20 Second Timeout

Bucks Rout Heat Despite Losing Giannis Antetokounmpo to a Knee Injury

The Milwaukee Bucks defeated the Miami Heat 128-99, which is Milwaukee's largest margin of victory this season and Miami's worst margin of defeat. The Bucks are now riding a 13 game winning streak, the NBA's longest this season and the franchise's longest in the past 37 years. Jrue Holiday led six Milwaukee double figure scorers with 24 points, and he also posted a game-high seven assists. Jimmy Butler paced the Heat with 23 points on 8-10 field goal shooting. The Bucks won the rebounding battle 57-45 while holding the Heat to 36-92 field goal shooting (.391).

Giannis Antetokounmpo had four points, four rebounds, and four assists in just six minutes before leaving the game after suffering a right knee injury. The Bucks almost immediately announced that he would miss at least the rest of this game, which raises concerns about how serious the injury is and how long he will be out of action. Antetokounmpo has already missed 11 of Milwaukee's 59 games this season after missing 15 out of 82 games last season. A sprained right wrist forced him to leave early in Milwaukee's last game before the All-Star break and limited him to playing just the first possession in the All-Star Game. The Bucks are a good team even without Antetokounmpo, but they are not a championship contender unless they have their full roster, as we saw during last year's playoffs when they fell to Boston in seven games with Khris Middleton out of the lineup.

The Heat pride themselves on being a tough-minded and physical team, but they displayed neither of those traits against the Bucks even with Antetokounmpo sidelined and the Heat desperately needing to stack up wins to avoid having to participate in the Play-In Tournament.

Hubie Brown, the best color commentator in pro basketball history, only does games occasionally now--I think that his most recent game prior to tonight was nearly a month ago when the 76ers overcame a 15 point deficit to beat the Nuggets--so it was a special treat to watch and listen to him do this telecast. Asked about the new look Lakers, Brown cautioned that it is important to "see the consistency" and to see how the team performs on the road before drawing any conclusions about how good the team is.

This game included the return of Meyers Leonard, who recently signed a 10 day contract with the Bucks. Leonard finished with five points and six rebounds. Leonard last played for the Heat before being fined and suspended by the NBA in 2021 after uttering an antisemitic slur during a live stream. He had not played in the NBA since that time, but he used that period productively by educating himself about the Jewish community and demonstrating genuine remorse for what he said.

In contrast to Leonard's repentant and positive behavior, Kyrie Irving was defiantly unrepentant about promoting a film filled with antisemitic tropes until the Brooklyn Nets suspended him, and Irving subsequently deleted his social media post apologizing for promoting antisemitism to his adoring group of followers who outnumber the Jewish population of the world (I mention that fact to note the outsize influence that Irving has and to emphasize how damaging it is when a person of his status promotes antisemitism). It is unfortunate that the NBA has been so quick to welcome Irving back into the fold despite his unrepentant antisemitism, but it is not surprising: Irving is a star player who generates a lot of revenue, it is obvious that antisemitism is not something that costs the NBA much revenue (if any), and if there is one thing that the NBA cares about it is profits.

Labels: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Hubie Brown, Kyrie Irving, Meyers Leonard, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks

posted by David Friedman @ 11:06 PM

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