In the early evening hours Monday, NBA scoopster Shams Charania tweeted (or is that X’d?) ominous news regarding the injury statuses of the Milwaukee Bucks’ two superstars.
“There is doubt that Bucks All-Stars Giannis Antetokounmpo (calf strain) and Damian Lillard (Achilles tendon strain) will be able to play in potential elimination Game 5 vs. Pacers on Tuesday down 3-1, sources say,” Charania tweeted. “Both have tricky strains that complicate returns and create risk.”
When Shams or Adrian Wojnarowski tweet, the NBA betting markets pay attention, shifting one way or another depending on the potential impact of the news.
In this case, the line barely moved. The Pacers opened as 3.5-point favorites over the Bucks for Game 5 on Tuesday, a do-or-die for Milwaukee, which had championship aspirations coming into the season but is now on the verge of its second straight first-round exit.
Pacers vs. Bucks odds
| Team | Spread | Moneyline | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pacers | -4 (-115) | -180 | o216 (-110) |
| Bucks | +4 (-105) | +150 | u216 (-110) |
Maybe it was because the news wasn’t official yet; that happened several hours later when the Bucks released their Game 5 injury report.
Or perhaps because it was expected. Sportsbooks likely already assumed the two All-NBA players would not play and priced it in their opening lines.
Or maybe it just didn’t matter.
This Bucks team has been a disaster for quite some time, and the Pacers have been a personal nemesis this season – the Kryptonite for Milwaukee’s two supermen. It was a series that was doomed for the Bucks from the moment of conception.
(The theory that the Bucks were somehow losing on purpose down the stretch in order to drop out of the long-held No. 2 seed and avoid playing the Heat or 76ers now seems ludicrous.)
Milwaukee is down 3-1 in the first-round series, a deficit only 13 teams in NBA history have recovered from, in any round.
If Antetokounmpo and Lillard could somehow return in the series – the former is much more likelier than the latter, per Doc Rivers – there could be a sliver of hope for the Bucks becoming Team 14.
That’s the opinion of NBA writer Brandon Anderson of Action Network, who added that he would bet Bucks in seven “if I had any confidence that either of the stars was healthy enough to return, but I don’t.”
Anderson believes there’s a path, although narrow, that if the Bucks could steal Game 5 without their two stars, then get at least one of them back for Game 6 with a home Game 7, it’s a shot worth taking at what he calls a “badly mispriced” 12/1 futures bet at FanDuel.
At the very least, he added, it’s worth a hedge for bettors heavily invested in the Pacers in this series.
Which gets us back to Tuesday’s Game 5.
Anderson’s bullish reasoning on the potential for the Bucks to get back in the series has as much to do with how the Pacers are playing as it does to the health status of Milwaukee’s two best players.
And he’s right. The Pacers have to be thankful for the draw they earned in Round 1. Against any other team, playing the way they have in this series, they would be cooked.
The difference between their lousy Game 1 and Game 4 was that the 3-pointers they put up were falling last Sunday. And did they put them up – at an alarming rate for a team that thrives on pace and getting quick 2s. They attempted 43 from beyond the arc and 46 from 2-point range.
Then you add in how players like Myles Turner, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith and Ben Sheppard are playing well above their heads.
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None of that is sustainable. It might be for this series, but good luck in the second round, most likely against the defensive-minded Knicks.
The Bucks stayed close in Game 4, remarkable considering both Antetokounmpo and Lillard sat out, Khris Middleton was playing on a bum ankle and instigator Bobby Portis was tossed in the first quarter for fighting.
Those players were the Bucks’ top four scorers this season.
Two of them will play Tuesday in Game 5 in front of a home elimination crowd against a very young team not playing particularly well – especially Tyrese Haliburton, who is playing with a bad back.
It could be enough to get to Game 6, and then anything is possible … just not probable.