INDIANAPOLIS — After committing a turnover on a drive, Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo tried to make something happen as Indiana Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard slowed down to get his team set up for one final offensive attack in the first half. Antetokounmpo poked the ball away from Nembhard briefly and a scramble ensued, but the Pacers eventually came up with the ball.
The scramble, however, had the Bucks mismatched defensively and left Antetokounmpo on Nembhard with the shot clock winding down. As Antetokounmpo stared him down from inside the 3-point line, Nembhard sized up the Defensive Player of the Year from beyond 30 feet. On Nembhard’s first dribble forward, Antetokounmpo took a step back, so the Pacers’ shooting guard did the same thing and rose for a 30-foot triple.
As Nembhard’s 3 rattled through the rim, the Gainbridge Fieldhouse crowd erupted as Indiana took a 24-point lead with just under 10 seconds remaining in the first half.
Andrew Nembhard from DEEP to end the half 🤑 pic.twitter.com/4Z5sjx4WVR
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) April 19, 2025
The Bucks raced the ball up the floor and Antetokounmpo tried a fadeaway jumper before the first half horn sounded, but it missed just long off the back of the rim. The sequence — with Antetokounmpo diving on the floor desperately trying to make something happen, but ultimately watching the Pacers add to their lead — was analogous to the entire game.
Antetokounmpo put together a massive effort with 36 points and 12 rebounds in 38 minutes, but it was not enough as his teammates were unable to match the roster-wide contributions of the Pacers in Indiana’s 117-98 Game 1 victory Saturday afternoon. The Bucks were able to cut the Pacers’ lead to 12 in the fourth quarter through the use of a lineup featuring Antetokounmpo with four bench players, but it was too late because of how poorly the Bucks played in the first two quarters.
While Milwaukee gave up 26 points in the paint and allowed the Pacers to shoot 61 percent in the first half, Doc Rivers pointed to the team’s offensive execution as the main reason for his team’s poor Game 1 performance.
“I thought our offense was awful,” Rivers said. “We just didn’t play the way we played during this stretch (to close the season) offensively. And I thought we had a lot of missed shots, which allowed them to have a lot of breakouts. We had our mistakes defensively too — they were shooting 60 percent — but I thought, as your defense is connected to your offense, your offense is connected to your defense, and we’re not gonna beat them scoring 98 points.
“We’re not going to beat them when we have 15 assists and 10 turnovers. We’re just not. So we got to get back to our spacing, trusting, playing downhill, moving the ball. If we do that, we’ll go to the line more, we will make more baskets. We’ll be able to set our defense up, and I think we’ll be better.”
As Rivers mentioned, the Bucks recorded only 15 assists for the entire game. The Bucks recorded their fourth assist of the game with 5:46 left in the first quarter on a pass from Taurean Prince to a cutting Antetokounmpo to cut the Pacers’ lead to just one at 19-18. The Bucks didn’t record an assist in the rest of the first quarter, and the Pacers outscored the Bucks, 48-25, in the final 18 minutes of the first half.
The Bucks don’t want to get into a track meet with the Pacers. That would not end well for them, but they can be better offensively and that would require more pace — not in transition, but rather on half-court possessions — when the starting lineup is together on the floor.
To close the season without Damian Lillard, the Bucks have built their entire offense around Antetokounmpo and the nine-time All-Star is incredible enough to make that work, but he and his teammates have to show far greater urgency to get into possessions and create advantages.
Look at this first-quarter possession:
Nembhard is the Pacers’ best on-ball defender and an elite screen navigator. With Aaron Nesmith covering Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez waiting in the paint, Ryan Rollins’ drive was doomed before it even started, but that never seemed to be the action the Bucks were looking to exploit on this possession. The whole goal of this possession seemed to be getting Antetokounmpo a look in the post with the undersized Nesmith guarding him.
The Bucks used over half of the shot clock before trying to get to that look. When they did, Kyle Kuzma swung a pass to Rollins for a drive that Nembhard turned away, which resulted in a pull-up jumper for Rollins at the free-throw line.
“I think we can do a better job just spacing the floor better and being more decisive when we get the ball,” Antetokounmpo said. “Try to attack, try to get in the paint, try to create something either for yourself or for your teammate.”
The biggest problems in this regard Saturday afternoon came from the Bucks’ starting lineup. In 294 regular-season possessions, per NBA.com, the lineup of Antetokounmpo, Rollins, Prince, Kuzma and Lopez scored 130.1 points per 100 possessions (100th percentile leaguewide, per Cleaning the Glass). In 17 minutes in Game 1, that five-man unit scored only 91.9 points per 100 possessions.
This second-quarter possession helps illustrate the unit’s struggles:
Just like the first-quarter possession, the first action in this possession starts with 18 seconds on the shot clock. And just like that first-quarter possession, the first few parts of this possession are just decoys to get to something that will bend the defense: a post-up for Antetokounmpo.
But the decoy actions have left the Bucks in positions that aren’t that helpful for Antetokounmpo.
Much of the appeal of having Lopez share the floor with Antetokounmpo comes from his ability to knock down 3-pointers from 30 feet from the basket. Instead, Lopez and his defender — Myles Turner, the Pacers’ best rim protector — are occupying the dunker, and Kuzma — a player teams have largely ignored behind the 3-point line — is setting up on the opposite wing.
To try to give Antetokounmpo another option, Kuzma cut into the paint, but that action just ran him into Turner and clogged the floor. In the end, Rollins got the ball and tried to make a play with the shot clock running down, but that turned into a blocked shot that fueled a Pacers’ fast break for a 3.
As the Pacers’ lead increased to close the half, the Bucks’ will to work their offensive actions for great shots deteriorated. Instead of working through multiple actions and running quality offense, players tried to take it upon themselves to make something happen early in possessions and took quick shots off one or two passes.
First, it was Kuzma.
Then, it was Rollins.
And on the second-to-last possession of the first half, it was Antetokounmpo trying to execute a two-for-one to end the half.
The starting lineup got back together on the floor with a 49-36 deficit and 5:25 remaining in the second quarter. To close the half, the Bucks managed just 7 points and watched the Pacers’ lead balloon to 24.
“Our offense wasn’t good,” Antetokounmpo said. “Shots did not fall. It felt like it was Game 1, guys get like anxious. They kind of inch in towards the ball because they want the ball. They want to make a play. They want to get themselves involved in the game, and I don’t think it’s from bad ego.
“I feel like everybody’s trying to do the right thing. Everyone has the right intentions, but we just gotta be better, just having patience and just trusting. Trusting one another, trusting that the ball is going to find us, trusting that we’re going to make plays.”
In the second half, the Bucks were able to get back into the game when playing Antetokounmpo with Kevin Porter Jr. (12 points, five assists), AJ Green (15 points), Gary Trent (14 points) and Bobby Portis. That unit brought the Bucks back into the game, but ultimately those four players started to miss shots at the end of the game as they ended up playing 17 consecutive minutes from the middle of the third quarter until Rivers decided to call on his reserves to finish the game with a minute remaining.
However, when asked if that meant Game 1’s starting lineup may not be viable in this series, Rivers shut down the notion and suggested that the starters need to be more disciplined and execute better offensively.
“We’ve done it,” Rivers said. “We’re a better offensive unit than that, but we have to be that though. The only way that lineup can play well offensively — they need more ball movement than the other one. The other lineup, we have guys that can go downhill and create plays. The first lineup, we have to move the ball to get shots for everybody else.”
It remains unclear if Lillard will be able to get back for Game 2. If he doesn’t and Rivers sticks with that unit, it will have to be far better than it was to open the series Saturday.
(Photo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Myles Turner: Trevor Ruszkowski / Imagn Images)