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DETROIT — Following the Milwaukee Bucks’ 125-119 victory over the Detroit Pistons, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s teammate, Kevin Porter Jr., had a sense he knew how Pistons players were feeling in the home locker room.
He used to feel it, too.
“I hated it when I was on the opposing team,” Porter said. “Every time we played the Bucks, it was like, ‘F–, we got Giannis.’ And we knew exactly what he was going to do.”
On Friday, the Bucks walked into Little Caesars Arena for what they viewed as a must-win game. Antetokounmpo, a two-time NBA MVP, dominated with 32 points, 11 rebounds and 15 assists — his 11th triple-double of the season and fourth in his last five games during the Bucks’ seven-game winning streak — and willing Milwaukee to a victory with spectacular play on both ends of the floor.
In his 12th NBA season, Antetokounmpo has become frustratingly inevitable to many opponents. With his growth and development over the last decade and his interminable drive, there is not much teams can do on most nights against him. That was the case Friday in Detroit as Antetokounmpo led the Bucks to one of their biggest wins of the regular season. With the victory, the Bucks (47-34) clinched the East’s No. 5 seed, locking them into a meeting with the Indiana Pacers, a re-match of last year’s first round.
“If anyone’s a fan of basketball and you get to watch — every night — the dominance of what Giannis does, it’s unbelievable,” Porter said. “It’s a blessing, honestly. …Me being here now and seeing the ins and outs and not just playing against it and seeing it from afar, bro, it’s destined for greatness. Nothing surprises you, what he’s able to do, if you see his work and what he’s dedicated to. It’s crazy.”
In the first quarter, Antetokounmpo took a couple of offensive possessions to settle in. He had an early turnover and a few uncomfortable drives as he saw some double teams and exaggerated help from the Pistons, but he soon found his rhythm and scored his first points on a mid-range jumper.
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As Antetokounmpo wraps up this regular season, that mid-range jumper has become as reliable as everything he does on the floor. It’s especially devastating to opposing defenses who once loved to see the nine-time All-Star “settling” for a jumper.
On the season, Antetokounmpo has made 125 of his 266 mid-range two-point jumpers, a career-high 47 percent, from 14 feet and beyond, per Cleaning the Glass. Those 125 makes are nearly as many as he attempted from that range (137) last season and his 266 attempts are the most he has taken from that range since he attempted 289 in the 2017-18 campaign, Jason Kidd’s final season as head coach in Milwaukee.
With the mid-range jumper established, Antetokounmpo forced the Pistons to make difficult defensive decisions and he started picking them apart with his passing.
“Oh, he was dominant,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. “The 15 assists to me is what stands out. It just keeps getting unnoticed how well he’s passing the ball and being a playmaker. (It was happening) before we put him at the point, but now it’s really standing out.”
Since Bobby Portis’ return from his 25-game suspension, Antetokounmpo’s playmaking has been devastating to teams when the Bucks have combined him with Porter, AJ Green, Gary Trent Jr. and Portis. The Bucks have used that lineup at the end of the first quarter and the start of the second quarter, but they also used it to close out the Timberwolves on Tuesday night.
It’s easy to understand why.
“Everybody can shoot the ball,” Antetokounmpo said of the lineup. “Kevin can shoot the ball. AJ can shoot the ball. GT can shoot the ball. Bobby can shoot the ball. So much space for us to operate. We’re moving the ball. Guys are aggressive.”
Focus too much on building the wall in transition? That lineup will make you pay.
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Send too much help on a post-up once a transition opportunity settles into a half-court possession? That lineup will make you pay.
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“The people around him make it kind of easier for him,” Portis said. “You got good shooting around you; I feel like everybody got a 40-clip in here. Everybody shoots 40-something (percent from 3).
“When you got that much shooting around you, when guys want to put two (defenders) on you, you’ve got the right team to kind of make you pay for it.”
It’s a small sample size, but per lineup data from Cleaning the Glass, that five-man unit has put up an absurd 151.1 points per 100 possessions while holding opponents to just 96.6 points per 100 possessions on defense for a net rating of plus-54.6 in the last three games. It was devastating again on Friday in Detroit.
But that devastation is based entirely on the attention Antetokounmpo draws and his ability to make the right play to inflict as much damage as possible on each possession.
What makes Antetokounmpo so soul-crushing to opponents is his ability to play at an incredibly high standard in the first half and then use what he did in the first two quarters against opponents in the second half.
After establishing his mid-range jumper in the first half, Antetokounmpo opened the second half by getting to those same spots and then using a pump fake to draw fouls.
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In the second half’s first five minutes, Antetokounmpo fooled Jalen Duren and Ausar Thompson on pump fakes and knocked down all four free throws. (He went 10-of-11 from the line on Friday night.) On a third possession, he drew three defenders by leaning back as though he was going to take a mid-range jumper and then flipped a pass to Brook Lopez for a top-of-the-key 3.
When the Bucks went to the unit that featured Antetokounmpo with four sizzling shooters off the bench, the veteran forward played off the ball and let Porter run the show, quickly transforming into one of the most devastating roll men in the NBA.
First, out of the short roll, Antetokounmpo hit Trent for a corner 3.
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Then, when the Pistons forced Porter to his weak hand and “iced” him to the right sideline away from Antetokounmpo’s screen, the two-time MVP patiently rolled to the middle and then made slight movements in that space to make himself available to Porter before eventually finding an opening and throwing down a massive dunk.
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“The same thing when he has the ball, how defenses collapse … it’s the same off the ball with him,” Porter said. “If he cuts, he brings four to five defenders with him and it opens up the floor for everybody else. And on top of that, having me come off fast how I do, I sometimes get his guy and the lob’s right there.
“He’s one of the greatest lob threats I’ve ever played with, so I just toss it up there and trust that he’s going to figure it out and get it, but we just gotta keep repping that. He’s a great off-and-on (ball player), like one of the greatest ever. It’s crazy.”
At this point in his career, Antetokounmpo has a solution for every defense and an answer for every adjustment he has seen. For the Pistons, a young team getting ready to make its first playoff run, Antetokounmpo provided a crash course on what playing the league’s best will be like in the postseason.
But he didn’t just do it on offense. When his team needed him most on defense, Antetokounmpo closed the game with two blocks in the game’s final minute.
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Giannis with the block AND shimmy on Beasley 😅 pic.twitter.com/Nrxw6ypZnZ
— NBA TV (@NBATV) April 12, 2025
“I think I’m pretty good defensively,” Antetokounmpo said. “I’ll be very honest with you, it’s kind of hard when you have so much offensive load to play defense at a very high level.
“But if you really think about all the top players in the NBA right now that score the ball at a high rate, I really think I’m one of the best defensive players. You can go from the top 10 scoring players in the league, I think can affect the game defensively too from my defensive rebounds to deflections from blocking from just getting myself in there.”
In the end, a determined Antetokounmpo was too much for the Pistons, willing the Bucks to a win and clinching the East’s fifth seed. At the start of this season, a fifth-place finish was far from where the Bucks wanted to be. Yet, unlike last season, Antetokounmpo is healthy heading into the playoffs and is playing some of the best basketball of his career.
It’s a scary sight for any team playing the Bucks this postseason.
“He’s doing everything,” Rivers said of Antetokounmpo. “And that’s what’s so special about him.”
(Photo of Giannis Antetokounmpo: Brian Sevald / Getty Images)
