Playoffs only add fuel to budding Pacers-Bucks rivalry.
INDIANAPOLIS – Through the first two games of their NBA Eastern Conference first round playoff series, it’s clear the temperature of the Pacers–Bucks rivalry hasn’t come down one bit, and the stakes of the postseason are only making it more intense.
Through two games — both Pacers’ victories — the teams have combined for six technical fouls and a pair of flagrant 1 fouls. Each team has three technical fouls because all six have come as part of a double-technical situation in which both teams got heated and the officials decided to assess off-setting techs.
There were two such occasions in the Pacers’ 123-115 win Tuesday. The first happened with 1:53 to go in the first quarter when Pacers All-Star forward Pascal Siakam got tangled up with Milwaukee’s Gary Trent Jr. going for a rebound on Siakam’s miss. Trent effectively threw Siakam to the ground and Siakam took offense and quickly several players from each team were going chest-to-chest. The technical fouls in that case were given to Trent and the Pacers’ Bennedict Mathurin.
The next set of technicals came with 1:22 to go in the fourth quarter. After point guard Tyrese Haliburton was blocked on a driving layup by Giannis Antetokounmpo, he and Bucks All-Star Damian Lillard went chest-to-chest in a heated discussion. Then Siakam and Bucks forward Bobby Portis got involved with more trash-talking and Siakam and Portis ended up being the ones who got called for the double technical.
In Saturday’s Game 1, Lilllard got a technical foul even though he wasn’t in the game having not yet returned from the deep vein thrombosis that kept him out nearly a month. From the bench in street clothes, he got in a heated discussion with Haliburton and Siakam and he and Siakam were called for double technicals.
Those technical fouls are a sign of rising tensions between teams who have had a lot of meetings over the past two seasons with a lot on the line. They met five times in the 2023-24 regular season including the In-Season Tournament semifinals in Las Vegas before their six-game first-round playoff series. This year, they had the standard four meetings for Central Division foes and now they’re locked in another playoff series. If this goes seven, they could end up playing 22 times combined in the regular season and postseason over the course of two seasons.
“I’m sure you’re going to continue to see that through the course of the series,” Haliburton said. “Everybody says in the league, rivalries aren’t here anymore. Well, it’s right here. This is an interesting series. We’ve played each other, it feels like a million times over the last two years. I feel like I’ve seen every different coverage that they could throw at us and I feel like those guys probably feel the same way about us.
“There’s still a lot of series to go, a lot of games to play. I’m sure there will be more heated moments, more competitive moments.”
If there was a moment when Pacers-Bucks took a turn from being just another Central Division skirmish to a slowly boiling rivalry it might have been that In-Season Tournament semifinal in December of 2023. The Bucks headed into that season considered co-favorites to win the Eastern Conference with the eventual NBA champion Celtics, but the Pacers announced their legitimacy by knocking off Boston in the In-Season Tournament quarterfinals and then the Bucks in the semifinals.
Pacers defeat Bucks 123-115, go up 2-0 in series
Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton discusses the team’s 123-115 win over the Milwaukee Bucks.
Toward the end of that win, Haliburton hit a 3-pointer and then looked down at his right wrist as if he were wearing a watch, essentially stealing Lillard’s signature “Dame Time” celebration. Lillard said then he saw it as a “sign of respect and acknowledgement” but said “when you’re having your moment, it’s important to be careful and to be humble when you’re having a moment because you just never know how the tables turn and when they’re gonna turn.”
The rivalry turned more intense after that. Later that month, the teams got into a fracas when Bucks two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo got upset because he believed the Pacers took the game ball on the night he set a franchise record with 64 points. They did take a backup game ball for then-rookie Oscar Tshiebwe who scored his first career point, but Antetokounmpo was so upset about the perceived slight he charged into the tunnel near the Pacers’ locker room looking for the ball with several other teammates behind him in a situation that nearly came to blows.
Antetokounmpo didn’t play in last year’s playoffs, but those got heated on several occasions as well with Milwaukee’s Bobby Portis getting ejected at one point. During the series, Portis labeled the Pacers “frontrunners” because he said they tend to talk trash and make noise when they’re winning will being much more quiet when they’re losing. After that, however, the Pacers made a point to start talking trash earlier in games so they couldn’t be accused of that.
This year’s matchups have maintained an edge even if there haven’t been as many skirmishes, and with the playoffs back those have returned.
“We don’t have to sit here and act like there’s any secret,” Haliburton said. “We don’t like them. They don’t like us. That’s just what it is. They live for this, we live for this.”
Not all of the principles are trying to get involved in the intensity. Since the game ball controversy, Antetokounmpo has tried to steer clear of any further trouble and hasn’t been the source of physical or verbal confrontations.
“I like everybody, man,” Antetokounmpo said. “I’m just a competitor. I’m not going to say, ‘I don’t like him or I don’t like him.’ Off the court, we can talk or do whatever you guys want to do. On the court, I’m a competitor. I’m going to go at you. That’s how I feed my family. I have four kids. … I feel like there is a lot of animosity, a lot of back-and-forth, but I try to stay away from it.”
Lillard and Haliburton don’t seem to be staying away from it at all. There is some level of natural rivalry there with the 34-year-old Lillard still playing at an All-Star level and the 25-year-old Haliburton in the midst of establishing himself as one of the game’s best point guards.
“We’re just competitors,” Haliburton said. “I think that’s what it is. He wants to win. I want to win. It’s the highest level. We’re at the highest level in the most contentious moment here in the playoffs.”
And for those that enjoy trash talk and braggadocio, this only adds to the thrill of competition. Haliburton, a lifelong professional wrestling fan, is relishing it.
“All the extracurricular stuff is extracurricular,” Haliburton said. “But it’s fun. It’s fun. I’m not gonna sit here and lie to you. This is some fun (expletive) now.”