Giannis Antetokounmpo, the King of Wisconsin
The Milwaukee Bucks star delivers a performance for the ages — with surprising success at the line — as the Bucks clinch their first NBA title since 1971
By Jason Gay
Wall Street Journal
July 21, 2021 9:16 am ET
When he started hitting the free throws, that was that.
After all, missing free throws was supposed to be the vulnerability in the Giannis Antetokounmpo Experience. No matter how thrilling and dominant the two-time NBA MVP was — and he’d become, at 26, one of the most thrilling and dominant players in the game — Antetokounmpo at the line was a deeply iffy proposition. He bricked. He airballed. He took too much time. What should be a high-percentage shot was now a torturous riddle. Hostile crowds goaded the referees to flag Antetokounmpo for a 10-second time violation, loudly counting upward: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…
Not Tuesday. Not in the most important game of Antetokounmpo’s career, and the biggest basketball moment in the city of Milwaukee since the Kareem/Oscar Robertson title 50 years before. In a Game 6 clincher versus Phoenix, Antetokounmpo was once more a tornado in the open court, leaping over helpless Suns for easy twos, swatting shots at the other end, showing the kind of relentless heart that Bucks fans have known since Antetokounmpo arrived as an unknown teenager from Greece.
But now, remarkably: Antetokounmpo was hitting those free throws. He shot 4 for 4 on free throws in the first quarter, 1 for 2 in the second, 7 for 7 in the third quarter, and 5 of 6 in the fourth. In the second half, with Phoenix threatening, he calmly sank 13 in a row. The allegedly “imperfect” superstar who walked into the game shooting 55 percent from the line in these playoffs wound up hitting 17 of 19 shots, just a hair under 90 percent.
It was like watching Superman wake up and ask for a delicious bowl of Kryptonite.
Swish. Easy. Swish. Easy. Swish. Easy.
If Giannis’s weakness was no longer a weakness, how did Phoenix possibly stand a chance?
Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo teammate Khris Middleton celebrate after winning game six of the 2021 NBA Finals and the championship against the Phoenix Suns.PHOTO: MARK J. REBILAS/REUTERS
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The Suns impressively kept it close. The final score was Milwaukee 105-98, and it was anyone’s game until late. Antetokounmpo finished with 50 points, 14 rebounds, and 5 blocked shots, a historically astonishing output. When it was over, he hugged his teammates, his family, and his one-year-old son, Liam, and then collapsed into a courtside chair, pulled a towel over his face, and wept.
He’d done it. Better yet: they’d done it, improbably, a little team that couldn’t, until it did. Antetokounmpo had resisted the opportunity to go elsewhere in free agency and stayed in Milwaukee. He decided to stick with the small-market club that took a chance on him in 2013, and his choice felt like a bit of a sentimental bet, and perhaps an incorrect one, because even though the Bucks could offer him a historic contract, there was no assurance a title could be won in the modern NBA, where the balance of power moves suddenly, as star players glide between franchises in pursuit of “superteams” and brief championship windows.
But it had worked, in Milwaukee, and it clearly meant a great deal.
“I wanted to do it here, in this city, with these guys,” Antetokounmpo said when it was over.
He elaborated later. “I wanted to get the job done,” he said. “That’s my stubborn side. It’s easy to go somewhere and win a championship with somebody else. It’s easy…I could go to a superteam and just do my part and win a championship.”
“This is the hard way to do it,” Antetokounmpo rapped upon the table in front of him. “And this is the way we did it.”
Milwaukee Bucks center Bobby Portis became a crowd favorite during the Bucks’ title run. PHOTO: MARK J. REBILAS/REUTERS
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The championship celebration was as warm as they get. There was Giannis, the Finals MVP in champagne goggles, looping in his quarantined older brother and Bucks teammate, Thanasis, on a video call. There was Khris Middleton, another Bucks longshot, a second-rounder who’d developed into a brilliant scorer and repeatedly bailed out Milwaukee in these playoffs. There was Jrue Holiday, an arrival via a high-stakes trade, who gave the Bucks a critical defensive edge, the basketball equivalent of a shutdown cornerback. There was Bobby Portis Jr.— Bobby Portis! — now the honorary Mayor of Milwaukee, a do-anything crowd favorite who’d scored 16 in the closeout game.
Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!
Portis will never pay for a bratwurst, cheese curd or beer in that town again. None of these Bucks will. It was a magical finish to an exhausting season, in which Milwaukee seemed doomed more than once.
Amid the trophy-hoisting, it was possible to forget that the difference between the Bucks being here and the Bucks being home was an inch or so of Kevin Durant’s sneakers, as the lanky Brooklyn Net appeared to have finished off Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference semis with a three-pointer, until his toes were revealed to be brushing atop the line. It was possible to forget that Antetokounmpo had crumpled to the floor with an ugly-looking knee injury in the Eastern Conference finals against Atlanta, and it seemed like his season was over, until it was diagnosed to be a hyperextension, allowing Giannis to return versus Phoenix.
The margin between success and collapse — and reverberations for an entire franchise’s direction — was really that narrow. But that’s sports. That’s often the way it goes, and luck means nothing if you don’t capitalize, which Milwaukee had done.
As a team.
But also a team with a transcendent player. It’s in the books now: Antetokounmpo stands among basketball’s greatest. Fifty points in a clincher is first-ballot legend stuff. Giannis was already one of the NBA’s best stories, this kid from Athens who grew up with little in a family of five brothers, three of whom now possess NBA championships (brother Kostas won a title with the Los Angeles Lakers last season). Antetokounmpo has said he didn’t start playing basketball until he was 12. Think on that for a second: there are high school seniors in this country who have been playing basketball longer than Giannis Antetokounmpo.
He is still ascendant, still getting better, still capable of surprises, including in the biggest game of his life.
“People told me I can’t make free throws,” Antetokounmpo said. “I made my free throws tonight, and I’m a freaking champion.”
He is. They are.
Antetokounmpo hit 17 of his 19 free throws in the championship clinching game .PHOTO: JONATHAN DANIEL/GETTY IMAGES
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Giannis Antetokounmpo, the King of Wisconsin - WSJ |
