Bucks vs. Pacers: By the skin of their antlers

The Milwaukee Bucks had to sweat it out in the end, but they were able to avenge Tuesday night’s loss to the Indiana Pacers last night, winning 126-119. The win gives the Bucks a massive 3-1 season series win over the Pacers, meaning that they will have the head-to-head tiebreaker if they finish tied at the end of the regular season. Giannis continued his dominant play against Indiana with 34 points, 10 rebounds, and seven assists, going 14/19 from the field and a perfect 6/6 from the free-throw line. Damian Lillard had a double-double for himself as well with 25 points and 10 rebounds, while the bench duo of Gary Trent Jr and Kevin Porter Jr combined for 29. Aaron Nesmith had 30 to lead the Pacers’ offense on 6/7 from three, while Siakam went for 26 points and seven rebounds. Tyrese Haliburton had 24 points, 15 assists, and six rebounds. Read our full summary of the game here and catch a six-minute audio recap on the Bucks+ podcast Bucks In Six Minutes below.

What Did We Learn?

The Bucks’ bench is rounding into one of the best in the league. Think back to last season when the Bucks were rolling out Patrick Beverly, Pat Connaughton, a less-developed AJ Green and Andre Jackson Jr, Bobby Portis, and even Danilo Gallinari for stretches. The work that Jon Horst has done to reinvent this bench unit has been nothing short of spectacular. Now with Kevin Porter Jr, Gary Trent Jr, AJG and AJax, Jericho Sims, and when Bobby Portis returns from his suspension, that’s a bench unit that is deep and talented. They showed it again tonight with the three guards (KPJ, GTJ, and AJG) scoring all 35 bench points for the Bucks.

“That bench stretched the lead for us; the Dame and KPJ lineup has been fantastic for us,” Rivers said. “We still haven’t been able to work on what to run with that group. We started running our 21 set; it got KPJ a layup and got AJ Green the wide-open shot, so we know we can run that now. They haven’t played enough minutes together. That’s gonna be a great unit for us, but we gotta figure it out.”

Despite not scoring and only grabbing one rebound, Jericho Sims was part of a huge 16-2 run to end the third-quarter run for the Bucks to take an 18-point lead into the fourth quarter.

“We could talk about GT all night long, we could talk about Kevin Porter Jr all night, we can talk about Bobby, we have guys who aren’t afraid of the moment. AJ Green isn’t scared of the moment. I’m just happy to have guys like that who aren’t scared of the moment,” Giannis said. “They’re gonna give us extra possessions like Jericho going for every offensive rebound, every switch (defensively) onto a guard he’s making it tough, you know it’s very hard to go by him. We need guys like that.”

Three Observations

Jericho Sims is making a real case for himself to be in rotation when Bobby Portis comes back.

As mentioned previously, despite not putting much into the box score (outside of a +18), Jericho Sims has already been a very productive player off of the Bucks’ bench. In the 13 games since Sims was placed into the rotation following the suspension of Portis, the Bucks are 9-4, with three of those losses coming by one possession. Sims’s ability to switch out onto guards and wings while still being able to defend centers with his athletic ability makes him a very valuable asset come playoff time. Now, I’m not saying he should play 20+ minutes, but somewhere between 11-15, and I think he could play alongside Portis. Allow Sims to be the defensive anchor with the bench unit so Bobby can take a bench power forward or slower wing, rather than having to guard a center. Or conversely, if a team has a talented backup power forward (see the Pacers with Obi Toppin) allow Sims to take that assignment and have Bobby guard a guy like Thomas Bryant. It allows you to potentially allow Giannis some extra minutes of rest on the bench, depending on the situation within a given series. I think a lineup of Dame, KPJ, GTJ, Sims, and Bobby has some interesting possibilities come playoff time (or hopefully next season).

Taurean Prince is such an undervalued member of this Bucks team.

We all may get caught up in star players like Giannis or Dame, the flashy play of Kevin Porter Jr, or the three-point marksmen of Gary Trent Jr, but I think Taurean Prince is one of the most slept-on players on this team. He doesn’t score a ton of points, and when he does, it’s usually of the catch-and-shoot variety, and he plays good defense. Last night, we saw some of the best from Prince, scoring 14 points on 2/4 shooting from three, grabbing four rebounds, and stealing the ball five times. He came up huge for the Bucks to hit a three with 1:50 left in regulation to give them a nine-point cushion, and then hit four free throws to set up KPJ to ice the game with two free throws of his own.

“Basketball is something I’ve been doing since I was young. I’ve been through a lot, so free throws are the last thing that shakes me as far as my emotions go,” Prince said. “I love playing against anybody who is willing to compete, I just wanna win.”

While it may be missed by most, it certainly isn’t missed by the guys in the locker room.

“I love TP as a competitor, I love him as a player. He’s a basketball player, so at times he’s gonna defend his butt off, other times he’s gonna space the floor, sometimes he’s gonna make plays for himself or other open teammates,” Giannis said. “He’s not scared of the moment. He showed it tonight, he’s showed it in the past, he’s not afraid of the moment.”

Dame found a way to solve some of the puzzles of the Pacers’ defense.

Two of Dame’s worst offensive scoring displays have come against the Pacers this season, including Tuesday night in Indianapolis, where he scored only 15 points on 4/14 shooting from the field. Tonight was a different story as he scored 25 points on an efficient 7/15 shooting from the floor and 50% (6/12) from three-point range.

“You just gotta be patient. In a situation like that, you have to understand when they’re putting themselves at a disadvantage,” Lillard said. “If Giannis is taking the ball out, they’re not gonna use one guy, they’re gonna put whoever the guy is inbounding the ball, he’s gonna be on one side and then my man is gonna be on the other side. So with that, I’m trying to get a catch (and-shoot) or get Brook to flash to get a catch…and you try and break them down that way.”

Bonus Bucks Bits

The Bucks just missed one free throw all night, going 25/26 from the charity stripe. The only miss came from AJ Green after the Pacers were called for a defensive three-second violation.
Standings update: The Bucks now move a full game ahead of the Pacers for fourth in the East. With the New York Knicks losing to the Golden State Warriors last night, they now are four games out of a top-3 seed in the East.
Taurean Prince set a new career high in steals with five. He matched his previous career-best four steals in the first half of tonight’s game, tying the most steals he’s had in a half in his career. The Bucks as a team only forced 11, with eight of them as steals.
The Bucks scored 120+ points for the second straight game and improved their record when scoring 120+ to 25-1 on the year.
With 20+ points, 10+ rebounds and 5+ assists each, Antetokounmpo and Lillard are the first Bucks duo to each reach those numbers in the same game since Jan. 27, 2021 (Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton vs. TOR). It’s the 17th time in franchise history that two teammates have had 20/10/5 performances in the same game and the 15th time in the NBA this season.
The challenge that Doc Rivers used in the fourth quarter on an out-of-bounds play with 8:10 to play in the fourth with the Bucks up 107-91, he seemingly had some extra help. According to Eric Nehm of The Athletic, Thansis Antetokounmpo was sitting courtside and playfully suggested they should challenge it. Sources even said that Thansis made the hand gesture for VAR, which is used as the challenge system in soccer (or futbol for our international friends). Here is what Doc said about the process of challenging that play:

“Yea I never know. I always turn to our guy (video guy), he saw it and he’s been pretty good this year. I still think he won the one in Indiana even though he lost it, I’m still looking for the foul,” Rivers said. “This was just a bad one. One of our rules is you gotta be 100%, he thought he was 100%. He’s been more good than bad, I can live with him making a mistake.”

Up Next

The Bucks will play the second game of their weekend back-to-back, as the No. 1 team in the Western Conference comes to town in the Oklahoma City Thunder. You can catch the action at 8 p.m. Central on ESPN, FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin, or stream it on our Playback and YouTube channels.

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