NBA Finals Recap: Giannis Goes Beast Mode
Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo reacts while holding the NBA Championship trophy, left, and Most Valuable Player trophy after defeating the Phoenix Suns in Game 6 of basketball's NBA Finals in Milwaukee, Tuesday, July 20, 2021. The Bucks won 105-98. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
The NBA season has come to an end and a new champion has been crowned. The Milwaukee Bucks are your 2020-2021 NBA champions, and they accomplished this feat by coming back from their second 2-0 deficit in this year's playoffs. Giannis Antetokounmpo was the story of course, averaging 35 points on 62% shooting, 13 rebounds, five assists, a steal, and two blocks per game in the Finals. His defense was unbelievable, coming up with great plays and clutch plays left and right.
Giannis saved his best performance for last dropping a 50-piece mcnugget on 64% shooting with 14 rebounds, five blocks, and shooting 90% from the free throw line in Game 6, which is amazing for him. Giannis showed up when it mattered most, and for that reason people should have a lot of respect for this Bucks team and for the Greek Freak himself. As of this moment, Giannis is a top 3 player in the league and he’s certainly knocking on the door for the number one spot. Antetokounmpo has come a long way from his rookie year to establish himself as one of the best and he deserves enormous credit for that in addition to being one of the most likable players in the league. It wasn’t just Giannis that deserves credit though. There were a few players on his team that deserve credit as well and of course this wouldn’t be a finals recap without mentioning the Suns. Without further adieu:
Khris Middleton Showed Up
I’m sure most of you saw the “Middleton either plays like Michael Jordan or Kyle Kuzma” comments on social media and thought it was hilarious (I certainly thought it was). There is a lot of truth to it considering Middleton’s inconsistency throughout the playoffs. However, when it mattered most he showed up. In Game 5 he finished with 29 points on 52% shooting, and in Game 6 he had 17 points on 46% shooting. Not as good obviously, but he hit the clutch shot to give the Bucks separation when it mattered the most.
It’s clear that when Middleton is playing well, he can be a Robin for a lot of teams in the league. Middleton deserves a ton of credit, but there’s another player on the Bucks who deserves some kudos as well.
The Jrue Holiday Trade was a Clear W for the Bucks
The Jrue Holiday trade the Bucks made yielded a lot of skepticism. Not because of Holiday, but because everyone knew he was a good player. However, the Bucks gave up two future first-round picks, two pick swaps, their 24th overall pick in 2020, George Hill, and Eric Bledsoe to bring in their new tertiary star. That’s a lot of capital and that’s also with Holiday signing an $134 million dollar extension in April. It’s clear now that the trade was a massive success. His stats aren’t exactly eye popping except for having nine assists per game and two steals, but similar to Middleton, he made the clutch plays when it mattered most and played tremendous defense.
I don’t think it’s debatable that if the Bucks had Bledsoe instead of Holiday, they don’t win this championship; this trade was a massive win for the Bucks.
Chris Paul Hurt is Legacy with this finals
I don’t want to be too critical of Paul here because he played well overall in the Finals averaging 22 points and 9 assists on 55% shooting (52% from three). However he had some really costly plays in crunch time that I think cost his team from winning some of the games . In Game 4, he had a costly turnover where he fell down at a crucial point in the game. In Game 5, he had the boneheaded foul on the alley oop to Giannis. Before Game 6, he said this really stupid comment
Whether that had an impact on Giannis playing the way he did we’ll probably never know, but for Giannis to all of a sudden shoot 90% from the free throw line, you have to think that he was slighted by that comment. The best players take anything they can get to use as motivation and I would imagine that’s what Giannis did here. CP3 played well, but his crunch time performance and his comment on Giannis’ free throw shooting worked against the Suns in the series.
Devin Booker Needs to Trust his Teammates
Everyone knows how great Devin Booker is offensively. Everyone compares his play style to Kobe Bryant, which I would say is justified. He averaged 28 points per game in the finals on 46% shooting, which isn’t bad by any stretch. The problem was he only averaged four assists per game. In both of the Suns wins, Booker had six assists in each game. In the four losses, he combined for 12 assists, which was his total for the two wins combined. He had a pretty solid supporting cast around him. There isn’t much of an excuse to be a ball hog if you have players like Chris Paul and Mikal Bridges around you. This is something Booker needs to work on. If he added passing to his repertoire, he would be almost unstoppable.
Monty Williams Should Get no Blame for the Finals Loss
Monty Williams doesn’t deserve any blame for the Finals Loss. The fact that in his second year as the coach the team reached the Finals is remarkable. It’s obvious how much the players love and respect him, which I think is another reason they made it as far as they did. When you believe in your coach and the coach believes in his team, that creates a great environment and culture around the organization. I see no reason why free agents wouldn’t want to play for the Suns right now. This team will be in contention for a long time if the core group of young talent stays together; this loss will only fuel them to be better.
Thankfully we only have to wait three months until the season starts again, but we’ll have a lot of basketball to talk about when free agency starts and Team USA participates in the Olympics beginning July 23. To end this recap, here is Pat Connaughton and Bobby Portis laughing about champagne.