Why isn’t Giannis Antetokounmpo playing against the Pacers in game 1 today? (2024)

As they head towards Sunday night’s NBA Playoffs first-round matchup with the Indian Pacers, the Milwaukee Bucks will do so knowing that their star man, one of the best players in the league, will not be available due to injury. How will they cope?

Giannis ruled out of Game 1 of Bucks vs Pacers

While it was clear that he wasn’t pleased to do it, Milwaukee Bucks president Peter Feigin admitted on Thursday that Giannis Antetokounmpo will “definitely” not play in Sunday’s Game 1 of the team’s first-round playoff series against the Indiana Pacers due to a calf strain. “We expect Giannis to be back in the playoffs, not really sure when.” Indeed, Feigin’s second comment answers the obvious question of when the two-time league MVP will make his return i.e., we simply don’t know.

That idea was further fueled by Bucks head coach Doc Rivers, who would neither confirm nor deny those statements on Friday when speaking after the team’s practice. “I don’t know yet, no,” Rivers said when asked if Feigin’s comments were accurate. “We’re still hoping [that he can play in Game 1] He hasn’t done anything. So would we throw him out there? Yeah, we would. But for us, it’s still we’re not sure.” That in turn brings us to the man himself. As far as we know the 29-year-old was present at practice, but was unable to do anything else. “He was in the gym, walked through stuff but didn’t do anything live.”

What happened to Giannis and what next?

You may have caught our earlier reports when we confirmed that Antetokounmpo was injured and that the Bucks expected him to return at some point during the series against the Pacers. To be clear, Giannis missed the final three games of the Bucks’ season due to what was diagnosed as a calf strain - suffered back on April 9th.

It was late in the third quarter of what turned out to be an impressive win over the No. 1-seeded Boston Celtics, when Antetokounmpo inbounded the ball to Damian Lillard and began to make his way down the court. Suddenly, he went to the ground clutching his lower leg and shortly thereafter was escorted to the locker room. A subsequent MRI revealed that the calf had sustained a strain but, he had avoided Achilles tendon damage.

As mentioned above, the Bucks did acknowledge that he would not play for the remainder of the regular season, but did state that he would return early in the playoffs. At this point, we can only speculate as to what that means now that he’s been officially ruled out of Game 1. On the other hand, Rivers did disclose that the results of the MRI had provided “some relief.” Yet, it can’t be ignored that the Bucks are not nearly the same when Antetokounmpo is not on the court. Truthfully, the team’s record stands at 39-40 when he is not in the lineup and that includes the playoffs. This is all stating the obvious, but the specifics are worth noting.

Regarding how things go from here, it’s hard to say what to expect from the Bucks especially when there is no clear timeline for Antetokounmpo’s return. Before this moment, he had only missed six games across the entire campaign. While it’s true that he has been struggling with various niggling injuries for a few months, including Achilles tendonitis, hence the initial fears when he went down against the Celtics. “Calves, hamstrings, they’re shaky,” Antetokounmpo said after a win over the Sixers back in March.

“If you have a strain or whatever the case may be... you don’t mess with stuff like that.” Regardless, the Bucks now face a tough situation: Do they risk their star, who also happens to be one of the best players in the league, or do they go the conservative road, thereby inviting the real possibility that their campaign ends prematurely? Numbers-wise, Antetokounmpo has averaged 30.4 points, 11.5 rebounds and a career-high 6.5 assists on 61.1% shooting from the field across 73 games this season. That of course was good enough to see him finish second in the league in scoring, while being the only player to average at least 30 points, 10 rebounds, and five assists. So, you be the judge.