Damian Lillard made an enormous splash in his regular-season debut as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks, dropping 39 points total including the team’s final 11 points as they closed out a 118-117 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday.
The Bucks’ decision to make a blockbuster deal and pair Lillard with two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo was one of the National Basketball Association (NBA)’s biggest offseason storylines, and much was made of how dangerous the pick-and-roll combination of Lillard and Antetokounmpo will be.
The early returns suggest the hype may have been well-earned: Antetokounmpo and Lillard combined to score 62 points on 42 field-goal attempts en route to a victory over one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference.
The performance prompted ESPN’s Jay Williams to break out a bold claim on the network’s Get Up Friday morning show: Antetokounmpo and Lillard, after one game together, are already more cohesive than Boston Celtics duo Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images
“In one game, Giannis and Dame were more compatible and have less redundancy than the seven-year career of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown,” Williams said. “More compatible and less redundancy than the seven-year career of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. They play off each other extremely well. The pieces work.”
Williams went on to note how Antetokounmpo and Lillard play together on the floor with the Bucks’ complementary pieces.
“They will work on their defense. There are things they need to get better at,” Williams continued. “But still, what you saw on the court last night, it fits like [Denver Nuggets stars Nikola] Jokić and [Jamal] Murray. It fits like [Los Angeles Lakers stars] LeBron [James] and [Anthony Davis]. It fits.”
Williams certainly wasn’t alone in his enthusiasm. The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor noted how difficult opponents will find defending Lillard when the Bucks set high screens to create an early advantage for him.
Meanwhile, Bucks fans enjoyed the ride to their first win enormously.
Damian Lillard posting one of the best individual Bucks performances I’ve ever seen in his first-ever Bucks game seems like a promising start to his Bucks tenure. What a superstar.
— Ti Windisch (@TiWindisch) October 27, 2023
Williams’ take will certainly raise some eyebrows around the league. While Tatum and Brown have had a bumpy ride at times together in Boston, they reached the conference finals four times in six seasons since Tatum was drafted, and they made the Finals in 2022 before falling in six games to the Warriors. They are 2-1 against the Bucks in the postseason, and last year, the Bucks became the first 1-seed to be eliminated by an 8-seed since the Memphis Grizzlies beat the San Antonio Spurs in 2011.
Concerns about the Bucks’ defense are valid as well, given that they traded away Jrue Holiday, a five-time All-Defense selection, in exchange for Lillard whose defensive rating last year ranked just two spots above Kyrie Irving and three spots above Trae Young among starting guards.
Still, Lillard is one of the greatest 3-point shooters of all time and one of the best scorers in the NBA with a lengthy history of clutch shot-making. The Bucks have a special superstar duo, and Thursday’s performance as well as the reaction to it in the immediate aftermath illuminated the potential in sharp detail.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.