Doug Gottlieb: “If you look at the raw stats, Giannis is shooting the ball better from three than he ever has, 38%, and 58% from the field. But if you look back to last year, and you look back to Game 1, you start to understand the struggles. There’s a bit of a disturbing trend around Giannis. In the regular season you can just get going and play through contact, get to the rim, and when double and triple teams come you can kick out and shoot threes… But when you get to the postseason the game is so much more physical. If you don’t think that the officiating has changed the NBA, I can’t help you… You can build a wall around Giannis because you can be so much more physical with him. Same thing happens to James Harden. In the regular season he gets all the calls because he plays downhill, drives in there, and flails his arms up in the air. In the postseason he’s like ‘man, why am I not getting those calls??’ It’s a different sport in the NBA playoffs where they don’t call as many fouls.” (Full Segment Above)
Listen to Doug Gottlieb explain why he thinks Giannis Antetokounmpo’s postseason struggles are becoming a ‘disturbing trend' as Giannis’ Bucks were dumped in their second round opener by the streaking Miami Heat. Giannis had just 18 points with a (-14) plus/minus as his biggest critics once again came out of the woodworks, and justifiably so.
Despite likely winning a second consecutive MVP later this month, Giannis memorably underachieved in last season’s Eastern Conference Finals vs. Kawhi Leonard’s Raptors, watching his scoring average drop from 27.7 in the regular season, to a 22.7 in the 6 games versus Toronto, including a .448 shooting percentage – a vast difference from his regular season mark of .578.
Check out the video above as Gottlieb details why postseason defenses have figured out how to ‘build a wall’ in front of the basket against Giannis, as NBA referees have historically called much fewer fouls and allowed much more contact in the playoffs.
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