Cradling the gold Larry O’Brien Trophy in his left arm, his right holding a magnum of champagne on July 21, 2021, P.J. Tucker stood on a stage in the Deer District in front of tens of thousands of celebrating Milwaukee Bucks fans and proclaimed, “Man, we got dogs!
“I got here like – we already got dogs – they just don’t know how to be dogs.”
It was an unvarnished moment and a true statement, as the 36-year-old forward summed up the impact of his entire 125-day tenure as a Bucks player.
“We had been kind of like – I don’t want to say choir boy – but we needed an edge,” Bucks assistant coach Darvin Ham said.
Jrue Holiday: “He made us dogs. He brought some toughness. He was able to give us the confidence to talk a little bit of [expletive], you know? To feel ourselves a little bit, like our [expletive] don’t stink.”
Mike Budenholzer: “He gave our team a ton of confidence. We were we were always good defensively, but I think he took our confidence, our belief and really our physicality to a whole other level.”
Tucker was acquired on March 19, 2021, as the Bucks’ key trade deadline acquisition, but he only played 20 of a possible 32 games due to injury. He logged just under 18 minutes per game when he did play, and heading into the playoffs his role off the bench was somewhat uncertain.
But when starting guard Donte DiVincenzo injured his foot after playing less than 10 minutes in Game 3 against Miami in the first round of the playoffs, the Bucks suddenly had a huge hole to fill. DiVincenzo averaged about 28 minutes per game as a starter in the regular season and logged 37 minutes in Game 1 against Miami.
At that point Tucker was in the rotation, along with wing Pat Connaughton, guard Bryn Forbes and forward Bobby Portis Jr. Though Forbes was on fire in that series, Budenholzer initially started Connaughton in Game 4 to replace DiVincenzo.
Assistant coach Chad Forcier: “There were other choices. Or, there were other ways to utilize P.J. when Donte’s minutes opened up. I don’t remember him having much debate on who it was gonna be. I don’t think as a group any of us would have called that decision just a no-brainer.”
P.J. Tucker gets the call to start after key injury
But with five days to think about who should fill in for DiVincenzo going forward, Budenholzer decided the 6-foot-5-inch, 245-pound Tucker would get the call to start the series against Brooklyn at the Barclays Center.
Budenholzer: “I think then the Brooklyn matchup with [Kevin Durant] it seemed like really, pretty obvious to me. I didn’t know the rest of the staff didn’t agree with me or I don’t remember the debate – we usually debated everything and had strong, robust disagreements – I’d be lying if I said I remember that. P.J. just seemed to me clearly the right guy.”
Even though the starting lineup had been settled, the start of the Brooklyn series did not go well. The Nets won Game 1 and then blew the Bucks out by 39 points in Game 2.
Everything changed, though, in Game 3 at Fiserv Forum.
With Milwaukee up 60-57 with 4 minutes 21 seconds to go in the third quarter, Tucker fouled Durant hard. The two went face-to-face on the court, which led to Durant’s personal bodyguard getting ejected and the players receiving technical fouls.
Bobby Portis Jr.: “That moment was super big just for the energy just letting those guys know that we ain’t going for that and we ain’t punks over here.”
Jordan Nwora: “He was that dog we needed in the moment.”
After shooting 55.8% from the floor overall and scoring 61 points in Games 1 and 2, Durant was 11-for-28 (39.3%) from the floor in Game 3. He scored 30 points, but it took work.
And that would be the calling card for Tucker against Durant for the rest of that series, which the Bucks would win in seven games. The raw points produced by Durant were incredible (35.4 points per game) but he averaged 26.4 shots to do it. Over the final five games of the series, Durant scored 187 points on 142 attempts.
Portis: “You just need that energy to win, you know, sometimes on the basketball court. It ain’t just X’s and O’s, it be battles within the war that you have to win. And sometimes it’s just about being a dog. Being a dog is getting offensive rebounds, locking up, just backing up your trash talk when you talk it. And just how you carry yourself, having a swag about yourself. And P.J. brought that edge to our team that we really needed.”
Famously, Durant’s foot was on the 3-point line as he attempted to win the game with a second left in Game 7 that forced overtime. But Tucker’s coaches and teammates remember the turnover with 68 seconds left that led to two Khris Middleton free throws and a 109-105 Bucks lead, and the 16-footer Durant missed with 49 seconds left that burned seven crucial seconds off the clock.
They remember Durant going 0-for-6 in overtime, in which the Bucks outscored the Nets 6-2.
Sam Merrill: “That absolutely played a part. The defense that he played – and obviously Jrue and Khris as well – was pretty insane.”
Assistant coach Mike Dunlap: “How much is out of KD’s tank, who knows, but I do think those things made a difference. The thing about P.J. is even when [Durant] is going for his 42nd point in a game, you might say ‘well, you gotta put somebody else on him, he’s got 42’ the facts speak for itself. The foot did go on the line. He did miss a middle jumper before that where it looked like he was a little leg weary. And he’s that phenomenal. There was a wear-down factor. It could be even as ‘why didn’t he have 48?’ ‘Bud’ stayed with it. He said we’re going to live or die on this hill.”
Budenholzer: “His ability to make those guys – Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, those types of guys are gonna score – but just to make them have to work so hard and hopefully lower their efficiency, lower their effectiveness and just give your team the confidence that we got somebody that can guard these guys.”
Tucker calls the Bucks’ finals appearance
Because the Bucks’ series with the Nets stretched seven full games – and the Phoenix Suns were romping through the first two rounds in the Western Conference – the schedules for each conference finals were not aligned. In the East, the Bucks were able to watch the Suns steadily move forward in their series with the Los Angeles Clippers and take a 3-1 lead on June 26.
On June 28, however, the Clippers extended the series with a Game 5 win. The next night in Atlanta, the Bucks were blown out in Game 4 against the Hawks as it appeared Giannis Antetokounmpo suffered a season-ending knee injury. The team was rattled, with their series now tied 2-2.
On June 30, the Suns advanced to the finals with an easy, blowout win over the Clippers.
Who knew what the Bucks had in front of them.
Tucker picked up the phone.
Jrue Holiday: “I remember ‘Tuck’ calling me, like, we’re making it to the Finals. Like, we have no other option but to make it there. I remember after that, not that it kind of clicked, but I’m pretty sure Giannis ended up going down and for me it was like all right, bro, I got you. Let’s get to these Finals.”
Thanasis Antetokounmpo: “When Giannis [gets hurt] and you feel like some of my guys are going to waiver or they’re going to do this, you needed somebody to tell them like, ‘go at them! They can’t guard you!’ And there’s different things like this which add so much that people don’t understand.”
Milwaukee would win Games 5 and 6 against Atlanta by 11 points apiece and advance to the finals.
An adjustment has P.J. Tucker change the NBA Finals
The Suns entered the finals with home court advantage and were rolling, and they looked every bit the part of a champion when the series began. Veteran point guard Chris Paul, in search of his first title, scored 32 points on 12 of 19 shooting while handing out nine assists in a Game 1 victory. He backed it up with a 23-point (on 10 of 20 shooting), 8-assist night in a Game 2 Phoenix win.
Down 2-0 again, it only seemed right that the Budenholzer and the Bucks lean on their big dog to change the course of the series.
On defense, Budenholzer put Tucker on Suns’ guard Devin Booker and had Jrue Holiday harass Paul the length of the court. Phoenix was “hiding” Paul on Tucker on the other end, knowing Tucker was not going to shoot a ton. And he wasn’t going to, even with a size advantage over the guard.
Instead, Tucker made sure he was felt – literally.
Pat Connaughton: “I vividly remember the switch me made from Games 2 to 3 as far as they wanted P.J. to hit ‘CP3 [Paul]’. Jrue was obviously our best defender and they wanted to make it tough on Devin Booker so the switch I remember us making was P.J. stopped guarding ‘CP3’ but ‘CP3’ was still guarding P.J. So it was Jrue Holiday picking up ‘CP3’ 94 feet. It was P.J. hitting him on the offensive boards. That started in the Atlanta series with Trae Young when they put a guard on P.J. It was not just about crashing, it was about making contact with Trae Young, with ‘CP3.’”
The combination of Tucker’s incessant beatings on the offensive glass and Holiday’s dogged pressure eventually took its toll on Paul. Like Durant in the Brooklyn series, Paul still put up solid raw numbers (19.0 points on 54% shooting overall, 8.0 assists vs. 3.3 turnovers) in the final four games but was worn down in clutch time.
Holiday: “He took on the brunt of guarding the best player, man. He had to guard ‘KD’ for most of that series. I know I did a little bit and even ‘K-Mid,’ but he was the one who had the assignment. Then in the finals he had to guard ‘Book,’ he had to guard ‘CP.’ And he did it without complaint. He actually wanted to do it. And I think to see somebody of his status and being in the league for so long and him sacrificing in that way and seeing that he wanted to win meant a lot. It can’t just be him acting that way. I actually have to want to do what’s best for the team, too.”
That became very evident following the Bucks’ 20-point blowout win in Game 3 on July 11.
In a six-point Bucks win in Game 4 at Fiserv Forum on July 14, Paul had two crucial turnovers and had a layup blocked in the final four minutes that allowed the Bucks to flip the scoreboard.
In the crucial Game 5 in Phoenix on July 17, Paul helped the Suns whittle down a double-digit fourth quarter deficit but in the final three minutes of play he attempted one shot and had no assists.
Finally, in Game 6 in Milwaukee on July 20, Paul again started the fourth quarter strong and kept the Suns within two possessions, but in the final seven minutes he had one turnover and made just one shot – when the outcome was already solidified.
Forcier: “All of a sudden this 250-pound locomotive to be charging from the corner and you’re 10 feet away and you gotta at least try to stand your ground and hope that he doesn’t the ball back. There were enough collisions and you can probably find a few if you look at ‘em, there were enough of those collisions between P.J. and Chris Paul that, in my mind, I think Chris might have gotten hurt even on a play or two trying to actually keep P.J. off the glass. But at the very least, that’s a pounding.”
Budenholzer: “His defense, he’s just an elite, elite, elite defender. I’ve been around two or three, maybe four, that I would put in his category, in his realm. There’s a level of physicality that he brings, too, that is just off the charts.”
Holiday: “I don’t think people realize how much P.J. Tucker mattered to us. He sacrificed so much, especially on the offensive end and just wanted to be a dog on the defensive end because he knew that was his job.”
And, ultimately, part of that job was bringing the rest of the pack with him.
It’s why on that stage on July 21, Tucker punctuated his brief speech with: “Milwaukee, we dogs!”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Remembering what P.J. Tucker meant to the Bucks’ 2021 NBA title team
Reporting by Jim Owczarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jim Owczarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
