Getty Image / Patrick McDermott
All season long, the Milwaukee Bucks have been one of the biggest favorites to win the NBA title, if not the biggest favorite altogether. After all, the 2020-2021 NBA champions feature probably the league’s best player in Giannis Antetokounmpo and an elite supporting cast. Jrue Holiday was recently voted by his peers in an anonymous survey the most underrated player in the league, Khris Middleton is a perennial all-star when healthy, and Brook Lopez is playing maybe the best basketball of his career at 35-years-old. Couple those guys with great role players like Bobby Portis, Pat Connaughton, Joe Ingles, and Grayson Allen, and that’s the formula of a team that had the NBA’s best record this year at 58-24.
The Bucks were supposed to roll through the 8th-seeded Miami Heat in the first round, but that all changed when Giannis Antetokounmpo went down with a back injury in game one.
This is quite a hard fall.
Bucks’ superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo (lower back contusion) will not return to Game 1 of Bucks-Heat, per @ShamsCharania.
Giannis sustained the injury on this collision with Kevin Love in the 1st quarter 🤕pic.twitter.com/ep8RFTvVfD
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) April 16, 2023
The Heat went on to steal game one in Milwaukee, as Giannis Antetokoumpo did not return to the game, and was ruled out for game 2. But, the Bucks shot the lights out in game 2, and headed to Miami with the series tied and hopes that Giannis would be able to join them for a pivotal game 3.
But, that wasn’t to be.
Bucks have ruled out Giannis Antetokounmpo (back) for Game 3 vs. Heat tonight.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 22, 2023
And, behind great shooting from Jimmy Butler and Duncan Robinson, the Heat won game 3, 121-99. Miami retained home court advantage in the series, as the Bucks will need to steal a game on the road to win the series.
Of course, this Bucks team is certainly good enough to do that. But, that’s when one factors in Giannis Antetokounmpo being in the lineup. But, the question is, when will he return, and if/when he does, how effective he will be? They certainly will need him to be pretty effective if they want to survive this series.
Giannis NEEDS to come back for Game 4 pic.twitter.com/Kw8JyOgUmH
— NBA Retweet (@RTNBA) April 23, 2023
I assume Giannis either has the worst back injury of all time or y’all really thought you could do this without him again… he needs to be back game 4 before we lose this series and this becomes the biggest disappointment of a season in Bucks franchise history
— 🅱️rock (@Brock_rice99) April 23, 2023
If Giannis isn't healthy for game 4 and beyond then yeah lol https://t.co/S81ZDrgQqh
— Heat_Flow (@HeatFlow3) April 23, 2023
Of course this series is far from over, but there’s no denying the Bucks are in trouble – especially if Giannis isn’t 100% for Game 4
— Brett Usher (@UsherNBA) April 23, 2023
Giannis Antetokounmpo will have until Monday at 7:30 to rest up and play a crucial game 4 in Miami with the Bucks down 2-1 in the series.