SACRAMENTO, Calif. — At halftime of Saturday’s game against the Sacramento Kings, the Milwaukee Bucks only had 49 points and trailed by 12. It was the 11th time this season the Bucks had scored fewer than 50 points in the first two quarters and the third time in the last four games as they continued to struggle to get out of an offensive rut that has consumed them the last two weeks.
So, with Damian Lillard out for a second straight game with right calf soreness and the Bucks faltering again offensively, Giannis Antetokounmpo decided his team needed a change and he needed to be the one to lead them out of their struggles.
“I just said f— it,” Antetokounmpo said after the game. “I gotta be aggressive.”
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That change in mentality altered the course of the game. After scoring only nine points in the first half, Antetokounmpo put up 22 in the third quarter to help get the Bucks back into the contest and eventually pull out a 114-108 win in the third game of their five-game Western Conference road trip. Antetokounmpo ended with 32 points, 17 rebounds and three assists to help lead the Bucks (40-30) to their second straight win.
“He was just dominant,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said after the game. “He wouldn’t be denied.”
As the comments from Antetokounmpo and Rivers suggest, the Bucks’ third-quarter plan of attack wasn’t sophisticated. Antetokounmpo was determined to take over the game and he often did that by bringing the ball and using his physicality to move defenders to create space at the rim.
Antetokounmpo’s first third-quarter bucket saw him move through Jonas Valančiūnas, a 6-foot-11, 265-pound center, with ease and make his way to the rim for an easy finger roll.
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When no one got a body on him underneath the rim following a missed 3 by Ryan Rollins, Antetokounmpo made the Kings pay with a loud putback dunk.
Giannis with the big one-handed putback slam. pic.twitter.com/ZeTIGQkxA1
— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) March 23, 2025
After grabbing a defensive rebound, Antetokounmpo called for a screen from Brook Lopez, who kept the Bucks alive with 18 of his 21 points in the first two quarters, and used the screen from his frontcourt partner to set up Valančiūnas for a spin move and then finished through contact from both the Kings big man and Keon Ellis.
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To tie the game at 80, Antetokounmpo did something very similar. He grabbed a defensive rebound, pushed it up, moved a defender and laid in a finger roll.
As Kings interim coach Doug Christie called a timeout, Antetokounmpo flexed and flashed his signature mean mug to the crowd on his way back to the bench, but the Bucks were not able to take the lead to close the quarter. Even with Antetokounmpo scoring 22 points in the third, the Bucks trailed by three points heading into the fourth.
With Antetokounmpo playing all 12 minutes of the third, the Bucks would need some help to survive the start of the fourth as their superstar forward took a rest before closing the game. But on Saturday, the bench unit did more than just play the Kings even.
“Thriving without me,” Antetokounmpo said when asked about the bench’s effort to survive with him resting. “That’s what you want your bench to do. You want them to come in, score the ball, bring energy, defend the right way, keep the momentum going. And not just keep the momentum, they started the momentum for us.”
Led by the scoring and playmaking of Kevin Porter Jr., the Bucks went on an 18-11 run to open the fourth. After a 7-of-22 start from behind the 3-point line in the first three quarters, the Bucks’ bench unit hit three of the team’s first five 3-point attempts in the fourth to help build the lead for Antetokounmpo.
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Following the game, Rivers praised Porter’s ability to create an advantage and then trust his teammates to make the right play, whether taking the shot themselves or moving it to a teammate to make the next decision. Porter, who ended the night with 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting and six assists, was the floor general for the Bucks in the fourth quarter and played with the reserves and the starters.
“He makes such a huge difference for us,” Lopez said. “So happy to have him here. To be able to come off the bench and just do what he does pretty much night in and night out, it’s so impressive and it makes all the difference in the world for us. It’s going to be so big for us in the playoffs.”
While his teammates credited him for putting the Bucks on the right track, Porter explained that the bench’s role in the Bucks’ second-half comeback would not have been possible without Antetokounmpo.
“I mean, honestly, his third quarter sets everything off,” Porter said. “His energy, him being a leader, coming out fast definitely got us up and elevated on the bench and ready to go and take it up a notch when he was ready to rest. So that’s what it was.
“We know as a bench unit, we gotta come out and be ready. Especially when the energy’s like that and it’s contagious, we can’t let it slow. We gotta stay a foot on the gas.”
To end the game, Rivers turned to Antetokounmpo and the two-time MVP made what might have been his most miraculous play of the night.
With a little more than a minute remaining and the Bucks clinging to a two-point lead, physical defense from the Kings led to Antetokounmpo’s left foot slipping out of his shoe, forcing Rivers to call a timeout with nine seconds left on the shot clock.
On the inbounds play, Porter found Antetokounmpo and he drove to the lane, but the Kings played strong defense and rejected his attempt at a right-handed floater. As he fell to the ground, Antetokounmpo somehow corralled the ball and tossed it to Gary Trent Jr. (11 points) in the corner for a 3.
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Antetokounmpo’s ridiculous recovery leading to Trent’s triple would be all the points the Bucks needed to close out Saturday’s win.
“I think Giannis did it the right way,” Rivers said. “He wasn’t forcing anything. He was getting to the basket. He took a couple of jump shots, made one, made two. … I can’t remember any shot that he took where I thought he was trying to take (the game) over.
“It was just that he was taking over.”
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(Photo of Giannis Antetokounmpo: Darren Yamashita / Imagn Images)
