Giannis Antetokounmpo revealed his love for football after leading the Milwaukee Bucks past the Miami Heat in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference matchup in the NBA playoffs.
Antetokounmpo led the way as the Bucks routed the Heat 132-98 on Monday for a commanding 2-0 lead in the first-round series.
Two-time reigning MVP Antetokounmpo posted 31 points in 31 minutes, while also tallying 13 rebounds, six assists and three steals on home court in Milwaukee.
A superstar with the basketball, Antetokounmpo also demonstrated his football skills after juggling the ball during a break in play against the Heat.
Afterwards, Greece international Antetokounmpo told reporters: "I can do probably like 300 of those.
"I used to play soccer when I was young. My dad used to be a soccer player. I love soccer.
"I wanted to play soccer. I didn't want to play basketball growing up."
Milwaukee – seeded third in the east – used a 46-20 opening quarter to crush Miami in Game 2 of their NBA playoff clash.
Jrue Holiday (11 points and 15 assists) added a double-double of his own, while Bucks team-mate Bryn Forbes made six three-pointers to contribute 22 points off the bench.
The Bucks set a franchise record for threes made in a playoff game after nailing 22 from beyond the arc.
Forbes, who joined the Bucks in November following four seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, said: "That was a huge part in me coming here. You know that there would be these opportunities and we would be in the playoffs. ... It's just great to be in this position, be in the playoffs again and have an opportunity and stage."
"It's just how the game goes," Forbes added. "It's ebbs and flows. Some games you're open a lot more. Some games you aren't. Tonight I think we moved the ball great and had a lot of open shots."
Bucks star Holiday hailed Forbes, saying: "If my man got the hot hand, I'm going to him. And he wasn't missing, so at that point we were running everything to him just to -- really just to see what happens."
It was an impressive shooting display from the Bucks as head coach Mike Budenholzer added: "Guys have got to shoot it with confidence. They've got to let it fly. They've got to know they’re going to get threes.
"I think the activity offensively, the attack, can create good looks for us. We've just got to continue to let it fly when you're open."
"Lots of times, there's just so much talent in the league and so many good teams, sometimes you get the early lead and things just happen and it becomes a close game," Budenholzer said. "Today we were able to keep the focus."
The Milwaukee Bucks earned a commanding 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference first-round series after Giannis Antetokounmpo and his team-mates blew away the Miami Heat 132-98.
Only two points separated the Bucks and Heat in overtime on Saturday as the third seeds edged Jimmy Butler's Miami 109-107.
But the Heat were no match for the Bucks on Monday after Milwaukee used a 46-20 opening quarter to rout Miami in Game 2 of their NBA playoff clash.
Antetokounmpo – the two-time reigning MVP – fuelled the Bucks with a game-high 31 points in 31 minutes, 13 rebounds, six assists and three steals on home court in Milwaukee.
Jrue Holiday added a double-double of his own, while Bucks team-mate Bryn Forbes made six three-pointers to contribute 22 points off the bench.
The Bucks set a franchise record for threes made in a playoff game after nailing 22 from beyond the arc.
Entering the second matchup, the Bucks and Heat had the NBA's two best records when making more three-pointers than their opponents this season – Milwaukee were 25-3 (89.3 per cent) in those games and Miami were 18-3 (85.7 per cent). But the Bucks won Game 1 while making only five of 31 three-point attempts, 16.1 percent, a season low.
The Heat had no answer on the road, where reserve Dewayne Dedmon was Miami's best performer with a team-high 19 points as Butler (10 points on four-for-10 shooting), Bam Adebayo (16 points), Duncan Robinson (10 points) and Kendrick Nunn (nine points) struggled to get going, while Trevor Ariza (0-for-three shooting) was scoreless.
In the day's only other game, the Denver Nuggets levelled their Western Conference matchup with the Portland Trail Blazers thanks to a 128-109 victory.
MVP frontrunner Nikola Jokic inspired the third-seeded Nuggets in Game 2, scoring 38 points on 15-for-20 shooting, while also tallying eight rebounds and five assists in Denver.
Not even Damian Lillard's monster performance was enough for the sixth-ranked Trail Blazers to take down the Nuggets for back-to-back wins.
Lillard finished with 42 points and 10 assists – the All-Star made eight three-pointers by half-time, tying Vince Carter's all-time playoff record in a half.
Brooklyn Nets head coach Steve Nash insisted his star-studded team must remain humble in their Eastern Conference first-round series against the Boston Celtics.
The second-seeded Nets drew first blood in the NBA playoff series, winning Game 1 104-93 on Saturday.
Boasting Kevin Durant (32 points and 12 rebounds), James Harden (21 points) and Kyrie Irving (29 points), the Nets starred offensively, but they were particularly impressive on defense against the Celtics.
The Celtics carried a six-point lead into half-time but the Nets – behind a strong defensive display – powered past the seventh-ranked Celtics in the second half in Brooklyn.
As the Nets – eyeing their maiden championship – prepare for Tuesday's Game 2, Nash warned against overconfidence on the defensive side.
"If we think that we're the greatest defensive team of all time we're probably asking for a butt-kicking in Game 2," said Nash following Monday's practice.
"If we're humble and hungry and try to stick to our details and our game plan maybe we have a chance to make it difficult for them."
Durant, Harden and Irving combined for 82 of Brooklyn's total points against Boston in Game 1 – 78.8 per cent of the scoring, including 28 of 31 in the third quarter and 48 of 57 in the second half.
"I think that's something that we have the luxury of having those guys that are so difficult to defend in iso situations," Nash added. "But that's not necessarily the way we want to go.
"We were probably more iso heavy the first game because it's all so new, and in default, and Boston switched a lot of stuff. I think that pushed us towards more isos. But it will be interesting to see, it's just all so new that we, like I don't know, if that's going to be something that we dominate the direction we go in or if we're going to be able to get away from that more so and run more action.
"We've got to figure this out as we go so it's hard to answer that question relative to small experience. The luxury is they all are incredible isolation players and it's not the worst thing in the world, but I would like us to get more to where we’re playing off one another."
Donovan Mitchell expressed his frustration and unhappiness with the Utah Jazz's decision to hold him out of Sunday's loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, though the All-Star has been cleared to return for Game 2 of the Western Conference first-round series.
Mitchell was surprisingly absent as the top-seeded Jazz were upstaged 112-109 by the Grizzlies in Utah, where the guard had expected to play.
Utah's Mitchell has been sidelined since spraining his right ankle on April 16 and he addressed the decision ahead of Tuesday's game, which the 24-year-old is listed as available.
"For me, for my team, I was definitely frustrated and upset that I wasn't able to play," said Mitchell on Monday.
"I'm a competitor. I felt I was ready to go. I felt ready to go, and unfortunately, that wasn't the case. That was not how it happened. I was ready to go when I spoke [to media after Sunday's shootaround], and they came to the decision that that's what it was.
"The biggest thing for us is moving forward. We lost Game 1, and we've got s*** to handle. Excuse my language, we've got s*** to handle moving forward."
Mitchell has been averaging career highs in points (26.4), assists (5.2) and three-point percentage (38.6) this season.
"The biggest thing is I felt like I should have played," said Mitchell. "To be honest with you, it's no secret. We all know that. At the end of the day, the experts said no. We can disagree on those things, but that was the frustration.
"It was unfair to my team. I felt like, man, I let them down in the sense that you're not there for them in a playoff game. That probably hurts me more than anything else. It eats me. I barely slept because you think about that stuff. So that was really where it hit me, where it hurt."
After being eliminated with a pair of losses in the play-in tournament, the Golden State Warriors know they still have work to do if they want to get back to contending for NBA titles.
Arguably the most important step is to sign league scoring champion Stephen Curry to a contract extension – something Golden State general manager Bob Myers believes will happen this offseason.
Curry, 33, is not scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent until after next season having signed a then-record $201million, five-year contract in July 2017.
"I don't see any reason not to be optimistic," Myers said on Monday to the media. "He seems like he's motivated, we're motivated. I would say pretty confident we'll get something done."
Golden State can sign the two-time league MVP and three-time NBA champion to a four-year, $215.4m extension during the offseason.
Curry would be 38 at the end of such a deal, but he has shown no signs of slowing down after averaging a career-high 32.0 points during the regular season to become the oldest NBA scoring champion since a 35-year-old Michael Jordan accomplished the feat in 1997-98.
Curry carried the Warriors in 2020-21 with Klay Thompson missing his second straight season due to an injury and No. 2 overall pick James Wiseman going down with a season-ending knee injury on April 10.
Myers admitted he is not sure if Thompson will be healthy by the start of next season. The five-time All-Star tore his right Achilles before training camp.
That came after Thompson missed the 2019-20 season with a torn ACL suffered in a Game 6 NBA Finals loss to Toronto in June 2019 that gave the Raptors their first NBA title.
"I don't know that it'll be the start of the year," Myers said. "We'll see more as camp gets closer. When I say start of the year, I mean Game 1. I don't know if that's realistic or not.
"What we're focused on is when do we expect Klay to be Klay, and I don't know if that'll be January, February, March. It's too early to say."
Myers did say Wiseman should be good to go for training camp following surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his right knee.
He also said the center will be part of the team in 2021-22 despite having an up-and-down rookie season in which he averaged 11.5 points and 5.8 rebounds while appearing in just 39 games.
"We don't want to trade James Wiseman," Myers added. "I think he's a tremendous talent and he was put in a position where, again, the guy is taking hopefully all of his lumps early in his career, but I think he can be very helpful to us in the future. I think he can be helpful in the present."
The NBA playoffs got off to a thoroughly entertaining start over the weekend, with road wins for the lower seed in four of the eight series.
Game 1 followed hot on the heels of the similarly dramatic play-in tournament, in which Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors agonisingly lost twice to miss out on qualifying for the postseason.
Curry is a proven performer in both the regular season and the playoffs, but the same does not apply to every elite player.
Some stars seem to go missing when the season is on the line, while others thrive under pressure, as we discover in our latest NBA Heat Check – now comparing the performances of the past week to the entirety of the 2020-21 regular season.
RUNNING HOT...
Luka Doncic
For the second straight season, the Dallas Mavericks are playing the Los Angeles Clippers in round one. And for the second straight season, the series is providing Doncic with a platform to show off his extraordinary talents.
Dallas are too often a one-man show, but the Clippers struggled to contain Doncic last year as he averaged 31.0 points across a debut series that his Game 4 overtime buzzer-beating three-pointer memorably levelled.
The Mavs were beaten in Game 5 and Game 6 in 2020 to depart the tournament, yet this time they have a lead after Doncic's 31-point, triple-double effort on Saturday. Only Michael Jordan has played seven or more playoff games and averaged greater than his 31.0 points per game (33.4).
And it was again the Slovenian's accuracy from beyond the arc that hurt the Clippers, as he made five threes for the first time in the playoffs – up on his season average of 2.9.
Goran Dragic
The Miami Heat made the NBA Finals last season but were hamstrung by an injury to Dragic in Game 1 of the loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
That proved a telling blow, but Dragic is back at the fore in this year's playoffs despite a middling regular season in which he averaged 13.4 points per game.
An opening effort of 25 points helped keep Miami in contention against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 1. Duncan Robinson chipped in with 24, too, shooting 53.8 per cent from three.
Dragic ranked fourth in the league last week in terms of scoring improvement (up 11.6 points on the regular season), with Robinson fifth (up 10.9). Robinson topped the list when it came to an upturn in three-point shooting, while Dragic was just behind. The pair could not be blamed for the Bucks' win.
GOING COLD...
Bam Adebayo
Adebayo certainly could be held responsible for Miami's early deficit, contributing a measly nine points on four-for-15 shooting.
The fourth-year center contributed 17.8 points per game in last year's playoffs, including 17.2 in the Milwaukee series, but he never got going on Saturday.
The decrease from Adebayo's regular season 18.7 average was the sixth-worst in the NBA and, to make matters worse for the Heat, superstar team-mate Jimmy Butler also turned in a concerning performance.
Butler finished with 17 points, yet he made only four of 22 field goal attempts while using 30.0 per cent of Miami's plays.
Chris Paul
Paul's poor game this weekend was the most understandable but also the most concerning. The veteran point guard took a blow to his shoulder in the Phoenix Suns' win over the Lakers and clearly moved uneasily thereafter.
"I heard like a crack or whatever," said Paul, whose ball handling was uncharacteristically clumsy as he was limited to seven points, down from a season average of 16.4 per outing.
It did not cost the Suns, but they will surely need Paul back fit and firing to beat the defending champions over a seven-game series.
Julius Randle
The New York Knicks would not be back in the playoffs if not for Randle's outstanding season in which he played the most minutes in the entire league (2,667) and recorded 24.1 points and 10.2 rebounds per game.
But his belated playoff debut at Madison Square Garden saw a significant step back as Randle's six-for-23 shooting from the field – or 26.1 per cent – allowed the Atlanta Hawks to steal a road game.
The Knicks are built on hard graft rather than superstar talent, but they cannot afford for their All-Star to misfire so drastically.
Rudy Gobert admits he was 'thrown off' by the Utah Jazz's decision not to play Donovan Mitchell in Sunday's 112-109 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in Game 1 of their NBA playoffs first round series.
Following Utah's morning shootaround on Sunday, Mitchell had declared himself ready to return from an ankle injury which had kept him out since April 17.
However, the Jazz confirmed in their official injury report pre-game that he would miss out again with a "right ankle sprain", much to the surprise of Gobert and team-mate Bojan Bogdanovic.
!It was a big surprise," Gobert said post-game. "I try to stay out of all this because it's just going to give me a headache.
"When you wake up, you get ready for a game and you find out that your star player is not going to play, it throws you off a little bit."
Bogdanovic, who top-scored with 29 points for the Jazz including a series of last quarter three-pointers, added: "Of course we miss him, especially in the playoffs. We all know how good he is.
"I mean, I don't know what happened, honestly, with the decision for him and the medical staff to keep him out. You should ask him."
Jazz coach Quin Snyder admitted pre-game that Mitchell did not agree with the medical staff's decision.
"It's reflective of what a competitor he is and how bad he wants to be out there and is looking forward to being out there," Snyder said.
Speaking about the defeat, Snyder added: "I thought we competed, I didn't think we executed on the level that we need to in this moment in the playoffs. I think our guys know that. We know the things we need to do better."
Dillon Brooks had a game-high 31 points for the Grizzlies, while Ja Morant added 26 in the pair's playoffs debuts.
"For us to be able to come out and get a win on the road in the first game in that environment is big time for us," Morant said. "We can't wait to go back to Memphis to return the favour with our fans."
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