Essence of a Champion: Behind Giannis and the Bucks' Improbable Turnaround
Three years ago, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks marched into TD Garden for one of the more important game 7s in recent history. Boston had miraculously snatched victory from the jaws of defeat on the back of Jayson Tatum’s 46-point masterpiece in game six and was riding high on confidence heading into the win-or-go-home game in their building.
What was supposed to be a nail-biting do-or-die dogfight quickly turned into a barrage. Grant Williams hit seven threes and the Celtics played fluid and hard-fought team basketball while Giannis missed layup after layup and his supporting cast missed three after three.
The unexpected second-round exit off the back of a championship run in 2021 left a bad taste in the Bucks’ mouths, motivating them to avenge their mistakes even more than ever. Except they never did.
A year later, the Bucks captured the top seed in the Eastern Conference but were stunned by the 8th-seeded Heat who went on to reach the Finals. Last season, the dysfunction began when they fired Adrian Griffin after a 30-13 start, hired Doc Rivers, and finished the season 19-20. Giannis was held out of the Bucks’ first-round matchup with the Pacers because of a calf injury and the Bucks’ supporting cast wasn’t good enough to step up to the plate. The Pacers defeated the Bucks 4-2, sending Milwaukee into a universe of questions about Giannis leaving, trading Damian Lillard, who seemed to be on a downward spiral, or worse—getting rid of both and starting from scratch just four years removed from winning an NBA championship.
This was supposed to be the year though. Inside the Bucks’ inner walls, they had a great deal of belief that this season would be a success. Damian Lillard had a full training camp for the first time in his stint with Milwaukee, Giannis was at the peak of his powers, they’d have Khris Middleton back healthy, and Doc Rivers would work to develop some of the Bucks’ young players.
All of those perceptions were thrown out the window after 10 games. Milwaukee started the season 2-8 including double-digit losses to the Bulls and Nets. Tensions were high in the locker room; a clip surfaced of Giannis yelling at a young Bucks player to quit complaining about the slow start. It wasn’t the only instance of frustration either. After a blowout loss to the Knicks, Giannis called out his teammates in his postgame presser.
“Are we okay with not competing? I’m not okay with that … We’ve got to compete every single possession. Every loose ball, we’ve got to get a body on the floor and put it on the line.” —Giannis Antetokounmpo
There are few players with both the mental will and physical talent to pick up a team that is in the depths of hell and put them back in championship contention all by themselves. It takes the mentality of Kobe and the skill of LeBron to do so. Luckily for the Bucks, Giannis is one of those players.
At 2-8, the Bucks had the Raptors next on their schedule in the first NBA Cup game of the season. They put forth a dominant defensive performance, holding the Raptors to 85 points, anchored by their defensive player of the year and 2-time MVP. Milwaukee rattled off three of its next four games, highlighted by a 1-point triumph over the Rockets. In that span, Antetokounmpo averaged 35.5 points, 13.0 rebounds, and 7.5 assists.
Still, the questions persisted. In the first of those four games, the Bucks needed 59 points from the Greek Freak to overcome the Pistons in overtime. But Giannis didn’t care about the outside noise. He continued to get his teammates involved, play suffocating defense, and score at a ridiculous rate.
Following a 41-point outburst in a win over the Bulls, the Bucks focused their attention towards their second NBA Cup game. They were playing Indiana—the team who beat them eight times last season, embarrassed them in the playoffs and knocked them down of the NBA Cup in the semifinals last year.
Some players go from game to game without any recollection of the past, fueled by their individual greatness and love for their teammates. Not Giannis. He is fueled by the past and loves his teammates just as much as he hates his opponents.
“I don't train with other players. I don't want to be buddy with them. If we do this and then drink a coffee with them, can I go in the court and use my elbow against them? Can I block or dunk on them? I can't cause I am authentic.” —Giannis Antetokounmpo
That was evident as soon as Giannis stepped onto the floor to face his divisional rival. Sitting on 28 points with the Pacers in the midst of a run that had cut the Bucks’ lead to six points with under six minutes remaining, Giannis put his trust in his teammate, slinging a bullet pass to Gary Trent Jr. who knocked down a three. Indiana came back down the floor and Bennedict Mathurin rose up for a layup, only to be rejected by a massive Greek hand at the rim. That same hand threw down a dunk on the resulting fast break from the block, essentially putting the game on ice. Giannis remembered what the Pacers had done to his team last season and it didn’t sit right with him.
The Bucks beat the Pacers 129-117 behind a 37-point triple-double from the Greek Freak. The Bucks, who were in last place in the East for three days in early November, had suddenly leaped to 5th place at 7-9 and were 2-0 in NBA Cup play.
Four days later, Milwaukee faced Miami in their third NBA Cup game. The Bucks were 8-9 and coming off two more games in which Giannis averaged 34.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 8.5 assists. Only one problem: he was listed as out for the game against their conference rivals. Earlier in the season, the Giannis-less Bucks might have laid down to the Heat, but with the fuel and momentum they were carrying as a result of Giannis’ incredible play, the Bucks had what it took to win. Behind 37 points and 12 assists from Damian Lillard, Milwaukee staved off a Tyler Herro game-tying three-point attempt at the buzzer to beat Miami 106-103 and improve to 3-0 in the NBA Cup.
As amazing as Giannis is, this win was exactly what the Bucks needed. A game without their top superstar to validate to themselves that they were a well-rounded enough team to win even when surrounding conditions weren’t perfect.
Now, Milwaukee was hot. They were 9-9 and 3-0 in Cup play. Most importantly, Giannis was back. In the very next game, he put up 42 points, 12 rebounds, and 11 assists on 71% shooting—only the second 40-point triple-double in the NBA this season.
Giannis made 17 shots in that game and not one of them was a three-pointer. That’s when I realized that he had completely cut three-pointers from his shot diet.
I have been critical of Giannis in the past for compromising his team by attempting a shot that has no history of working. From 2019 to 2021, Giannis attempted four three-point attempts per game and not once has he eclipsed 31%. In 2022, he cut that number to 2.7, decreased it to 1.7 last year, and this year, is only attempting 0.7 three per game—such a low number that it is not detrimental to the Bucks at all.
Instead, Giannis has incorporated the midrange jumper into his game. From 10-14 feet, he’s shooting 51.7% which is great compared to the rest of the league. The 23 players on this graph are last year’s all-stars excluding Kawhi Leonard who is allergic to basketball.
Giannis has been even more impressive from 15-19 feet—a true midrange jumper. Here he is in comparison to those same players.
If you didn’t look closely, you may have missed it. Giannis is shooting a higher percentage from 15-19 feet than Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He’s doing it on high volume too. Only DeMar DeRozan has taken more shots from that distance range this season.
Moreover, Giannis is shooting 43.8% on pull-up two-pointers which is a career-high for his 12-year career.
With Giannis on a mission and the rest of the team along for the ride, the sky was the limit for the Bucks as they began to settle their vision on a trip to Las Vegas to compete for the NBA Cup. First, they’d need to joust the Pistons in a battle of 3-0 teams with a ticket to the Cup quarterfinals on the line. The Bucks didn’t mess around. Giannis came out and shot 10-11 from the field, scoring 28 points and adding eight rebounds and seven assists in just 28 minutes—an outrageous performance when his team needed him most. Milwaukee scored 78 points in the first half and went on to win by 21 points.
By the time the NBA Cup quarterfinals rolled around, the Bucks were 12-11 and occupied the 6th seed in the East. They had won 10 of their last 13 games but were far from satisfied.
In the Bucks’ quarterfinal game, Giannis downed Orlando with 37 points in a 114-109 victory at home to advance to the semifinals. It was Giannis’ fourth 30-point game in a row and eighth in his last nine contests. Since being 2-8, Giannis has put up 33.5 PPG, 10.4 RPG, 6.5 APG, 0.7 SPG, and 1.9 BPG on 61.5% shooting.
What if I told you that those have been his numbers for the last three seasons? Well, you’d have to either believe me or check Basketball Reference. In the last three years, the Greek Freak has averaged 31.4 points, 11.4 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 0.9 steals, and 1.2 blocks on 59.4% shooting. Those are not only MVP-level numbers, but they are some of the best season averages in NBA history.
With all eyes set on the gold-painted court decorating T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Giannis and the Bucks took the stage against the red-hot Atlanta Hawks who had defeated the Bucks just 10 days prior. Another chance for revenge.
A De’Andre Hunter stepback three gave Atlanta a 90-89 lead with 7:23 left and gave me a strong feeling that the Hawks were about to go on a late run to advance to the championship. From that moment on, Giannis totaled 10 points, four rebounds, and three assists on 5-6 shooting and capped it off with a heroic rejection of a Clint Capela dunk attempt, resembling his clutch block of De’Andre Ayton in game four of the 2021 NBA Finals. The man jumped off his heels and blocked a seven-footer while leaning backward. Come on now. Milwaukee went on to win 110-102, cementing their 12th win in their last 15 contests, and Giannis finished the game with 32 points, 14 rebounds, and nine assists. Most notably, he tasked himself with guarding up-and-coming Hawks star Jalen Johnson and made him disappear. If the defense could say “There are levels to this,” that’s what Giannis’ defense against Johnson did.
Beating the Magic and the Hawks is one thing, but beating the Oklahoma City Thunder is an entirely different task. The Thunder have already arrived on the scene and they know it. They play with swagger, togetherness, and moxie and take pride in their viciousness on the defensive end of the floor. And they’ve got an MVP candidate of their own in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who has the full support of his teammates and all of the tools in the toolkit. In fact, moments after Giannis single-handedly put away the Hawks, Gilgeous-Alexander detonated on the Rockets with 20 second-half points where he used his tight handle and unmatched shiftiness to get to his favorite shooting spots possession after possession.
From the jump, the Bucks looked solid on both sides of the ball, playing the Thunder well and running everything through Giannis. On offense, he and Brook Lopez toyed with the Thunder’s smaller lineups. Giannis showed OKC that guarding shot-happy players like Kevin Durant, LeBron James or even Alperen Sengun who the Thunder beat in the Cup semis was an entirely different game than guarding him. He wasn’t going to settle; he was going to attack. He feasted upon Jalen Williams and Alex Caruso whose last-second swipes at the ball did no good as the Freak repeatedly got every shot he wanted.
But the real story in the game was on the side of the ball that has failed the Bucks for the last season and a half. Milwaukee was 19th in defensive rating last season and 13th this season—a slight improvement but nowhere near a championship-caliber defense.
The Bucks pushed their mixed defensive history to the side in the championship and clamped OKC for 48 minutes straight, holding them to 81 points—just one point clear of the fewest points any team has scored all season. SGA scored just 21 points on 8-24 shooting and the Thunder shot 5-for-32 from three as a team.
Giannis finished the game with 26 points, 19, rebounds, 10 assists, two steals, and three blocks and was rightfully ecstatic with the win and his NBA Cup MVP trophy but remained unsatisfied with the Bucks’ season’s outlook.
“We’re going to stay locked in because the job is not done.” —Giannis Antetokounmpo
The Bucks could have celebrated the victory but chose to keep the champagne on ice in the locker room, citing the goal of winning a championship as their primary focus. Perhaps it’s a good thing that Milwaukee isn’t going overboard after winning the cup. When the Lakers won it last season, they lost 10 of their next 13 games.
One thing’s for sure. This Bucks team won’t be losing 10 of their next 13 nor will they return to their early season form.
"We've shown the team we started the season as is not the team that we are now. And it was never who we truly were. Just got off to a tough start." —Damian Lillard
In my ten years of following the NBA, I’ve learned that an undeniable superstar, a solid supporting cast, and belief and hunger can get a team pretty far. Almost like it got the 2021 Bucks to an NBA title. Funny how that happens. A few disappointing playoff finishes and everyone’s out on you.
Now, don’t get me wrong—this Bucks team still has obvious weaknesses. Khris Middleton looks terrible offensively, I don’t fully trust their young core, and they still don’t have a great defensive résumé.
But what has plagued the Bucks in years past? They’ve been virtually perfect in the regular season but have been bounced as the one seed three times before the Finals. 2024 might not be a year that the Bucks get the one seed in the East, but I guarantee you that every member of their locker room would say that they wouldn’t change a thing about this season if they were given the choice.
Their response to a 2-8 start is the essence of what it takes to be a champion and when you’ve got a once-in-a-lifetime player like Giannis Antetokounmpo, a championship is never out of the question.
Can’t beat the Celtics tho