Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks are riding a four-game winning streak as they prepare to host rookie phenom Victor Wembanyama and the struggling San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday.
Milwaukee can finish off a Texas sweep after beating Houston 128-119 at home on Sunday. Damian Lillard racked up 39 points and 11 assists and Antetokounmpo added 26 points and a season-high 17 rebounds in the win, which snapped the Rockets’ five-game winning streak.
Antetokounmpo passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the Bucks’ all-time rebounding leader when he grabbed his 14th board of Sunday’s game.
“It just shows his discipline every day, how seriously he takes his craft and how he’s never satisfied about what he’s doing out there,” Bucks forward Khris Middleton said of Antetokounmpo’s record on the glass.
Middleton scored 20 points in Sunday’s win. He returned after sitting out Milwaukee’s 146-114 win over the Detroit Pistons on Saturday and scored 14 points in the fourth quarter.
“Khris does this all the time, where he just settles us down where we need a basket, and he goes and gets us a bucket,” Bucks coach Adrian Griffin said. “Sometimes he scores, and sometimes it’s an assist, but the fourth quarter is usually when Khris is at his best.”
Brook Lopez tallied 18 points and Bobby Portis Jr. finished with 11 for Milwaukee, which shot 50 percent from the field and needed to after being tested in the final four minutes by Houston.
The Bucks have won 13 straight games at home and improved to 9-0 when Lillard scores 30 or more points.
“In my head I always thought it would be, like, sometime in December when I’d start to feel better,” Lillard of acclimating to playing for Milwaukee. “I knew it was a process being on a new team and everything.”
The Spurs head north after a 146-110 loss at home to New Orleans on Sunday. San Antonio struggled in losing its 19th game in the past 20 outings after breaking a franchise-record 18-game losing streak with a win against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday.
“Well, let’s see, that’s what you call a (whooping),” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said after the loss to the Pelicans. “Pure and simple. Drop the mic. Period. Full stop. All that kind of stuff.”
Wembanyama paced San Antonio with 17 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks. Julian Champagnie added a season-high-tying 15 points while Cedi Osman had 14.
The double-double was the eighth straight for Wembanyama, continuing to build on the NBA record for a teenager set by Dwight Howard in 2005. Wembanyama, 19, has a team-high 14 double-doubles this season.
It will be the first-ever meeting on the court between Wembanyama and Antetokounmpo, and the rookie is excited to play against the Bucks’ superstar.
“He is probably one of the players I have studied the most and I love the way he’s playing because he’s always aggressive and he’s scary for his opponents,” Wembanyama said about Antetokounmpo. “I’m trying to take a lot of examples from him. … It’s going to be very, very interesting.”
–Field Level Media