Giannis Antetokounmpo’s record 64-point game overshadowed by… game ball?

The number of 64 points is a career-high for Giannis Antetokounmpo, and is also the most points scored in a game by a Milwaukee Bucks player in club history.
Having been eliminated by the Indiana Pacers in the semi-finals of the NBA In-Season Tournament, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks team successfully took revenge yesterday.

“Greek Freak” specifically set a personal record and broke many club records with a match scoring 64 points at home, leading the Bucks to victory with a final score of 140-126.

However, this historic performance of Giannis was overshadowed by a bit of drama that happened after the match, where the two teams… fought over who could get the match ball to take home.

The number of 64 points is a career-high for Giannis Antetokounmpo, and is also the most points scored in a game by a Milwaukee Bucks player in history.

“Demigod” surpassed Michael Redd’s 57-point game in 2006, and created the first game of over 60 points in the 2023-24 NBA Regular Season.

To achieve this number, Giannis successfully finished with an extremely high efficiency of 20-28 FG, while also throwing in 24 additional free throws (24-32 FT) and accompanied by 14 rebounds the whole match.

In the fourth quarter alone, the Greek superstar scored 26 points to stop the Pacers’ comeback, ensuring victory at Fiserv Forum with the Milwaukee Bucks.

The historical numbers mentioned above are extremely impressive, but it is not what fans remember after the match. Instead, a drama broke out between Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Indiana Pacers.

Giannis wanted to take the match ball with which he had just scored 64 points as a souvenir, although the “Demigod” later said he wanted to use the ball to give to Damian Lillard on the occasion of the defender climbing to 5th place on the list. Player with the most 3-pointers of all time.

However, the Pacers also want to keep the ball to give to young rookie Oscar Tshiebwe, the player who just had his first official score in the NBA. Just because of an argument about who got the ball, Giannis got angry and this entire image was recorded on camera.

In the end, Giannis Antetokounmpo had the match ball as he requested, but the Milwaukee Bucks star said: “I don’t know if this is a match ball or not. I just played 35 minutes and know the ball is a match. What will happen in the match? I feel like this is not the ball I held in the match.”

Before the match ended, the two teams were also involved in another quarrel that caused two players to be fouled and one of them was disqualified. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Giannis Antetokounmpo was fouled heavily by Aaron Nesmith and was then thrown to the floor.

While Giannis did not react, two Bucks players, Bobby Portis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo, were extremely harsh. If Thanasis had been stopped in time by his teammates, Bobby Portis would have rushed into Nesmith and had words.

Looking closely at the video, the referees decided to expel Portis for his actions that escalated tension on the field, and Aaron Nesmith committed a level 1 gross foul.