It’s cold in the Midwest but the Bucks and Pacers are quickly developing a heated regional rivalry.
After scoring a career-high and franchise-record 64 points in Milwaukee’s 140-126 home win Wednesday night at Fiserv Forum, Giannis Antetokounmpo wanted the game ball only to learn the Pacers had already nabbed it.
He then went bolting toward their locker room in an attempt to retrieve the ball.
While it initially seemed like the mission had been accomplished, Antetokounmpo told reporters after the game he might have been duped.
“I have a ball, but I don’t know if it’s the game ball. It doesn’t feel like the game ball to me,” Antetokounmpo said. “It feels like a brand new ball. I can tell, I played, what, 35 minutes today? I know how the game ball felt.”
Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said after the game that the team had tried to nab the game ball for rookie Oscar Tshiebwe’s first official basket (he scored one point in the NBA In-season Tournament finals against the Lakers, but those stats don’t count in the NBA record book), and their general manager got “elbowed in the ribs” by a Bucks player in a “fracas” in the hallway to their locker room.
As social media sleuths analyzed all the video angles after the game, one leaked video with audio emerged of a Pacers assistant grabbing the game ball with a smirk on his face, while another from the Pacers hallway appeared to show an unidentified Pacers player saying, “You want the ball? You’re not getting that ball.”
The Bucks were out for revenge Monday after getting knocked out of the IST semifinals by the Pacers last week.
The game got a little chippy, with Bucks crowd favorite Bobby Portis getting ejected for defending Antetokounmpo against a hard foul from Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith.It also likely did not sit well with the Pacers that the Bucks kept Antetokounmpo in the game late in a blowout for the purposes of getting the franchise points record and/or to send a message to their rivals.
Another wrinkle in the rivalry is that Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton grew up in Wisconsin as a big Bucks fan.The Bucks will host the Pacers again on Jan. 1.
This article originally appeared in the New York Post and has been republished with consent.
