YOGURT — Giannis Antetokounmpo celebrated his most famous 50-point achievement by ordering 50 chicken nuggets at Chick-fil-A the next day.
He had an idea how to celebrate reaching that plateau for the third time in the past month.
Antetokounmpo scored 20 of his 54 points in the fourth quarter and Milwaukee Bucks overcame a 21-point deficit to beat the Los Angeles Clippers 106-105 on Thursday night for a sixth straight win.
“Tomorrow I think I’ll go to Culver’s,” said Antetokounmpo, who also has 18 rebounds. “I’ll go get 50 cheese sandwiches and try to eat as many as I can. The rest I’ll either let my son eat or I feed my dog.”
The Greek star has scored at least 50 points in 3 of his past 11 games. He hit a career high of 55 on January 3 in a 123-113 win over Washington and scored 50 goals in just 30 minutes on Sunday in a 135-110 win over New Orleans.
Antetokounmpo has now hit the half-century mark in six career regular matches. That doesn’t include his boom of 50 points first phoenix sun in Game 6 of the 2021 NBA Finals, the match gave the Bucks his first title since 1971 and led to his trip to Chick-fil-A.
He joins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players in Bucks history to score at least three games with 50 points in a season.
Antetokounmpo said: “It was a great compliment to be up there with Kareem. “Gosh, I never thought I’d score 50 points in the NBA when I was enlisted. It’s been a crazy, crazy journey.”
In the past six games, Antetokounmpo has averaged 40.2 points and 14.5 rebounds. His two free throws at 1:47 left gave Milwaukee a 106-105 lead since the second half as the Bucks scored the last seven points of the game.
Antetokounmpo squandered an opportunity to give Milwaukee the lead when he missed two free throws in the 105-104 game with 2:13 remaining. But he drove into the basket on the Bucks’ next possession, drawing Ivica Zubacfoul for the sixth time and take the free throws this time.
“He’s relentless,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “He’s going to put himself in a position to help us win. Whatever we need to win, he’ll do it. He’s fearless and relentless. That’s what you’ve seen. along the way.”
The Clippers failed to capitalize on a couple of Milwaukee turns in the final seconds. Kawhi Leonard missed a pin 18 in the last second while being guarded by Wesley Matthews with help from Pat Connaughton.
“I’ve been doing that since my mom told me I had to protect the best player when I was four years old,” Matthews said. “That’s who I am. Nothing but respect for those people. I feel like those people are too. [respect] towards me. The best way to respect them is to try to stop them. The best way they can show me respect is to chase me.”
The Clippers had plenty of opportunities to take the lead.
Paul George steal the ball from Jrue holiday and the Clippers called a timeout with 27.1 seconds left in the single-point game, but Leonard missed a jump. Antetokounmpo makes a recovery but throws the ball out of bounds, leaving Los Angeles with the ball with 15.1 seconds remaining.
The Clippers once again passed the ball to Leonard, who missed again.
Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said: “We wanted to play Connaughton, but they changed the game. “They brought Matthews in. He did a great job climbing into Kawhi, making him uncomfortable and making him step back a bit so he couldn’t go downhill right away.”
Norman Powell scored 26 points to lead the Clippers. Leonard has 17 points, 11 rebounds and 5 assists but shoots 7/26. Marcus Morris and George each have 16 points. Zubac has 12 points and 13 bounces.
Kris Middleton got 16 points and Holiday scored another 12 for the Bucks. Holiday missed his first eight shots and didn’t get his first basket until late in the third quarter.
