 32 points in the second. half and overtime. “And the way I try to get into a rhythm is to involve everyone. I try to move the ball a little bit, move the legs, move the body a little bit. But going into the second half, I wanted to be a little more aggressive, but I knew that I can’t get out of the gate right away and be aggressive. ”I had to get up slowly.
“But going down the stretch, I was just trying to be aggressive. … My teammates need me to play the right game and they need me to stay aggressive, so I tried to do it.”
The jokes continued at Antetokounmpo’s Zoom call, as at one point he ordered a cheese steak – making sure he got one with Cheese Whiz on it – and was asked where he got the idea to sit on the field.
“Guys, I haven’t seen that,” he said. “That’s what I wanted to do at that moment and that’s what I did. I didn’t see him. But, like I said, I was just trying to have fun. I was trying to enjoy the moment.”
It seems that Antetokounmpo was not the only one who had never seen him before.
“I was shocked to see him do that,” Middleton said with a laugh. “But I don’t think it was from any sign of disrespect, although I know that some people might take it that way. Knowing him, in the last weeks, months, whatever, he wants to have fun.
“I’ve never seen him before, but I’m glad he did it with a smile after a hard patch in that game.”