With a game-high thirty points, nine rebounds, and a career-high five steals, Bobby Portis helped the Milwaukee Bucks defeat the Orlando Magic 117-99 on Wednesday night despite Giannis Antetokounmpo’s absence.

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The Bucks took the court the night after Antetokounmpo departed the Boston Celtics game with a strained left calf. The Bucks won 104–91. The two-time MVP will miss the remaining three games of the regular season, the Bucks confirmed on Wednesday. However, it is unclear if he will be available to play in the first round of the playoffs.
Before the game, Bucks coach Doc Rivers stated, “There’s no timeline or anything like that, but we’ve got the best team working with him.” Nobody will put in more effort than he will. You are aware of that. When he should return, he will. We’ll discover when that occurs. 

The Bucks, who have lost all four of Antetokounmpo’s games this season, moved to 4-3 thanks to 29 points and nine assists from Damian Lillard. Coming off the bench, Jae Crowder scored 14 points. With 13 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists, Pat Beverley led the team.

Khris Middleton was also absent from Milwaukee as the team assesses his workload following his 16-game suspension due to an injured left ankle this season.We have a talented team, Lillard remarked. Giannis is undoubtedly the snake’s head. We perform best when he’s around. However, there are a lot of guys in our changing area. We have veterans, and I believe that tonight we grasped the purpose of the mission. Giannis and Khris were the two players we knew were going to be out. We knew the game we had to play. We were aware of the type of energy we required. I believed that was how we came out and played right away.

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clear of the Boston Celtics, who have already secured the best regular-season record in the NBA, Milwaukee (49-31) is one and a half games clear of New York (47-32) and two games ahead of Cleveland (47-33) in the chase for the No. 2 playoff slot in the Eastern Conference.

The Magic (46-34) are trying to secure one of the top six seeds in the Eastern Conference and stay out of the play-in zone, but they have lost two games in a row and three of their last four. Orlando is attempting to secure its third postseason appearance since 2012 and its first since 2020.

Orlando’s final two regular-season games are on Friday at Philadelphia and Sunday at home against Milwaukee.

Cole Anthony, the Magic’s leading scorer with 23 points, stated, “I think those games will be very similar to the game we played tonight.” “It felt like the playoffs tonight.” The fans made a lot of noise. The referees were kind of letting us have our fun. Additionally, we faced a really strong team. When the playoffs get around, things will continue to be like that.

For the Magic, Paolo Banchero scored twenty points, and Jalen Suggs contributed eighteen. Franz Wagner of Orlando was sidelined for the second straight game due to an injured right ankle.

After the Magic scored the game’s opening five points, the Bucks responded with a 7-0 run. Over the following two and a half minutes, the Magic tied the game a few times, but they never took the lead again.

With four steals and 24 points in the first half, Portis helped the Bucks take a 64-50 lead into halftime. Orlando made ten mistakes in the first 1 1/2 quarters of the game, and the Bucks outscored the Magic 16-0 in points off of turnovers.

Anthony remarked, “They did an excellent job of taking advantage of every single mistake we made.”

The second half saw the Bucks hold a double-digit lead the entire time.

After playing for 15 minutes, reserve guard A.J. Green of the Bucks left the game due to a sprained left ankle.