Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard – A Deep Dive into Their Duo and What Went Wrong

There’s been a growing wave of surface-level, lazy narratives about the Dame/Giannis duo since Lillard was waived by the Bucks last month. Stuff like “they didn’t work together,” “bad fit,” or even "Dame's not a winning player" or “Giannis can’t set screens.” These takes have been circulating on Reddit and social media, and honestly, they never made much sense if you watched the Bucks play often. As someone who caught the large majority of games over the past two years, I wanted to break it all down: how the duo looked on the court, what the numbers say, and what actually went wrong, as well as what Dame had to say about playing with Giannis and his time in Milwaukee in a recent interview.

What It Looked Like on the Court

Damian Lillard's main pick-and-roll partner during his prime in Portland was Jusuf Nurkic, a heavy, hard-screener big who set high picks, allowing Dame to use his burst to get downhill or open up his deep pull-up three. Giannis, on the other hand, built most of his two-man chemistry over the last decade with Khris Middleton, a bigger guard who is much more patient and methodical in using screens, usually right at the 3pt line from a Giannis handoff or screen, or at the elbow where Middleton was fantastic at getting his midrange shot off and had a great connection with Giannis on lobs and quick passes. Middleton and Giannis built an elite partnership for nearly a decade, and it was their go-to late-game offense that helped them win a championship. This is also why Jrue Holiday worked well in tandem with Giannis, and why even Kevin Porter Jr looked great and very fluid in PnRs with Giannis last season (Bucks fans can attest to this).

When Giannis set high screens for Dame, opposition defenses would usually just trap, forcing Dame to hit the short roll/pocket pass to Giannis, who then played 4-on-3. Dame, as a smaller guard, struggled at times to consistently get that pass off over 2 bodies, and when he did, it often led to open looks for shooters like Prince, Green, or Trent Jr. The action generated good looks, but didn’t always allow Dame to get into a scoring rhythm. Due to this, Giannis was instructed to slip early, in order to allow Dame to get the pass off before the trap was set. Theres a reason why Giannis doesn’t often slip early when screening for Middleton, as he’s a bigger guard, a great playmaker and less of a threat than Dame.

In order for Dame to get more directly involved in the offence throughout games, the Bucks frequently leaned on Dame/Brook Lopez PnRs during games. Brook, who functions similarly to Nurkic with his high and hard screens and pick-and-pop ability, allowed Dame to operate more comfortably and 'get his', with Giannis sliding into the dunker spot. Dame and Giannis would then reserve their own two-man game for crunch time, usually via clear-side DHO sets. A great example of this is the final 5 or so minutes of Bucks at Lakers in 2024, worth checking out on YouTube.

As time passed, their chemistry steadily improved, especially during the 2025 NBA Cup run before Giannis’ injury after christmas and again in spring 2025 before Dame’s blood clot issue. They didn’t run it as often as they probably should have during the regular season, and it wasn’t quite as game-breaking as everyone imagined on paper, but calling them a bad fit, or saying they didn’t work together, just isn’t supported by what actually happened on the court.

What the Stats Actually Say

Giannis and Lillard PnR was elite offence, WHEN they did it, especially since spring 2024. Last season, Lillard-Antetokounmpo PnR gave the Bucks 1.22 PPP (Points per possession), which is amongst the leagues best duos, similar to that of CP3-Wemby, and Haliburton-Turner. That's elite offence… saying that's bad offence is like saying a Stephen Curry shot off a screen (1.22 PPP), or a Nikola Jokic post up (1.09 PPP) is bad offence which is silly.

Zooming back even further, since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard have the most PPG of any duo that has ever played (min 100 GP). To add to this:

• They were the highest scoring duo in the last 2 seasons.
• They had most games each recording 25+ PTS and 10+ AST by any duo in NBA history.
• They became the first duo in NBA history to each record 24+ PPG, 4+ RPG, and 6+ APG in back-to-back seasons. No duo had ever done it before.

What Actually Went Wrong

The Bucks getting bounced in the first round two years in a row against the Pacers (a fantastic team btw, who were a Haliburton injury away from possibly winning it all) had little to do with Dame and Giannis as a fit, and everything to do with them not being on the floor together.

Across two full seasons, Dame and Giannis played just 2 playoff games together, both games being in the 2025 postseason when Dame rushed back from the blood clot in his leg, going 6/25 from the field and 3/16 from 3 over 2 games before sadly tearing his achilles in Game 4. Giannis missed the entirety of the 2024 playoffs with a calf strain.

And that wasn’t the only problem:

• Khris Middleton missed big chunks of both seasons before being traded for Kuzma, an offensive liability. In the 5 games against the Pacers, Kuzma totalled 29 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists, with 38% TS. (Giannis averaged 33/15/7 oin 65% TS in that series, his averages were higher than Kuzmas totals)
• Adrian Griffin was a disaster as head coach, dropping the Bucks from a top-3 defense to a bottom-3 team against the softest part of the schedule.
• He was replaced by Doc Rivers. Not much else to say. Darvin Ham later became a coach.
• Brook Lopez aged and became unplayable against faster and better teams, becoming unplayable in the playoffs. Overall the roster was aging and unathletic, especially in 2023/24
• The Dame/Beasley backcourt was a defensive nightmare
• Bobby suspended due to the accidental banned substance violation.

All of these were issues, and were probably why this team was never going to win it all anyway… but the main issue is still that the two stars, who take up over 100million of the Bucks payroll, played only 60 post-season minutes together in 2 years.

Dame’s Own Words

From Dame’s July 2025 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

On whether injuries made his Bucks tenure feel incomplete:

"I think it’s just basketball. It don’t feel incomplete to me. I just feel, just basketball. I think you gotta be a little bit lucky to win big. You gotta be healthy and you gotta be playing your best at the right time and I think we just had bad luck. My first year (2023–24) people complained a lot, the Bucks this, the Bucks that, but we was the two seed pretty much the whole season until the very last game and end up being the three seed. Then we played without Giannis the whole first round. He didn’t play in the first round. I missed two games in the first round… Then this year, I missed Game 1, played Game 2 and Game 3, and get hurt at the start of Game 4. So, I mean, the healthy part we just didn’t have."

On playing with Giannis:

"I thought it was a great experience, man. It was a great experience. I think more than anything just the luxury of playing with a player as great as him. And having those nights where I can show up and he’s gonna carry a lot of the load and he might be feeling it that night and we can win a game with me scoring 12 points. So just the luxury of having him on your team was a special thing. And also going into games and knowing like, no matter what happens I’m playing with a dude where we can combine and beat anybody. As a tandem, we can go out here and we can actually; how people say 'man, one person can’t beat a team,' like, 'he ain’t gonna beat you by himself,' or you might be able to beat a team on a back-to-back at home or have a big game and they just can’t stop you, I’ve done that plenty of times. But as a tandem with him, I felt like we can go and win it all with the two of us. We can just go on a run and just dominate. I’m not sure I’ll ever have that experience again. But it was great playing with him. It was truly a pleasure and a luxury to play with a guy that dominant and also a guy who cares that much. I think that was something I really appreciated. I’m a guy who cares, even when I’m mad, even when I’m not doing well, I care about the team doing well and I put everything I can into that – how I take care of my body, how I train and prepare. I do everything I can to position myself and the team to do well and he’s a guy that does all of those things with the same edge and worry. That was something I really appreciated, too."

Sources:

NBA.com
statmuse.com
@owenlhjphillips on X
@BucksRealm on X
Dame interview with Journal Sentinel: Link here.