Allen once again showed he can be a good defender against Giannis.
The Cleveland Cavaliers could take on the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the playoffs. The Cavs have been far and away the better team all year and swept the season series with their win on Sunday. That said, you can’t count out a team with Giannis Anetetokounmpo.
If you’re going to defeat the Bucks, you will need to contain Giannis. Jarrett Allen may be better suited than anyone in the league at doing that.
A quick look at Sunday’s box score wouldn’t make you believe that were so. Giannis compiled 30 points on the night. He was able to bully his way to the basket and free-throw line with Allen as his primary defender.
That said, if you take a closer look at the above video, you might see something different than typical Giannis highlights. The Cavs weren’t overly shading their defense to stop Antetokounmpo. They simply trusted Allen to do the job. That is their advantage.
Giannis said back in December that the Cavs presented a unique challenge for him due to their size inside.
“It’s harder for you to get in the paint to finish,” Antetokounmpo said after their last meeting. “They show a lot of crowds, it’s hard for you to drive and kick.”
Being able to stop the drive and kick game is where Allen’s defense has helped most.
Antetokounmpo is such a difficult player to contain for a variety of reasons. His ability to continually get to the rim and draw contact is most obvious. He’s been in the 76th percentile or higher in his field goal percentage at the rim since the 2016-17 season. He does this at an incredibly high volume. Sixty-two percent of his field goal attempts have come in the restricted area this season (71st percentile).
This causes defenses to collapse and send help to try and stop him. When they do, Giannis is able to easily find shooters on the perimeter for wide-open triples.
As a result, he’s assisting on four made threes and passing to 9.5 three-point attempts per contest this season.
That same source of offense wasn’t there against the Cavs. Antetokounmpo didn’t assist on a single three-pointer all night. That’s 12 points saved from a typical Giannis performance, which coincidentally, was the Cavaliers’ margin of victory on Sunday.
This has a cascading effect. If Antetokounmpo isn’t able to generate three-point looks, then their overall shot quality as a team goes down. Milwaukee took just 31 threes all game. This was their ninth fewest attempts of the season.
While Allen struggled to contain Antetokounmpo when he was able to get to the basket, his presence deterred him from getting to the rim as often as he’d ideally like to. Giannis went 9-13 in the restricted area but just 4-11 on shots outside of it.
via NBA.com
The midrange shot isn’t Giannis’s first choice in any of the clips below. Allen’s physicality at the point of attack kept Antetokounmpo from getting all the way to the rim. He did this while still being balanced enough to give a decent contest on the jumpers.
Even if Giannis makes them, which he’s going to do because he’s a good midrange shooter, you’d prefer him to take a shot he hits 45% of the time instead of one at the rim he completes at a 74% clip.
Allen wasn’t successful because he held Antetokounmpo to 30 points. It was his ability to play one-on-one and force him into midrange shots that was the difference. You simply can’t allow Giannis to have his cake and eat it too.
The Bucks are only going to advance as far in the playoffs as Antetokounmpo carries them. As we saw in the NBA Cup, Giannis is capable of dragging them to a trophy if he’s able to be the best player on the court on any given night.
The Cavs, with Allen as the primary defender, can neutralize that advantage better than anyone else in the league. That should help them if both teams meet in the playoffs this spring.