NBA Matchups: April 29

MIL @ IND | DET @ NYK | ORL @ BOS | LAC @ DEN

Milwaukee Bucks at Indiana Pacers

Team Totals: Bucks 106.5, Pacers 115.5

Injury Report: Aaron Nesmith (P, back), Bennedict Mathurin (P, abdomen)

Bucks projected starters: Kevin Porter Jr., Gary Trent Jr., Kyle Kuzma, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez

Pacers projected starters: Tyrese Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Pascal Siakam, Myles Turner

Doc quotes: Said he just feels bad for Dame because he’s such a good person, said the Dame injury really deflated the team, said his job is to get the team upright and dealing with this type of injury is the human part of the game, said they have to figure out the right rotation for this group, said they wanted some speed in the second half and that’s why he started Bobby, said they are going to have their whole game plan around Giannis.

Carlisle quotes: Said they had even better attention to detail, said they need the fans to be there early for the 6:00 p.m. ET start time, said Turner “was in prime position” for a big night, said “Giannis is impossible” and there’s not much they can do about it, said “the second unit was a big key to the game,” said they had their second-most isolation possessions in Game 3 and they made it a point to cut that down in Game 4, said Mathurin had trouble sleeping and eating from his injury on Saturday night, said Jarace added some help on Giannis.

Stats and Notes:

*Man, that’s tough news on Damian Lillard and the Bucks will likely have a very difficult offseason start tonight. The Indiana offense is firing on all cylinders with a 122.1 offensive rating (112.1 halfcourt). The Pacers aren’t even playing that fast with 86.8% of their possessions coming in the halfcourt for the highest mark in the postseason. Indiana is cooking the Bucks on spot-up plays at 1.24 PPP for a playoff-high 35.5 points per game, and when they are running, they’re scoring extremely efficiently at 1.38 PPP. The Bucks are just overmatched in this game and don’t have enough answers. For the Bucks’ offense, they’ve actually been OK in this series at 114.1 and they’ve been strong in the halfcourt at 101.2. The Bucks are getting pretty good looks because of the attention Giannis is getting, but it is a slight concern that they were putrid in Game 1. This one could be a blowout.

*Coach Rick Carlisle just knows they can’t do anything to stop Giannis. They actually did their best job by far in Game 4 with Giannis at 9-of-20 from the field despite Giannis getting his usual rim-heavy diet. The scoring will be there, and his passing stats should also get a huge boost here. Giannis continues to have one of the worst conversion rates on his potential assists and had 14 potentials lead to six assists on Saturday. It should be a huge stat line for him.