Giannis Outplayed Joel Embiid and Showed Him Who Runs the Eastern Conference

Joel Embiid did everything he could to stop the Milwaukee Bucks last night. He played a fantastic game, managed to provoke Eric Bledsoe who got tossed, and tried to do his best to disturb the visitors with his constant trash talking, flopping and other sorts of irritating behavior.

On the other side, Giannis Antetokounmpo just did his job and kept quiet throughout most of the time. And dominated Embiid.

The MVP frontrunner scored 45 points against the 76ers in Philly last night, added 13 rebounds to that, 6 assists and 5 blocks, shooting 16 of 21 from the line.

Now, four of those blocks were on Embiid, some of them pretty nasty. In those moments the Process, who is often very vocal, was silent.

“He’s a helluva player,” he said. “You know every time you go against him it’s a challenge. He’s really good.”

And just to tell you, the Cameroonian big fella posted a triple-double in this one, with 34 points, 13 rebounds, and assists each and still, he wasn’t anywhere near the spotlights.

It was all about Giannis last night.

His Bucks won because of a magical last quarter in which they scored 46 points, and came back after trailing four at the end of the third. Antetokounmpo scored 11 points in that sequence and had 5 assists, carrying his team to the 59th win of the season.

After this one, Milwaukee officially clinched the first seed in the Eastern Conference.

“I was just trying to make plays and try to find the opportunity to attack,” Antetokounmpo said after the match.

According to his words, he wanted to set the example for his teammates, to stay confident although they lost one of their best players. He explained that he couldn’t afford himself to lose focus; otherwise, the whole crew would.

“The most important thing is that your teammates see that you’re confident, Giannis said. “Even when Bledsoe, one of our star players, and one of our most important pieces, is out, they don’t see you lose your composure and just give up and they see you’re confident, everybody gets confidence.”

And it was like that, the guys perfectly followed his lead, with each of them doing their job impeccably. Khris Middleton with 22 points and George Hill with 20 jumped in from time to time to replace Giannis. Brook Lopes was stretching the defense and was doing the dirty work with Pat Connaughton. The same goes for Sterling Brown.

All in all, what Giannis wanted gave results in the end.

That is something George Hill spoke about after the game, saying that his younger teammate knows what kind of influence he has on his environment.

“He’s one of the best in the league for a reason,” Hill said. “He knows that, and he knows he’s going to draw crowds and he has a good team behind him, and to go with him.”

The Milwaukee Bucks are waiting to see their opponent in the first round. At the moment, four teams are in the combination, the Pistons, Nets, Magic, and Heat. But regardless of the name, they will be the favorites in that matchup.

The city of Milwaukee has waited for a long time to see Bucks win one series in the playoffs. To be precise, they are waiting since 2001, when the 76ers beat them in the Conference finals after 7 games.

After that, the franchise appeared in the postseason 7 times and lost on each occasion.

It is something which gives additional motivation for this team.

“Yeah, for sure it motivates us,” Antetokounmpo told. “We’re Milwaukee. We haven’t been out of the first round since 2001.”

Budenholzer’s guys are ready to roll. They have three more games to go, and need one win to clinch the No.1 place in the league. Bucks play with the Nets on Saturday, after that with Atlanta, and finally with OKC on Monday. All events are at Fiserv Forum.