After a shocking Game 1 loss to the Atlanta Hawks, the Milwaukee Bucks got off to a hot start in Game 2 and never looked back, leading by 32 at halftime in a 125-91 blowout win to even the series.
Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jrue Holiday led the way for the Bucks, combining for 47 points in the victory. Holiday and Brook Lopez were dominant on the defensive end as well, stifling the Hawks with on-the-ball pressure and rim protection. Trae Young led Atlanta in scoring with 15 points but committed nine turnovers and failed to get his team going offensively.
Have the Bucks found a defensive solution for Young? Can the Hawks do anything with Giannis in the restricted area? Here are four things we gleaned from Game 2.
Not all shimmies and giggles
The shocking thing about Trae Young's instant-classic shimmy in Game 1 wasn't that the Hawks' showy star had the gall to bust it out while putting up a historic stat line in a competitive conference finals game. It was that the Bucks player defending Young was crossed over so spectacularly that the move made him a spectator.
That kind of defensive humiliation -- on one play or an entire night -- just doesn't happen to Holiday.
And it apparently doesn't happen without harsh payback, which the first-team All-Defensive selection certainly delivered in Game 2.
Young was as bad in Friday's loss as he was breathtaking during his 48-point, 11-assist masterpiece in the series opener. He finished with more turnovers (nine) than buckets made (six) while being held to 15 points and three assists in the blowout.
Holiday had a heck of a lot to do with Young's horrifically off night. According to ESPN Stats & Information research, Young was 3-of-11 with six turnovers when Holiday was his primary defender during Game 2.
Don't count on Young's swagger being shaken by one awful performance against one of the league's best perimeter defenders. His confidence isn't conditional, as evidenced by the 29-foot dagger he hit in Game 7 against the top-seeded 76ers after missing 18 of his previous 22 shots.
Holiday, however, sent Young a message with his response to the young star's Game 1 show: The East finals won't be all shimmies and giggles.
-- Tim MacMahon
The Greek spin cycle
Not since video-game controllers added the circle button has there been as big a moment for the spin move as Antetokounmpo's first half.
Facing Hawks defenders waiting for him near the basket, Antetokounmpo decided neither to go through them nor shoot over them but instead to spin around them, finishing gracefully in the process. The strategy neutralized Atlanta's attempts to build a wall around the rim against Antetokounmpo, who made nine of his 10 attempts in the restricted area as Milwaukee shot 23-of-26 as a team.
Antetokounmpo's first spin move was his most impressive. Matched up against Solomon Hill four minutes into the game, Antetokounmpo spun back-middle and encountered Hawks big man Clint Capela protecting the rim. Instead of risking a blocked dunk, Antetokounmpo turned the ball over in his same hand and finished on the other side of the basket -- his long-limbed version of Michael Jordan's "spectacular move" switching hands on a layup in the 1991 NBA Finals.
In the second quarter, Antetokounmpo spun the other direction toward the baseline while driving against Danilo Gallinari, creating a tight angle for him to finish with his arm fully extended. He then did a full pirouette against Capela, first spinning middle before continuing to his left for a reverse finish.
If Giannis can spin his way to the rim on a regular basis, there might not be any stopping the two-time MVP in this playoff run.
-- Kevin Pelton
Don't make the Bucks choose
On a broken Hawks possession to start the second half, Trae Young went to his most reliable escape hatch -- a high screen-and-roll with his center, Capela. No young guard in the league is more dangerous moving downhill against a backpedaling big man, and Young exacted plenty of damage against Lopez in Game 1.
But in the opening minute of the third quarter of Game 2, Lopez stayed within arms reach as Young drove with his left. With the shot clock winding down, Lopez walled off the edge of the paint and forced Young into the left corner. Hands high and feet happy, Lopez didn't relent until Atlanta was whistled for a 24-second violation.
This was a welcome sight after Young shredded the Bucks' drop coverage in Game 1. Lopez spent most of that Bucks loss in retreat, powerless against Young's diet of floaters and lob passes to Capela and forward John Collins.
In a league in which going small is now as much a norm as a novelty, Lopez is the portrait of the beleaguered big man. He is both one of Milwaukee's most skilled defenders and, in this series, its most vulnerable. Keep him on the floor, and the Bucks have prime rim protection -- but also someone Young can pick on in pick-and-roll matchups. Bench him for a small-ball unit with Antetokounmpo at the 5, and the Bucks get maximum flexibility defensively but leave themselves exposed on the glass, as they did in Game 1.
In Game 2, Lopez played a step or two higher when containing Young off those high screens, with the rest of the defense helping Lopez push Young from the middle of the floor.
According to Second Spectrum, the Hawks averaged 0.47 points per direct pick when Young was the ball handler and Lopez was on the court. In Game 1, that efficiency was 1.40.
Time and again Friday night, Young found himself cordoned off from the lane by Milwaukee's long defenders. In doing so, the Bucks were able to avert having to make that difficult choice between size and flexibility.
-- Kevin Arnovitz
Not in Giannis' head yet
Antetokounmpo hit 6 of 8 free throws in Game 1 of the series, including two high-pressure makes with five seconds left. But when the Last Two Minute Report for Game 1 came out on Friday, it said Antetokounmpo had violated the rules on two late free throws according to the NBA's official review. It was possibly the first time a 10-second foul line violation has ever appeared on a playoff Last Two Minute Report.
Friday night Antetokounmpo made 3 of 4 free throws in the Game 2 blowout. Two games into the series, he's at 75%. Small sample, of course, but playoff series swing on small samples. After Antetokounmpo made just 48% from the line in the first-round series against the Brooklyn Nets, it was a certified problem. Now, we're on the verge of an opposite trend.
Whatever he did in the three days between the end of the second round and the conference finals, it has been working.
Milwaukee figured to have a tougher time scoring in the middle against Atlanta than Brooklyn's undersized interior, but that hasn't been the case in the early going. The Bucks racked up 70 points in the paint in Game 1, which was the reason they were in the game late while shooting a miserable 8-of-36 on 3s.
In Game 2, the Bucks demolished the Hawks on basket attacks, making an unconscionable 24 of 28 shots in the paint over the first three quarters. Antetokounmpo hammered them, going 9-of-10 in the restricted area in Game 2. He's now 21-of-27 in the series.
That's unsustainable for the Hawks, and the way to slow it is to foul him. But what if Antetokounmpo is just getting hot there, too?
Hawks fans better practice their speed counting for Game 3.
-- Brian Windhorst
2021 NBA playoffs: Four big takeaways from Game 2 of Hawks-Bucks - ESPN Philippines
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