Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Improving Mid-Range Ability Is Good News For The Milwaukee Bucks

It’s been hard enough to stop Antetokounmpo with his established skillset, but add a long-elusive mid-range jumper to the mix and the two-time Most Valuable Player might very well be unstoppable.

It looked that way, at least, Friday night when Antetokounmpo connected on 12 of 19 shots and finished with 38 points in the Milwaukee Bucks’ 123-108 victory over the Knicks.

Including a nine-foot turnaround fadeaway early in the opening quarter, Antetokounmpo attempted 11 shots from outside the paint and connected on eight of them including a pair of 3-pointers; the first, a 26-foot pullup less than a minute into the game and the other coming early in the fourth, when he followed a 14-foot jumper with another 26-foot pull-up shot during a personal 7-0 run that helped Milwaukee turn a two-point game into a 16-point lead with six minutes to play.

“The ball was coming off his hands real good from a lot of different places,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said.

For the longest time, the biggest knock against him was a perceived lack of a mid-range shot but slowly but surely, he’s refined that part of his game and it’s no longer a novelty to see him putting up shots around the perimeter.

Of his 761 attempts this season, 127 have come from mid-rage. He’s made 48 of those shots — just three shy of his total from last season, when he made 51 of 134 attempts — while his 37.8 shooting percentage is two points ahead of his total last season and a shade behind his career-best mark of 40.4%, set when he connected on 80 of 198 attempts in his second NBA season.

His 3-pointers are falling this season, too. He’s averaged 3.9 attempts per game this season, slightly lower than his career-high of 4.7 attempts set two seasons ago and has made 45 of 158 attempts so far through 41 games.

Antekopunmpo still does the bulk of his damage around the basket but even the threat of being able to step out and connect is enough to make guarding him an even more frustrating experience for opposing defenses.

“I remember my second or third year here, Khris (Middleton) telling him to just shoot it because whether or not they go in, if you shoot them, (opposing teams) have to respect it to some degree,” Bucks guard Pat Connaughton said. “Now that he’s gotten comfortable in that mindset of, when he’s open he’ll let it fly and he has the confidence to let it fly, the ball is going through the hoop.

“That’s just another level of respect the defense has to have for him.”

At the same time, that very same ability can also make life significantly easier for his teammates. Just as Antetokounmpo’s penchant for drawing defenders down low leaves Milwaukee’s shooters open on the wings, being able to draw those defenders out of the lane creates more opportunities for the Bucks to slash and cut to the lane for easy buckets.

“It just spaces the floor out more,” Connaughton said. “And if it gives him more space, it collapses the defense in different ways. Instead of starting in (the lane) and working their way out, they kind of have to start out a little more and then react to him but by then, it’s too late for them to work out to myself or Donte (DiVincenzo) or Grayson (Allen) or (Middleton) or whomever we’ve got on the floor.

“Him just taking those jump shots was a step in the right direction but now that he’s making those jump shots, it just puts our offense in a different category.”