The Bucks enacted a measure of revenge by beating the Pacers 140-126 on Wednesday after losing to their Eastern Conference rivals in the Semifinals of the In-Season Tournament.

However, Indiana appeared to strike back with a vindictive act of their own which caused the two sides to get into a petty, postgame scuffle.

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Giannis Antetokounmpo, a star player for the Bucks, wanted the game ball after the win, which sparked a fight between the two teams. After the Greek Freak broke Michael Redd’s single-game Bucks scoring record with 64 points, it was assumed that he wanted the ball as a memento.

The Pacers wouldn’t give him the ball after the contest. A coach took it to his locker room after the game and Antetokounmpo tried to chase him down.

That led to a spat between the two teams in the tunnel. The Pacers insisted that they would not give the ball to Antetokounmpo, and that led him to get heated in an on-court exchange with Indiana star Tyrese Haliburton.

LEAKED Audio Of Pacers Refusing To Give Giannis Antetokounmpo The “Game Ball”👀:

“You want the ball? You’re not getting that ball”

Then, Giannis gets heated at Tyrese Haliburton and yells at him: “Go get the fu ball! You need to go get it”

Here’s what to know about the drama surrounding the Bucks vs. Pacers game ball and why Antetokounmpo was so hell-bent on getting it.

Why did the Pacers take the game ball?

Naturally, many were wondering why the Pacers took the game ball in the first place. After all, the game was played in Milwaukee and was won by the Bucks with Antetokounmpo logging a record-breaking performance, so shouldn’t the spoil go to the victors?

Coach Rick Carlisle addressed this during his postgame news conference. He explained that the Pacers wanted a game ball to give to Oscar Tshiebwe after the rookie scored the first points of his NBA career.

“Unfortunate situation,” Carlisle said, bemoaning the scuffle that ensued over the ball. “We don’t need the official game ball. There’s two game balls there; we could’ve taken the other one. But it didn’t need to escalate to that. Really just unfortunate.

“Third game we played these guys within 2 and a half [weeks], three weeks, so things are heated with the competition, and I understand all that. But for it to come into the hallway, it didn’t need to happen that way.”

Antetokounmpo echoed Carlisle, saying that the incident was “unfortunate” during his media availability. He even agreed with the coach that Tshiebwe’s first basket was deserving of a game ball.

“I understand. When you score your first point in the NBA, you want to have the ball or whatever the case may be,” he said.

But Antetokounmpo still believed that the Bucks had a better reason for getting the game ball — and it wasn’t just because he broke a franchise scoring record.

Why did Giannis Antetokounmpo want the game ball?

According to Giannis, he didn’t want the game ball for himself despite his 64-point outburst. The Greek Freak explained after the game that he was trying to get it so that it could be given to his star teammate Damian Lillard.

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Why did Antetokounmpo believe Lillard deserved a game ball? Because the first-year Bucks point guard hit the 2,451st 3-pointer of his career against the Pacers. That moved him into the top five on the NBA’s all-time 3-pointer list, passing Kyle Korver.

So, Antetokounmpo believed that historic achievement should have been honored.

“At the end of the day, you’re talking about the guy that just skipped Kyle Korver in the all-time list,” he told reporters. “In my opinion, we should all stop what we’re doing and appreciate greatness.”

Did Giannis Antetokounmpo get the game ball?

After the game, Antetokounmpo did indeed end up with a ball. Ironically, though, neither team is positive if it was the game ball.

At least one video appears to show Bucks staff members gathering the game ball following the game, supporting Carlisle’s claim that the Pacers had a backup ball. Although Antetokounmpo hinted during his news conference that the ball felt brand-new, he was genuinely unsure if it was used in the match.

“I have no idea. I’m not going to lie,” he said when asked if he had gotten the ball. “I really don’t know.

“I have a ball, but I don’t know if it’s the game ball. It doesn’t feel like the game ball to me. It feels like a brand-new ball. I can tell. I played, what, 35 minutes today. I know how the game ball felt. The ball that I have, which I’ll take and I’ll give it to my mom, for sure — but I don’t know if it’s actually the game ball.”

Perhaps the two teams will be able to figure out which ball was used and which wasn’t. But if not, Antetokounmpo knows he can’t harbor too much animosity about the situation despite it peeving him.

“It’s OK,” Anteokounmpo said. “Life should continue.”