Most Memorable

April 21, 20167:00 AM CDT

Welcome to the Fifth Annual Top-10 Memorable Games story.

Proof: Click for 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15 most memorable games.

Nearly four months into the season, Giannis racked up his first career triple-double. Scratch that. Nearly four months into the season, Giannis became a triple-double.
Giannis dropped 27/12/10 along with four blocks and three steals on the Lakers in a completely dominant 41 minutes. The Bucks crushed the Lakers, as they should, but as they had not in Los Angeles a couple months earlier, when they were inexplicably run off the floor at Staples Center. This made up for that. This is the game that set Giannis on a run of four triple-doubles within three weeks.
People showed up to see Kobe play his final game in Milwaukee. People saw Kobe shoot 3-for-15 or something.

And here was that fourth triple-double within the span of three weeks for Giannis (28/11/14). This time, a career-high 14 assists, with Point Giannis in full effect. Nearly a flawless game by Giannis (other than at the stripe, where he shot 4-of-11), who added 10 points in the fourth quarter of the comeback win.
The Bucks trailed 98-97 with 4:09 to play before going on a 12-0 run to conclude the game (for this purpose, I am striking Sean Kilpatrick’s inconsequential layup at the end from the record).
Giannis has teammates and some of them are also young and good. Jabari Parker, notably, added 23 points on this fair evening.

John Henson blocked a Meyers Leonard jumper to secure the win with 2.9 seconds. Blocking a jumper to secure a win is an unusual and enjoyable way to conclude a win. It is also the most John Henson way to conclude a win and perhaps the only John Henson way to conclude a way.
The Bucks trailed most of the fourth quarter and were down 82-77 before a couple O.J. Mayo triples and some solid finishing by Giannis, Carter-Williams and Greg Monroe, the latter who hit what proved to be the game-winner.
Damian Lillard was and is a hooper, and is a joy to watch.

The previous time the Bulls visited Milwaukee, they were not courteous guests. Mike Dunleavy Jr. punched Michael Carter-Williams and Giannis. The Bulls won by 54. It was the playoffs. The Bucks season ended.
This was different than that. Giannis broke out of a two-game mini-slump with 29 points and looked swell doing it in that black Fear The Deer jersey on that slick Fear The Deer court. Giannis, by the way, is generally fire on that court, statistically. The Bucks turned the ball over just five times and scored 30 points off Bulls turnovers.
This was back when Giannis accruing “doubles-doubles” was a thing people wrote in game recaps. A more innocent time.

The Bucks went 4-0 in overtime this season. This game went to double-overtime. The Bucks won.
LeBron James went for 37 and the Bucks won. As a fan, watching a visiting all-time great play at a superstar level while the home team wins in double-overtime is something close to the ideal experience.
On top of that, this game contained abundant weirdness. Jerryd Bayless was out there guarding James in double-overtime, and doing so pretty well. No one on the Bucks scored more than 17 points. J.R. Smith played 50 minutes and made four shots. Richard Jefferson and Mo Williams (who played for the Bucks in two previous eras of basketball) played a combined 68 minutes on a team trying to win a championship in 2015-16.

Jason Kidd brought Greg Monroe (and Michael Carter-Williams) off the bench for the first time all season and Monroe responded with 29 points.
The Bucks blew a 19-point fourth quarter lead before prevailing.
Both teams made incredible fouls at the end to give the other team life. Monroe gave the Bucks a 111-109 lead with 1.9 seconds. Things were great. Until Bayless fouled Olynyk with 1.0 seconds to play on the inbound pass. Olynyk hit both free throws. Then, somehow Avery Bradley swatted at Khris Middleton with 0.6 seconds to play, sending Middleton to the line to win it. Ridiculous.

The Grizzlies, who are in the playoffs right now, gave double-digit minutes in a game they were genuinely trying to win to fellows named Xavier Munford, Briante Weber, Alex Stephenson and Jarell Martin.
In a game the Grizzlies started Lance Stephenson, Tony Allen and Matt Barnes, the villain turned out to be John Henson. With the game out of reach in the waning seconds, Henson smash-blocked a Barnes layup and gave a wide stare. This had followed a flagrant-one and technical on Henson for bringing Stephenson to the floor earlier in the fourth quarter. It was later reported that Barnes followed Henson to the locker room after the game, earning Barnes a suspension, per Matt Barnes tradition.
About the game: The Bucks somehow trailed Munford and company by five points entering the fourth quarter. Fittingly, Tyler Ennis scored 13 points in the fourth quarter, as the entire Bucks starting five sat the entire period. The Ennis/Vaughn/Inglis/Henson/Plumlee quintet outscored the Grizzlies 28-13 in the final frame to complete the comeback.

Jabari scored a career-best 36, Giannis dropped another triple-double (18/16/11), and Middleton scored 30 on 10 shots. Of all the nights, this was probably the one where, falling asleep that night, I felt best about the future of the team.
Lots of points. A season-high 128 points.
Full report on the goodness here.

I am listening to the Bill Simmons podcast with Draymond Green, and Simmons just asked Green if there were any games they (the Warriors) probably shouldn’t have won but they just wouldn’t let themselves lose. “You have the Boston game. You have the Milwaukee game at home. You have the OKC game where Steph hit the bomb from 50 feet to win the game…”
Timing matters here. The Bucks had (spoiler alert) beaten the Warriors just six days previous to this, but then had traveled to southern California and gotten blown out by the Lakers and Clippers in succession. For me, personal experience matters here, too. I had taken a vacation to California and drove up the coast after going to those two Los Angeles games. I am freelance for the Bucks, so this was not normal. This was the first Bucks game I had attended as a fan rather than as media since Andrew Bogut broke nearly everything against the Suns back in 2010.
The Bucks definitely played their best three quarters of the season to start this game (the Warriors played better in this game than they had in Milwaukee). They carried a 70-58 lead into halftime. They carried a 93-85 lead into the fourth quarter. They were up by 11 with less than eight minutes to play. Seemingly inevitably, the Warriors came back, putting up 36 in the fourth quarter.

You could say that no regular season win is that meaningful in the long run, in the scope of history, but every Warriors regular season win this season mattered very much in those ways. And the losses, perhaps even more.
The Warriors entered the night 24-0.
Words from that night here.