Giannis’ late defense seals Bucks win over Lakers in Milwaukee

Giannis Antetokounmpo turned the last infinitesimal into his infinitesimal connected defense, helping Milwaukee unafraid a 105-101 triumph implicit the Los Angeles Lakers connected Friday night. With 39.2 seconds near and the people tied astatine 101, Antetokounmpo blocked LeBron James from down arsenic James went up for a imaginable go-ahead layup. The play flipped possession and acceptable up Milwaukee taking the pb aft Kevin Porter Jr. drew a foul connected the different end.

The closing series got adjacent cleaner for the Bucks. Down two, James attacked the rim again, trying to unit overtime oregon bargain the win. This time, Antetokounmpo knocked the shot escaped and came distant with a bargain with 1.5 seconds remaining, sealing the result.

"Down the stretch, I conscionable wanted to instrumentality the challenge," Antetokounmpo said. "I wanted to enactment successful beforehand of him arsenic champion I could. Because you knew that he's going to marque a play. He's not going to walk it. And it worked retired successful my favor."

Momentum for Milwaukee, a uncommon precocious gaffe for Los Angeles

Antetokounmpo did not request a immense scoring enactment to signifier the night. He finished with 21 points connected 9-of-11 shooting and said helium was focused connected impacting the crippled successful antithetic ways arsenic Milwaukee keeps gathering signifier aft his instrumentality from wounded connected Dec. 27. The Bucks person present won 5 of their past 7 since helium came back, and six of their past 9 overall.

"We're playing well, right? So, we cannot beryllium comfortable," Antetokounmpo said. "We can't beryllium complacent close now. We got to support connected pushing, pushing our envelope, enactment our ft successful the pedal and support connected moving forward."

For the Lakers, it was their archetypal clutch nonaccomplishment of the season. They entered the nighttime 13-0 successful games defined arsenic wrong 5 points successful the last 5 minutes.

Jersey swap adds different enactment to the night

It was besides the archetypal regular-season gathering betwixt Antetokounmpo and James since 2022. After the buzzer, Giannis added different jersey to his collection, explaining wherefore helium asked for it: "You ne'er know," helium said. "Might beryllium our past crippled against 1 another."

James appreciated the matchup too. "At this constituent successful my career, it's ever large to spell against immoderate of the greats. If it's Giannis, if it's Steph, KD, James, Russ. Guys that I've been either going against for a agelong clip oregon played with."