Gary Trent Jr.’s career night, aggressive defense give Bucks new life in series vs. Pacers

Sports

add

MILWAUKEE — Friday night was exactly what Damian Lillard envisioned when he told the Milwaukee Bucks front office to make a run at signing Gary Trent Jr. this past offseason.

Well, maybe not exactly.

Lillard could never have envisioned needing to work his way back on the floor in the middle of a playoff series after missing over a month with a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) blood clot in his right calf. He would not have wanted to see the Bucks falling behind 2-0 in a first-round playoff series to the Indiana Pacers and trailing by 10 at halftime of Game 3. As he helped convince Trent to sign in Milwaukee, though, he definitely envisioned his former Portland Trail Blazers teammate stepping up for the Bucks on the biggest stage.

And that’s exactly what Trent did on Friday.

In the Bucks’ 117-101 Game 3 win, Trent scored a career playoff-high 37 points, which included knocking down nine 3s to tie the Bucks franchise record for most triples in a playoff game. The Bucks trail in the series 2-1. Game 4 is Sunday at 9:30 p.m. ET at Fiserv Forum.

“One thing I told the team when they were trying to get Gary here and I was trying to make that connection and bring him here was I told them this is one of the most confident players that I’ve played with,” Lillard said after Friday’s game. “Unshakeable guy. His confidence is steady. His work ethic is steady. Very stubborn. And he’s a guy that’s not going to fold up when moments come. And he’ll be there.

“That was one thing I would have stood on the whole time with Gary. When he has a performance like tonight, I know how much he really believes in himself. Some people believe when it’s going well, some people kind of get down on themselves, but I know his thoughts of himself, the true confidence. This type of game does not surprise me by him and it came at a time when we needed it.”

Greatness from Gary Trent Jr.

37 PTS | 9 3PM | 4 STL | 75% 3FG pic.twitter.com/xjUoInENuF

— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) April 26, 2025

Following Milwaukee’s Game 2 loss in Indianapolis on Tuesday, Bucks head coach Doc Rivers talked about how they needed to make lineup adjustments to avoid the team’s poor starts to the first and third quarters. After practice on Thursday and before tipoff on Friday night, Rivers remained coy about what he might change or how much the team would change heading into Game 3, but the veteran head coach knew what he wanted all along.

In Game 3, Rivers removed Taurean Prince from the starting lineup and inserted Trent as the Bucks’ starting shooting guard. Prince played only three minutes on the night while Trent played 34 minutes — a number he matched only nine times during the regular season — and took on one of the most difficult defensive assignments in Pacers All-Star point guard Tyrese Haliburton, who finished with 14 points, seven rebounds and 10 assists.

“We wanted somebody aggressive to attack Haliburton back,” Rivers said. “I thought he did that. I thought that was great for us. And I like his defense on the ball.

“So there were two reasons. The offensive part, because he’s really aggressive. And the defensive part, because of his hands and just how aggressive he is there, he picked the ball up. I thought it was the first time in the series that we applied pressure to the ball and I thought that made a big difference.”

From the start of the game, Trent aggressively looked for his shot. Trent was especially useful as an outlet for two-time NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, who put up 37 points, 12 rebounds and six assists in the Bucks’ first win of the series. Antetokounmpo and Trent became the first duo in Bucks history to each score 35 or more points in the same playoff game.

Watch Trent hunt his first shot attempt in the opening moments of Game 3:

All series long, the Pacers have sent help from the top of the floor on Antetokounmpo drives and post-ups on the wing. Trent knew that, so he went to the spot where he would find an open shot, the wing above Antetokounmpo’s attack. Trent made himself available as Antetokounmpo attacked and Antetokounmpo passed it back to a wide-open Trent for the triple.

“Obviously, we understand how they’re trying to defend us and who they are trying to guard and take Giannis out and take Dame out,” Trent said of being one pass away from a post-up by Antetokounmpo. “So there is certain opportunities that may present itself and just knock the shot down.”

Trent did the same thing in the third quarter to help fuel the Bucks’ run to open the second half:

This spot has long been one of the best places to station a shooter with a quick trigger when Antetokounmpo is on the floor.

For a decade — while he wouldn’t sprint and relocate as Trent did on Friday — Khris Middleton would station himself in that position and shoot quick-release 3s over defenders before they could recover to him. When Middleton went down with an injury in the first round of the 2022 NBA playoffs, Grayson Allen did much of his damage against the Chicago Bulls from that spot. If Trent is willing to keep moving his feet and shoot quickly, this spot can be a dangerous one for him the rest of the series.

“It’s great,” Antetokounmpo said. “He doesn’t hesitate. He wants to shoot the ball.”

With Trent in the starting lineup, the Bucks trailed by only two points at the first timeout of the game, so they avoided digging themselves a deep early hole, but they were still down 10 points at halftime. With their season on the line, the Bucks had made only four of their 23 3-point attempts in the first two quarters and needed to turn things around quickly in the second half.

If the Bucks are looking for their path forward and how they can carry their Game 3 success into Game 4 to even the series, the third quarter will provide the answers. More than Trent and Antetokounmpo, the Bucks’ defensive effort and intensity allowed them to make a quick run at the start of the third quarter to grab a lead. They then built an 11-point advantage heading to the fourth quarter by outscoring the Pacers 39-18 in the third.

This play ended with Trent knocking down a 3 to tie the game, but look at how it started:

While Haliburton had the ball in his hands, Trent was in control because he dictated where Haliburton was going on that possession.

Throughout the third quarter, the Bucks aggressively drove the Pacers away from their pick-and-rolls by forcing them to run their offense from only one side of the floor. On the possession above, Trent wasn’t quite physical enough, but dictating where Haliburton could go limited his options once he got in the air to throw his trademark jump pass.

“Physicality,” Rivers said of his team’s third-quarter defense. “We got up, got our hands on them. Pressured. Got deflections.”

After the game, Rivers likened what the Bucks need to do defensively to an NFL pass rush. If the Bucks allow the Pacers to go wherever they want and play offense without any pressure or physicality, the Pacers will do what they want. If they put some pressure on the Pacers, they will make it more difficult for them to move the ball around and get where they want on offense as they did in the first two games.

As the Bucks took the lead in the second half, it was all about their defense:

“This was a must-win, really the biggest game of the year,” said AJ Green, who had 12 points and four assists. “Can’t go down 3-0, can’t lose at home. I just loved what we did in the second half.

“We made shots, but just starting defensively, I felt like we kind of dictated them more defensively, kind of controlled their pace a little more, contained the ball well. And that led to our offense and making shots, so we gotta keep doing that.”

Each miss by the Pacers was another chance for the Bucks to attack a defense that was back on their heels and unable to set itself. On Friday, that meant more opportunities for Trent to build the Bucks a larger lead:

Consistently playing physical defense at the point of attack is what will give the Bucks a chance to pull off a massive comeback and win this series, but Friday will always be remembered as the night Trent was inserted into the starting lineup and won the Bucks a playoff game with one of the most ridiculous 3-point shooting nights in franchise history.

“You always want to have players that they’re gonna go out there and go compete,” Antetokounmpo said. “And obviously, when you play defense, you get energy. When you see the ball go in, then you shoot more and he was hot. I’ve been with the Bucks for a long time. I’ve never seen a guy make nine 3s in a playoff game.

“I’m very, very happy for him, but be humble in victory. Be humble in victory. Be humble in victory. We have a lot of games ahead of us. He definitely helped the team get this one tonight, but we have another one in two days.”

(Photo of Gary Trent Jr.: John Fisher / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

Share on

email

Previous

trending_flat

Thunder vs. Grizzlies odds, prediction, time: Free 2025 NBA playoff picks, Game 4 best bets from proven model

Sports

Next

trending_flat

Barcelona x Real Madrid: onde assistir ao vivo à final da Copa do Rei

O Globo