It’s a maxim as old as the game itself, whether on an asphalt pickup court or at the NBA Finals — whenever a stolen basketball is involved, there’s going to be bad blood.
As the Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers prepare to open their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series on Saturday, juicy storylines and contentious history abound. After a December 2023 home win over Indiana, Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo was incensed when the game ball from his career-best and franchise-record 64-point performance mysteriously disappeared. After briefly heading toward the locker room, Antetokounmpo quickly did a 180, returning to the court to confront several Pacers coaches and their star point guard, Tyrese Haliburton. Meanwhile, multiple Bucks approached the Indiana locker room looking for the basketball … and possibly a bit of trouble.
Afterward, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle admitted that his team took the ball in order to give it to two-way center Oscar Tshiebwe, who had logged his first NBA point. The explanation, understandably, was not met with enthusiasm by the Bucks contingent.
Things had already been testy between the two teams. Just a week prior, Haliburton had mimicked Bucks point guard Damian Lillard’s signature “Dame Time” celebration after hitting a game-sealing 3-pointer in the In-Season Tournament semifinal. And then came last year’s playoff matchup, which the Pacers won with Antetokounmpo watching all six games from the sideline due to a strained calf.
All this to say, this postseason’s rematch should be more than popcorn-worthy.
Despite the recent fireworks between the two teams, however, Antetokounmpo — healthy for his first playoff game in two years — isn’t going to let any of that drama cloud his vision.
“What happened in the past is in the past. I’m not going to use that as fire to motivate myself this year,” Antetokounmpo told CBS Sports. “They say great players have to have a short memory, and you know, that’s what we’re gonna do.”
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While Antetokounmpo will be on the floor to start the series, Lillard won’t. Though he’s reportedly cleared the blood clot in his calf that’s kept him off the floor since late March, he will miss at least Game 1 as he ramps up his activity. It’s a devastating blow to the Bucks offense as Lillard and Antetokounmpo combined to average over 55 points per game during the regular season, the most of any teammate pairing in the NBA.
Lillard also gives the Bucks a historically clutch offensive performer to put next to Antetokounmpo at the end of games. Nobody else on the roster carries that kind of crunch-time gravitas.
“Not having Dame — he’s one of the, I think, most clutch players of all time,” Antetokounmpo said. “He thrives in big games like this. If they could, I don’t think anybody in the NBA would not want to have Damian Lillard on their team in this situation. But, gotta keep on looking forward and you just gotta go out there to compete. You just gotta go out there and give your heart to the game and leave everything on the floor.”
One player tasked with picking up the offensive slack is Kyle Kuzma, whom the Bucks acquired before the trade deadline in exchange for longtime Milwaukee mainstay Khris Middleton. While Antetokounmpo acknowledged it will be “kind of different and weird” to play postseason games without Middleton, he also praised the commitment to winning he’s seen from Kuzma, who won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020.
But no matter how well Kuzma plays and/or how quickly Lillard is able to return — if at all — the Bucks could simply be outmanned by a healthy Pacers team that went 20-9 after the All-Star break. Even if they’re able to get past Indiana, they’ll likely have the 64-win Cleveland Cavaliers waiting for them in the next round. That being said, any team with Antetokounmpo has a puncher’s chance against any opponent.
“My hunger for a championship. That’s it. My hunger for the championship,” Antetokounmpo said when asked what gives him belief that the Bucks can return to the game’s highest level. “I really believe that I help people that are around me and I’m able to elevate them and push them the same way I push myself. And as long as we are healthy, as long as I’m healthy, there’s always a chance.”
Despite his self-confidence, the 30-year-old soon-to-be nine-time All-NBA selection is well aware of how treacherous the Bucks’ path to another title — Antetokounmpo was Finals MVP in the franchise’s second championship victory in 2021 — has become due to the extreme talent swimming around NBA waters. Case in point, Antetokounmpo averaged 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists this season on 60% field goal shooting — numbers no NBA player has ever achieved — and he’s been relegated to an afterthought in the MVP conversation. Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić is the first center to ever average a triple-double for a full season, and he may not win either due to the historic year Shai Gilgeous-Alexander put up for Oklahoma City.
“I really believe if the last three to four years, maybe five years of my career that were from 2020 until 2025, and they were, like, from 2010 to 2015, I think I would have won five straight MVPs,” Antetokounmpo told CBS Sports. “But the thing is that talent right now is at an all-time high. What’s going on in the league right now, it’s incredible.”
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Knowing that even a monumental postseason effort can be snuffed out by an opponent’s undeniable talent has helped provide perspective for Antetokounmpo, who announced in December that he and his wife, Mariah, are expecting their fourth child. In a sports landscape where every postseason failure is an indictment on a player’s legacy (Antetokounmpo generated countless hours of talking-head fodder with a postgame comment on the subject following the top-seeded Bucks’ 2023 playoff loss to the No. 8 Miami Heat), he said he takes positives out of losing just as much as winning.
“When I play games like this, it’s always a win-win situation,” Antetokounmpo told CBS Sports. “If I win, it’s great. I love it. Let’s do it again. If we don’t win, go back to the cave, lock ourselves in, focus, meditate, improve our skill set, improve our diet, improve everything about our lifestyle, and come back and finish the mission.”
It’s the perspective of a man who’s gone from humble beginnings in Greece to a two-time MVP, an NBA champion, the face of a franchise and the patriarch of a family. So when Castrol offered to make him its Brand Ambassador, highlighting that incredible path and the hard work it required, Antetokounmpo — who is extremely protective of what little free time he receives — couldn’t refuse. You may have already seen his commercial, in which Antetokounmpo travels across land, sea, air and space as a metaphor for his life’s journey, during the postseason.
“They told me that this is about moving forward, about seeking growth and always trying to be the best version of yourself,” Antetokounmpo told CBS Sports in an interview organized by Castrol. “And I said, yeah, that’s something that I try to do. That’s something that I preach to my family, preach to my brothers and my kids every day. … I’ll be very honest with you, for me to leave my couch and my kids — they don’t see me often because of what I do — it’s got to be for the right reason.”
Odds are, the Bucks won’t win the title this year. They may not even make it out of what should be a heated first-round series against the budding rival Pacers. An early exit would inevitably lead to the resurfacing of questions about Antetokounmpo’s future in Milwaukee, with two more guaranteed seasons on the books before a player option in 2027-28. No matter what happens, though, you can be sure that Antetokounmpo — intent on becoming one of the game’s all-time greats — will come back even hungrier and more determined when training camp rolls around in the fall.
“Every year since I’ve been in the league, I’ve come back and I’ve been a better player,” Antetokounmpo told CBS Sports. “I go back, sharpen my tools and come right back. There’s going to be a day when my legs won’t be able to keep up with my mind, and maybe my energy might not be able to keep up, but we’re not there yet. I have, I think, a few years of prime ahead of me, and no matter what the outcome is, I’m going to come back and be better, and hopefully that can put me in a better position to win next time.”
