Giannis Antetokounmpo returns to the lineup and asserts his gravity for the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday.
CHICAGO – Those 48 minutes Milwaukee played against the Bulls at United Center Saturday, there was the game it might have been and then there was the game it became, a desperately needed 112-103 victory that stopped the Bucks’ bleeding for the moment.
In a parallel universe, maybe Giannis Antetokounmpo nurses his sore right calf for another night or two and a deep, feisty Chicago team has its way with an opponent that had dropped six of its last eight. But in reality on a tough night, with both teams laboring in the second of back-to-back games, Antetokounmpo did return and instantly reminded 20,934 fans and the NBA just who he is and why.
“Obviously we’ve been struggling the last month without Giannis,” teammate Bobby Portis said. “People kind of take it for granted that he’ a Top 75 player, that he’s a top three or top five player in the world right now. So we add him back to the team, the dynamic of our team changes immediately.
“Worked wonders for us tonight, right, having him back?”
Ya think? The Bucks arrived dragging a 12-19 record, tied for their worst mark after 31 games of the Antetokounmpo era. The primary reason was simple: He had missed 14 of those games, several with a sore groin and then eight more since straining his right calf Dec. 3 against Detroit.
With him, they had gone 9-8, bumpy enough as they navigated other injuries and assorted cast and role changes. Without him, a fuggedabouddem 3-11.
But he showed up Saturday as “questionable” on the team’s injury report, his medical protocols met, his on-court work leading up to his return complete. There Antetokounmpo was in the pregame minutes, testing his mobility and lift via various lay-up line moves.
Not long after, he made it official, swatting Matas Buzelis’ layup attempt just 23 seconds into the game. By the end of the quarter he had seven points and then, in the second, he rained down a flurry of four consecutive dunks during a 12-2 run that put the Bucks up 48-33.
Antetokounmpo did his damage in shifts, coach Doc Rivers and his staff doing the heavy math to spend his 28 restricted minutes to the greatest possible effect.
“We wanted to save minutes in the first half so we could have him three rotations in the second half,” Rivers said. “He obviously hated that. The second time we took him out I thought he was going to go nuts. We did it, we got through it.”
Rivers said Milwaukee has time to dig out and push upward in the East.
“I think we’re still in the playoffs or the play-in, and we haven’t played worth a crap yet,” the coach said. “We have a chance to make a run here. But it’s not going to happen overnight. And we need more than just Giannis coming back. We all have to play better, coach better, run better, rebound better.”
The Bucks’ star finished with 29 points in less than 25 minutes, making 10 of 15 shots and eight of his 10 free throws. He was a plus-13, which means Chicago outscored Milwaukee by four in the 23 minutes Antetokounmpo sat.
But the difference he made in his team went well beyond the stats sheet. A spring in the other Bucks’ step, chatter that was a little louder than it might have been had Antetokounmpo simply lurked in the bench in sweats, a swagger up and down the roster.
“All of the above,” Rivers said. “Confidence. When a team is making a run and you have him on the floor, you feel like you’re going to get a bucket. Or get a good shot. Where, when you don’t … you can go on those droughts.”
Putting up points at times had looked back-breaking for Milwaukee during their leader’s absence. Rivers also mentioned Antetokounmpo’s defense, his rim protection, his rebounding.
“But confidence,” he stressed again. “Listen, when Jordan didn’t play, I don’t think the Bulls had the same confidence as when he did. Same thing as Kobe – you can just go down the list. These guys, they bring confidence to everybody.”
Ryan Rollins, who scored 20 for the Bucks, hit big shots late thanks to Antetokounmpo’s “gravity” – the double-teams he draws as a scoring threat, opening up Rollins, A.J. Green and others.
“Everybody knows what he does,” Rollins said. “Just having that force, that identity, that person on the way back, it’s great for sure.”
No one was happier than Antetokounmpo, who punctuated his return with a windmill dunk with 1.9 seconds left. Uh oh: Chicago had conceded, expecting the Greek Freak to dribble out the clock. At the horn, Nikola Vučević and Coby White confronted him, then Portis upped the temperature by pushily intervening.
Was it a problem that Antetokounmpo had breached some basketball decourtum, violating old-school unwritten rules? Portis scoffed.
“There’s no such thing as the old book. It’s a new era,” the veteran Bucks forward said. “When they put the in-season tournament in, people are supposed to score [to the end] then. What’s the difference?
“This ain’t 1990, bro. It’s 2025. ’26 in a minute.”
There’s a new year ringing in, and Milwaukee has its guy back.
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.