It may be nothing — coaches and star players disagree at times — but it stood out as worth noting.
Midway through the third quarter of the Bucks’ loss to the Celtics Wednesday, coach Adrian Griffin subbed out Giannis Antetokounmpo, but when the star came to the sidelines he stayed at the scorer’s table, had words with Griffin, then re-entered the game at the next dead ball.
Antetokounmpo refused to discuss the incident after the game. Griffin said this, via Tim Bontemps of ESPN.
“He wanted to stay in, I wanted to give him a breather. That’s all it was,” Griffin said afterward. “And then I told him to stay at the table for one possession, and he got right back out there.”
Maybe this is nothing, all coaches and star players have disagreements from time to time. However, with a new coach on a team that has title aspirations but has not looked at that level out of the gate, it’s something to monitor going forward. If there are other signs of friction in the future, then maybe there is more to this than a simple sideline disagreement about playing time.
Boston picked up the 119-116 win and looked clearly to be the better team right now. While we should be careful taking much away from a November meeting — both teams will be different if there’s a playoff clash in May — it seemed apparent that the Bucks’ defense will struggle to contain this five-out Celtics offense with Kristaps Porzingis. The bright side for the Bucks was they did come back to make this game close late, and we saw again how Lillard transforms and takes over their offense in clutch minutes. Also, Boston didn’t have an answer when any combination of Lillard, Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez ran pick-and-roll actions. There were interesting hints of what a seven-game playoff series between these teams would be like, but right now Boston remains the team to beat in the East.