The Indiana Pacers lead the series one to nothing after a blowout win in game one. The Bucks led by Giannis Antetekuompo needs to step up tonight and some help could be on the way. It is possible that Damion Lillard will play tonight after being out for more than a month.
The Indiana Pacers defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 117-98 in game one of the series. The three time all star, Pascal Siakam, was the clear cut Pacer hero of the game. The power forward from Cameroon scored 25 points, grabbed seven rebounds, two dimes, one steal and block each. Siakam was a plus 28 in the win, best on the Pacers. Pascal was effective on the floor with twen made shots out of 15 attempts. He made three out of his five shots from behind the arc.
The Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton had ten points, 12 assists and he was able to grab seven boards. Haliburton controlled much of the pace in the game and his ball distribution was at a high level the whole game. He was a plus 27. The bench was solid for The Pacers with TJ McConnel scoring eleven points off and Benedict Mathurin had 13. Rick Carlisle, head coach for the Indiana Pacers was collected after the game one win. He told nba.com the following after the game: “Game two will be monumentally more difficult than this one”.
Myles Turner, the big man, had 19 points, four blocks, one steal, two dimes and five rebounds. Turner (plus 24) was impactful and made life difficult for Lopez and Portis Jr of the Milwaukke Bucks. Turner made four out of his six attempted three pointers. When Turner hits his shots and spaces the floor Indiana is a difficult team to guard. Turner told nba.com the following after the win: “Glad to have gotten a dose of where we’re right now. We have to watch some film of the game and make our adjustments from here”.
If Damion Lillard plays tonight he will be helpful for the Bucks. Dame has been out since March 18th and is of course a bit rusty at this point. He is needed in the lineup and it was obvious after watching game one of this series. Giannis was the only one that showed up for Milwaukke. Everybody else we're playing below their standards. Giannis had 36 points, 12 rebounds, one dime, one steal and two blocks. A.J Green was the second best scorer for the Bucks with 15 points off the bench. Giannis was the only starter that had more than 15. That is pretty far from being good enough at this level of basketball.
The Power forward was acquired in a trade with the Wizards in February for Khris Midlleton. The head coach Doc Rivers uses Kuzma as a wing and not as a four. The fit is not good. The fit would work if Doc Rivers plays Giannis at the five and Kuzma at the four. But Rivers is not doing that. Kuzma had zero points in game one. Zero boards and dimes. He had five shots and made none of them. He was minus 24. Doc Rivers could do a much better job of putting Kuzma in a position where he could do significantly better.
