Before Wednesday night, Giannis Antetokounmpo had missed only one game for the Milwaukee Bucks this season. This was on November 15 in a road game against the Toronto Raptors, which the Bucks won comfortably, 128-112.

Giannis was out of action again on Wednesday, and the outcome was the polar opposite for Milwaukee. Not only did they lose to the Cleveland Cavaliers, but they were completely outmatched, 135-95.

Giannis missing out on Wednesday’s game actually came as a surprise. The Bucks ruled him out a couple of hours prior to tip-off after it was determined that his shoulder injury was an issue they could no longer ignore. The former back-to-back MVP played through the knock on Sunday in their win over the Sacramento Kings, but this just wasn’t going to be the case against Cleveland.

Damian Lillard was left with the responsibility of carrying the offensive burden for the Bucks with Giannis out of commission. Dame finished with a team-high 17 points on 7-of-20 shooting, to go along with two rebounds, five assists, a couple of steals, and one triple. That clearly wasn’t enough for the Bucks.

After the game, Lillard conceded that the Bucks missed the services of their talisman:

“I thought we just didn’t execute,” Lillard said, via Eric Nehm of The Athletic. “We felt like we were disrupted by not having Giannis out there. I think how he pulls the defense and the attention that he gets from teams, it kind of just creates an advantage for a lot of the things that we’ve done. And him not being out there, I think we just didn’t execute well around that.

“And it’s not that we couldn’t or that was the reason why, it’s just we didn’t have that side-to-side movement. And when he’s not on the floor, it becomes even more important for us to do those things to make the defense guard the first action, and then the second action, and sometimes a third. You wear them down, you move them around a little bit and we just didn’t do that well enough.”

I see no lies here.

The fact that Antetokounmpo’s injury does not appear to be overly significant is good news for the Bucks. He might return to action as soon as Saturday’s Milwaukee Bucks game against the Detroit Pistons.

The Bucks need him back as soon as humanly can, and the good Lord knows it.