The Greek Freak-Out

Last night, Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a career high and franchise record 64 points and got revenge from the Bucks In-Season Tournament loss against the Indiana Pacers. However, not many people are talking about the game itself. After the game, there seemed to be a giant miscommunication regarding where the game ball went. Trying to follow the situation in real time was crazy and thankfully WorldWideWob put together a 12 minute Twitter video breaking down the entire situation. I am gonna give my take on this whole situation.

The Bucks beat the Pacers by 14 points last night. Giannis set the Bucks team record for points in a game with 64 points. On his way to the franchise record, there was a lot of chippiness carried over from the IST semi-finals game. The Bucks did not like Haliburton mocking Damian Lillard’s “Dame Time” celebration after hitting the dagger three to send the Pacers to the Finals. In the game last night, Giannis stuck a chicken wing right into Haliburton’s chest for no apparent reason. Late in the fourth, Aaron Nesmith committed a hard foul on Giannis and tempers flared up. Thanasis had to be held back on the bench and Bobby Portia went crazy eyes, the exact face I imagined he made when he knocked out his teammate Nikola Mirotic. Giannis was dominant in this game and got to the line 32 times, the same amount of foul shots that the entire Pacers team shot.

Giannis and the rest of the Bucks starters were subbed out up by 20 with three minutes left as this game was over and the Pacers had their rookies in the game. Giannis had set the franchise record with 58 points and looked like his night was over. The lineup with Ben Sheppard, Oscar Tshiebwe, and Jarace Walkers cut the Bucks lead to the 10 points. Adrian Griffin decided to put the starters back in the game and instead of going through the motions to end the game, Giannis treated it like the NBA Playoffs. He scored 6 points in the final 2 minutes by just abusing these poor G-Leaguers.

After the game ended, the Bucks security guard grabbed the game ball following a shot after the buzzer from Damian Lillard. Unsure where the mixup happened, the Pacers had the ball in their possession as Oscar Tshiebwe scored his first official NBA point and the Pacers usually give the game ball to a rookie who scored his first NBA points. Giannis wanted that ball as he usually gives his game balls for a career high to his Mom. In my opinion, this could’ve been an easy conversation to sort out the mishap. Then the Greek Freak-Out happened following a conversation on the court between Giannis, Dame, Hali and Pacers assistant coach Lloyd Pierce. Next thing you know, Giannis is running towards the Pacers locker room like he was Isaiah Pacheco, as in he would not be stopped. There’s a video of the scenes outside the Pacers locker room and you can hear a Pacers player yell “you aint getting that ball.” If I was on the Pacers, I would not appreciate the stat-padding witnessed in the last two minutes of the game or watching one guy shoot 32 free throws.

After listening to both Rick Carlisle and Giannis press conference, I side with the Pacers. I truly believe that the Pacers intentions were to give Oscar the ball for his first points and did not have Giannis performance in mind. Giannis did not handle this like a professional or with his fake humbleness. He treated the Pacers coaching staff and Tyrese Haliburton with disrespect by pointing through their chest while yelling at them. The funniest part of the whole thing is that Damian Lillard, known to be best friends with Chris Haynes, had to be providing Haynes with live updates as he was the first one to tweet about this. Giannis took away from his legendary performance with these shenanigans. To say even after the game that he feels the ball he received did not feel like the ball that was used in the game is crazy to me. There is no way that these basketball’s can feel vastly different and there would be no way to tell hours after the game. This was a truly entertaining night in the Association. I look forward to seeing these two teams play back to back against each other on January 1st and 3rd.