NEW YORK — Giannis Antetokounmpo had the game of his life. And it almost didn’t matter.
It was a May 2 matchup between the Bucks and Nets, the first of back-to-back games between championship hopefuls in Milwaukee, and Antetokounmpo may as well have been Dirk Nowitzki. He dribbled up court and shot top-of-the-key 3s with confidence, finishing with 49 points on 21-of-36 shooting from the field. The below-average 3-point shooter hit four of his eight attempts from downtown that night.
Yet against a Nets team without James Harden, out with a hamstring strain at the time, the Bucks walked away with a three-point victory, after Kevin Durant missed game-tying 3s on each of the Nets’ final two possessions. The following game, again without Harden, the Bucks’ Big 3 of Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday combined for 72 points. Durant scored 42 but missed a 3, then missed it again after the offensive rebound with just over a minute to go. Either one of those shots dropping would have made it a two-point game. Instead, the Bucks went on to win by six.
Those two losses, without their best playmaker, in the face of special performances from Milwaukee, give the Nets confidence in their second-round playoff series. Antetokounmpo is the two-time reigning league Most Valuable Player. Holiday is arguably the NBA’s best defender at the point guard position. Middleton is capable of carrying the offensive load in stretches with Antetokounmpo on the bench and the Bucks are a well-oiled machine equally as excited about their odds at an NBA championship as the Nets are this season. But they needed super-hero performances to get by a short-handed Nets team in the regular season.
“So many things on that film session that we could have corrected or could have been better at,” Harden said after practice on Friday, “which is one of the reasons why I think we’re in a good place because we can get better and we will get better, we’ll continue to get better game by game, possession by possession.”
The Bucks-Nets second-round playoff series has the makings of an all-time classic. For both teams, a second-round exit would be considered an utter disaster, a failure of epic proportions. The Bucks have been knocking on the door each of the past three seasons and exorcised last season’s demons with a four-game sweep of the Miami Heat in the first round.
Mere minutes after the buzzer, Antetokounmpo proclaimed the Bucks “didn’t want to play with [their] food.” The Nets, meanwhile, are still hungry after picking apart a short-handed Celtics team with no Jaylen Brown (wrist) and both Kemba Walker and Robert Williams out for the final two games of the series.
It’s time the Nets pick on someone their own size, and the Greek Freak is a massive roadblock between them and the franchise’s lofty aspirations. It’s not just Antetokoumnpo, Middleton and Holiday but a loaded Bucks team that ranks at the top of the league in defense, rebounding and 3-point field goals made per game.
That doesn’t faze the Nets. They have talent, too. And the Bucks might have some years of familiarity among the players on the roster, but the Nets think they’ve made strides in their chemistry crash course, too.
“We’re a connected team, as well,” Durant said after Friday’s practice. “We’re a team that, we’ve only been together for a year, but we’ve been through so much already and we’ve adapted to each other so far. So it’s another step in the direction we want to go and hopefully it starts off well tomorrow.”
The Nets have addressed the elephant in the room. So what if their best players have only played a handful of games together as a trio this season? Those players are all-world, likely first-ballot Hall of Famers, three of the greatest scorers and playmakers to ever play in this league, let alone play on the same team.
“That is our reality. We’re trying to put the pieces together on the fly and that’s our challenge,” Nets coach Steve Nash said on Thursday. “We accept that and that’s OK. We don’t hide from it. We accept it and it’s not an excuse. We’re not sitting here trying to have a built-in excuse either. I don’t want any excuses from our staff or our players or anyone. That is the gap that our team is fighting against. Every team has their gap, has their deficiency or growth area that they need and that is the primary one for us.”
To combat that deficiency, Durant said focus and attention to detail will be important, as well as playing as hard as possible, in dealing with an opponent like the Bucks, who can win games in a variety of ways.
“You simplify it to that and we’ll put ourselves in good position,” Durant continued. “For the most part, you go out there and cover for your teammates, play extremely hard every possession, keep the ball in front, do the basics, you know? Then you’ll be alright. That’s a good foundation if you start with the basics.”
The basics worked in the first round against the Celtics, when the Nets made adjustments to keep Tristan Thompson off the boards, made sure a hand was in Jayson Tatum’s face on the large majority of his shot attempts and took away the role players who helped the Celtics win Game 3 in Boston.
These Bucks are a different animal and won’t be relying on the luck of the Irish. They’ll rely on their own Big 3, on their own playoff experience, on the continuity and cohesion built over years of trying and failing to win big around the same core of Antetokounmpo, Middleton and Brook Lopez.
The Nets have their hands full, but their approach hasn’t changed.
“No matter who our opponent is, we focus on us getting better because we hadn’t had that opportunity throughout the course of the regular season,” Harden said. “I think we focus on ourselves, focus on things we can do and can control and that’s it. Everything else will play itself out.”
