Building on a perfect start
Heading into the 2024 NBA Playoffs, there were concerns about the Milwaukee Bucks as they geared up to face the Indiana Pacers. The team slumped into the playoffs, winning only three of their final seven games, and an injury to Giannis Antetokounmpo left his availability for the series in question. But on Sunday night, the Bucks alleviated the fears with a dominant 109-94 victory in Game 1. Milwaukee will look to take a 2-0 series lead against the Indiana Pacers tonight.
Where We’re At
The Bucks decided that to take a storming 1-0 lead in the series, they needed to have their superstars play like superstars. Thankfully, Damian Lillard did just that, scoring 35 points in the first half of Game 1. Khris Middleton, Bobby Portis, and Brook Lopez contributed as well, but it really was Dame doing the needed work, and hopefully, Milwaukee can repeat that. We aren’t sure how much the bench is going to change; if anything we hope that there are gonna be more contributions from the likes of Patrick Beverley, Malik Beasley, and Jae Crowder, but you couldn’t ask for a better start from the Milwaukee Bucks and Game 1.
Meanwhile, Indiana did not have a great start to the series. Part of that was because of poor shooting, and part of that might have been initial nerves as a lot of these players were in a playoff series either for the first time in their careers or for the first time in a while. They also could not seem to slow down Damian Lillard in the first half. They did make things interesting in the second half getting the lead down to twelve at one point, but it’s going to be interesting to see if the Pacers will be able to right the ship simply by shooting the ball better or if they’re going to come out with a new tactical adjustment.
Injury Report
The injury report is similar to Game 1. Giannis Antetokounmpo is listed as doubtful for this game and Bennedict Mathurin is out as he recovers from shoulder surgery.
Player To Watch
Tyrese Haliburton had a quiet Game 1. The Wisconsin native only scored nine points on seven shots. He isn’t 100%, but you would expect that he would perform better against Milwaukee, considering how well he did against the Bucks in the regular season. Haliburton did get his teammates involved by collecting eight assists, but we should expect him to be more aggressive in Game 2.
How To Watch
NBA TV and Bally Sports WI at 7:30 PM CDT.
Playback Streaming
We debuted our Playback channel for Game 1 and we’ll continue it for Game 2, hosted by Van Fayaz and Jackson Gross. We have 20 VIP passes for tonight, allowing you to stream the game even without a League Pass or cable subscription from your device.
You can claim one of them by creating your account (instructions below) and then commenting below with the answer to the following trivia question, alongside your Playback user name. The stream will go live at 7 PM Central tonight, and the first 20 commenters who get it right will have VIP status upon logging into the stream at that time.
The question is: name any Buck who played for the team in the 1990s.
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