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Five notes after Warriors pull away in fourth to beat Bucks in Milwaukee

By

Jacob Hutchinson

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© Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

It’s always nice to see the Warriors play the best teams in the league with most of their core intact. As if anyone needed a reminder (no one does) of how good this team is, the Warriors beat the Milwaukee Bucks on the road for a 105-95 win. This happened while Kevin Durant played maybe his most forgettable game as a Warrior and with Giannis Antetokounmpo on the other side.

Here are five notes from tonight’s game:

Hey, hey, Dray is back on Monday

The word on the street is that Draymond Green will return for the Warriors on Monday night, when they return home after this five-game in nine-day road trip – the longest of the season – to take on the now Jimmy Butler-less Minnesota Timberwolves. Green hasn’t played since that 107-86 loss to the Houston Rockets on November 15, after he and Kevin Durant had that cataclysmic blowout following an overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on November 12.

When you look at the Warriors’ offensive efficiency with (114.8 points per game; 2nd, behind the Bucks) and without (123.6 points per game; 1st) Draymond, there’s actually an apparent increase in efficiency, although that doesn’t account for times when the offense stagnates and Green pulls the Warriors out of a rut. It also doesn’t include the fact that with Green, the Warriors have often been able to rest their starters late and so their point production drops off in the fourth quarter.

Still, there’s no doubting his impact defensively. Without Green, the Warriors are the worst defensive team in the league at 115.6 points per game allowed. With Green, the Warriors are the fourth-best defensive team in the league, allowing 104.5 points per game.

Delly returning to Cleveland

The biggest, baddest news coming in today was the blockbuster trade between the Milwaukee Bucks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Washington Wizards that sent Matthew Dellavedova back to the place that launched his career. Sarcasm aside, it obviously isn’t a Jimmy Butler-level trade, but three significant role players traded places in the Eastern Conference today.

The Bucks traded Matthew Dellavedova and John Henson to the Cavaliers along with a protected first- and second-round pick in order to acquire point guard George Hill. The Washington Wizards also joined the trade to move Jason Smith and a second-round pick to the Bucks and bring back Sam Dekker from the Cavaliers.

The trade doesn’t make sense without the context of Dellavedova’s breakout 2015 campaign with the Cavaliers in which he hounded Stephen Curry defensively in the Finals. He came back to the Cavaliers in the 2015-16 season to average 7.6 points, 4.4 assists and 2.1 rebounds per game. After that season, the Bucks front office lost its mind and gave Dellavedova an almost unbelievable four-year, $38.43 million contract.

Aside from his style of play, which can be most aptly described as that of a YMCA gym rat who will do whatever it takes to win a pickup game, Dellavedova might be remembered most for this iconic image, featuring him, the GOAT, and Michael Jordan:

“You’re in Milwaukee, off your feet”

Those were the words of Wisconsin native Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), on “Holocene,” and they fit aptly with Jonas Jerebko’s night. The “Swedish Larry Bird” – as some, like Danny Ainge have called him – was at his most resourceful, and found himself on his back a handful of times. He actually played a very Dellavedova-esque game, taking three charges, including one against Antetokounmpo, which cannot feel great.

But that’s what Jerebko does. He’s the absolute ideal teammate and perfect plug-and-play big man. He gets in scraps in the paint, genuinely fights to snag every rebound that’s in his general vicinity, hits his 3-point shots at an a solid clip (37.7 percent) and does the grunt work defensively like taking charges. Tonight, Jerebko had 12 points and 5 rebounds, which is quickly becoming a typical stat line for him.

Kevin Durant at his most underwhelming, but the bench had his back

Durant scored 11 points (3-of-14 shooting, 1-of-6 from deep) and turned the ball over 7 times tonight. He had 8 rebounds and 6 assists, but his carelessness with the ball and abysmal shooting were evident. In combination with the fact that Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson only had a combined 40 points (underwhelming only for them), it should have been a death sentence against a team like the Bucks on the road.

It wasn’t a death sentence thanks to a fantastic performance off the bench. Andre Iguodala and Jonas Jerebko combined for 27 points, Alfonzo McKinnie chipped in nine points, and Kevon Looney adding 8 points on 4-of-6 shooting, 7 rebounds and 4 assists.

Iguodala has had a down season, but he put up season-highs of 15 points (6-of-10 shooting) and 8 rebounds and spurred the Warriors’ stonewall defensive effort without Draymond Green and against the top-scoring offense in the NBA. After the game, Iguodala didn’t seem overly excited about his performance:

An ode to Giannis

I remember when Giannis Antetokounmpo came into the league as a wiry 19-year-old from Greece. He was as raw a prospect as there has maybe ever been and much of the talk surrounding him was about the fact that he was 6’9″ with a wingspan about as long as the neck of a giraffe, and he was still growing.

Most of the entertainment in watching him was the occasional soul-reaping dunk or block that he sent 15 rows deep. The rest of the entertainment came from the butchered pronunciation of his last name (which is actually not that tough to pronounce, but hey, that’s never stopped anyone) by every commentator that was seeing the “Greek Freak” for the first time.

In that first season, Antetokounmpo flew largely under the radar. It seemed unclear what his best position was (when basketball pundits were struggling to comprehend the concept of position-less or position-fluid basketball, and Giannis wasn’t the Giannis of today) and whether he’d come close to fulfilling his massive ceiling. He couldn’t shoot very well and desperately needed to put on weight. He only averaged 6.8 points (on 41.4 percent shooting), 4.4 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game along with 0.8 steals and blocks per game in his rookie year.

But even in that rookie year, he played basketball with a level of passion and boundless energy that almost no one in the NBA could match then, let alone now. Every single year, Antetokounmpo has taken massive strides in his development, like the 19-year-old you draft in NBA 2K with 99 potential who improves by four or five overall points each year. Pretty soon, that raw player becomes one of the league’s best – and since you can simulate seasons, it all goes by pretty quick.

But Antetokounmpo’s development was not like an autopilot 2K simulation. He had to grind for it. And grind he did.

Yesterday, Antetokounmpo celebrated his 24th birthday. If that doesn’t scare you, it should. Barring injuries, he’s going to be one of the top five (and that’s a conservative guess) players in the league for the next decade.

He’s lightyears beyond that first season of 6.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game on 44 percent shooting. Antetokounmpo is now a 6’11” point forward MVP candidate averaging 27 points on a comically-efficient 57.5 percent shooting (and 65 percent from two-point range). Those percentages are correct, somehow, and his 57.5 percent shooting is 13th-best in the league.

That’s before mentioning his 12.9 rebounds (5th in the league), 6 assists (19th), 1.5 steals (t-18th) and 1.3 blocks (t-19th) per game, and the fact that he still lacks a ton of polish in his game.

He runs a fast break and drives down the lane with the force of one of those 200-mph Japanese bullet trains. He rebounds everything and completes passes that have no business reaching their intended target. He plays defense like his life depends on it and harasses opposing players with his 7’3″ wingspan. He brings the “how in the world do you stop this?” frustration that almost reminds you of Shaquille O’Neal’s dominance, albeit with a much different play style.

This season, he’s put up 16 double-doubles and led the Bucks (16-7) to a second-seeded start to the season. On Saturday night, he dropped 22 points (8-of-13 shooting), had 15 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks while somehow looking frustrated by the Warriors’ defense. He also did this, which really shouldn’t be possible:

He’s led the Bucks to this record with Khris Middleton, Malcolm Brogdon, Pat Connaughton, Brook Lopez and Eric Bledsoe, the latter two who, despite being 30 and 29, are far from their peaks (although Lopez has developed a fairly consistent 3-point shot). Last year, he didn’t have Lopez, Connaughton, or a tenured head coach and still nearly led a near playoff series win over the Boston Celtics (who were injured, but still nearly ran through the East).

At this point, you’re probably sick of reading about Antetokounmpo, and his surrounding cast is better than most. But it’s worth reminding that he has nowhere near what the Warriors, Rockets, Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Philadelphia 76ers and a host of other teams have. He has a decent group of complementary players, but besides Middleton, there’s not one other potential All-Star.

If the Bucks can bring in another top-30 player to pair alongside Antetokounmpo and Middleton (and literally any other serviceable players they can find) that suddenly becomes a really tough equation for any coach to try and stop. Even without that theoretical player, Antetokounmpo is already the most uniquely difficult player to stop in the league.

It wouldn’t be fair to write about Giannis without including his highlights, so here’s his top 10 dunks as ranked by the NBA’s Twitter account (if you scroll up, they rank the top 34):

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