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Disney debuts official trailer for ‘Rise’ movie on Giannis Antetokounmpo

Starring real-life brothers Uche Agada and Ral Agada as Giannis and Thanasis respectively, the Disney film follows the lives of the Antetokounmpos, an immigrant family from Nigeria struggling to make a life for themselves in Greece amid daily threats of deportation.

While Charles (Dayo Okeniyi) and Vera (Yetide Badaki) Antetokounmpo sail their family’s daily storms, Giannis and Thanasis would play basketball with a local team. The boys soon discover their great Basketball talents rising to world champions.

Production for the Akin Omotoso directed film kicked off last year with Disney announcing in October that Giannis would serve as executive producer for the Bernie Goldmann produced title.

“I am thrilled and honored that Disney+ is bringing my family’s story to people all over the world,” the Milwaukee star said.

“My hope is that it will inspire those in similar circumstances to keep the faith, stay true to their goals and not to give up on striving for a better life.”

The official synopsis for the trailer reads: “After emigrating to Greece from Nigeria, Vera and Charles Antetokounmpo struggled to survive and provide for their five children, while living under the daily threat of deportation.

With their oldest son still in Nigeria with relatives, the couple were desperate to obtain Greek citizenship but found themselves undermined by a system that blocked them at every turn.

When they weren’t selling items to tourists on the streets of Athens with the rest of the family, encouraged by their father, the brothers would sneak away to play basketball with a local youth team.

Latecomers to the sport, they discovered their great abilities on the basketball court and worked hard to become world class athletes. With the help of an agent, Giannis entered the NBA draft in 2013 in a long-shot prospect that would change not only his life but the life of his entire family.”

A two-time NBA MVP, Giannis is currently one of the most celebrated Basketball stars of the decade. In 2021, he led the Milwaukee to a championship.

Watch

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Basket Ball / Sports

Al Horford, Celtics outlast Bucks in exhausting Game 4 to even series

Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart and Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo lay exhausted in the backcourt, their bodies entangled and their hands clasped together.

The fourth-quarter playoff action Monday night continued without two of the NBA’s hardest-working players, but they just couldn’t seem to summon the energy to help each other get back on their feet. When Boston’s Al Horford scored on the other end, a still-horizontal Antetokounmpo slumped his shoulders and rested his head on the hardwood. The way to beat the two-time MVP, who has taken his game to new heights this postseason, has been to outlast him when his teammates falter.

On a night when both teams struggled to shoot — continuing a series-long trend — the Celtics shook off a slow start and rallied from an 11-point third-quarter deficit to claim a 116-108 victory in Game 4 at Fiserv Forum. Horford helped pull Boston back from the brink with a playoff career-high 30 points, eight rebounds and three assists to even this slugfest of a second-round series at two games apiece.

“We all understood the importance of this game,” Horford said. “At the end of Game 3, we were in a position to win, and we didn’t. I was just locked in. I understood the moment and what we needed to do as a group. I did whatever it took. It was one of those types of nights.”

The 35-year-old Horford has long cultivated a reputation as a heady, steadying presence, but Monday he showed a rare electric streak. Shortly after halftime, Antetokounmpo dunked on Horford and received a technical for taunting. Horford answered early in the fourth quarter, throwing down a poster dunk of his own on Antetokounmpo that helped swing momentum in Boston’s favor.

“The way that [Antetokounmpo] was looking at me and going about it, it didn’t sit well with me,” Horford said. “Something switched with me.”

The veteran center followed up his dunk with a series of clutch jumpers, scoring 16 fourth-quarter points as Milwaukee stalled on the other end. Horford made …

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Bucks finish off shorthanded Bulls in Game 5, advance to face Celtics in second round

The Milwaukee Bucks took care of business on Wednesday.

The defending NBA champions made sure not to prolong their first-round series and finished off the short-handed Chicago Bulls with a 116-100 victory in Game 5 at Fiserv Forum.

The best-of-7 matchup began inauspiciously for Milwaukee with a lackluster performance in Game 1 and then a 114-110 defeat in Game 2. Despite a knee injury to star Khris Middleton that will keep him out at least two weeks, the Bucks looked much crisper in winning three straight, including two in Chicago, to eliminate the Bulls.

“We’ve been talking about the depth of the roster, the quality of the roster, a lot this season,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Other guys have gotten opportunities and played well. And our defense has tightened up and we’ve leaned hard on that these three games.

“But we’ve got depth, we’ve got a good group. We miss Khris, I don’t think anyone underestimates how important and how effective he is for us. While we don’t have him, we got to be our best up and down the roster.”

Third-seeded Milwaukee will face the second-seeded Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals. The Celtics, who swept the Brooklyn Nets in the first round, have home-court advantage and will host the first two games of the series.

Chicago wasn’t expected to give Milwaukee much of a challenge given the 3-1 series deficit and the absences of key guards Zach LaVine (health and safety protocol) and Alex Caruso (concussion protocol).

Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 33 points, with 32 coming in the first three quarters as the Bucks pulled away early and never allowed the Bulls to really threaten.

“Sometimes I got to score the ball,” Antetokounmpo said. “But in my head I don’t think about, ‘Hey, I got to score the ball. Khris is down, I got to score 40.’

It’s kind of the opposite. It’s like, ‘Khris is down now, we got to get 30-40 points from somebody else.’ So you got to move the ball.”

Pat Connaughton was …

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DeMar DeRozan scores 41, sends Bulls-Bucks back to Chicago tied at 1

DeMar DeRozan made sure the Chicago Bulls altered their painful recent history against the Milwaukee Bucks and gave this first-round series a fresh new start.

Now it’s the defending champion Bucks who are suddenly hurting as the teams head to Chicago all tied up.

DeRozan scored a career playoff-high 41 points and the Bulls outlasted the Bucks 114-110 on Wednesday night in Game 2. Nikola Vucevic added 24 points and 13 rebounds, while Zach LaVine had 20 points as the sixth-seeded Bulls beat the third-seeded Bucks for just the second time in their last 19 meetings.

“No matter what you did in the regular season, this is a brand new start and new mindset,” DeRozan said. “You could see it in all the guys. It doesn’t matter if we’d lost 20 times to those guys. This is an opportunity for us to compete. We’ve got to take advantage of it.”

The big question now is what shape the Bucks will be in when this series resumes Friday.

Bobby Portis left the game with a right eye abrasion after the first quarter and Khris Middleton exited with 6:49 left after his left leg gave out while he tried to plant on a spin move.

Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said after the game that Middleton has a sprained medial collateral ligament and will undergo an MRI exam on Thursday.

“He’s always been positive and he knows the type of team that we are and how resilient we are,” Bucks guard Jrue Holiday said. “We just want him to get back as quickly as possible and be healthy so he can come out here and help us win games.”

Budenholzer said that Portis “should be fine with some time.”

Giannis Antetokounmpo led the Bucks with 33 points, 18 rebounds and nine assists, putting him one assist from his second career playoff triple-double. Antetokounmpo increased his career postseason point total to 1,715 to overtake Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1,692) for the most in Bucks history.

Brook Lopez had 25 points for the Bucks. Middleton scored 18 …

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Joel Embiid’s 42 points and a balanced scoring attack power 76ers past Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks, 123-120

Joel Embiid was back to his dominant self Thursday night, finishing with game-highs of 42 points and 14 rebounds to go with five assists. This marked his ninth 40-point, 10-rebound game this season.

With the win, the Sixers (35-23) moved up to third place in the Eastern Conference standings. They head into the NBA All-Star break 2½ games behind the first-place Miami Heat.

“I’m playing at such a high level, I don’t want to stop,” Embiid said of the All-Star break. “I want to keep on going. I feel really good. I’m not gonna just not work or take a couple days off.”

But this game wasn’t decided until the Bucks’ Khris Middleton missed a 31-foot three-pointer at the buzzer.

All this comes after the Sixers suffered one of their worst defeats in franchise history.

On Tuesday, the game against the Celtics seemed more like an afterthought. Most of the focus of that day went to the introductory press conference for Harden and Paul Millsap, who were acquired from the Brooklyn Nets in exchange for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and two first-round picks. Then came the excitement associated with Harden ringing the bell prior to the game. And more attention was paid to Harden’s outfit than the barrage of three-pointers the Celtics were raining early.

All that led to a humbling 48-point loss to Boston.

“There was a lot of stuff going on,” Georges Niang said. “But I hate to put any blame on that. You know what I mean? We are professional athletes. It’s not like this is our first rodeo. So like I said before, I don’t want to say it happens. We got popped. It is what it is.”

Doc Rivers knows the perfect time for Sixers to win an NBA championship is this season

With Harden still sidelined with left hamstring strain, the expectation was the Sixers would suffer the same fate against the Bucks.

But Embiid and the Sixers’ balanced attack didn’t let that happen.

Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris both had 19 …

Basket Ball / Sports

Giannis scores 44, leads Bucks’ 131-116 win over Lakers

Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 44 points on 17-for-20 shooting, and Bobby Portis had 23 points with five 3-pointers in the Milwaukee Bucks’ 131-116 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.

Khris Middleton scored all of his 21 points in the first half, and Antetokounmpo added 14 rebounds and eight assists while making his first 11 shots as the defending NBA champions won their fourth straight overall and swept back-to-back games against LA’s two teams.

Milwaukee jumped to a 24-point lead in the first half with 70% shooting and led by 30 midway through the third quarter before surviving the Lakers’ strong late rally. The Bucks hung on for their third win on a four-game West Coast road trip that ends with an NBA Finals rematch in Phoenix on Thursday.

LeBron James scored 27 points and Anthony Davis had 22 points and nine rebounds for the Lakers, who couldn’t catch up to the champs even on a rare night with both superstars in their injury-riddled lineup. LA has lost five of seven to fall back to three games below .500.

The Lakers rallied impressively in the fourth quarter, trimming Milwaukee’s lead to 10 points midway through the period with a 20-5 run. Portis’ fifth 3-pointer stopped the surge, and the Lakers never got closer than 11 again.

Los Angeles dropped to 10-8 with both James and Davis in their lineup during a season totally lacking in continuity due to lengthy absences for its two cornerstones. James looked tired at times in just his second game back from a five-game absence for the Lakers, who haven’t won back-to-back games since Jan. 7.

Malik Monk scored 20 points and Stanley Johnson added a season-high 16 for the Lakers in a reserve role.

After giving up 42 points to the Knicks in the first quarter on Saturday night, the Lakers allowed 38 to the Bucks in the opening period. Milwaukee took a 51-28 lead in the second by scoring seven points on one trip down the floor with a pair of 3-pointers sandwiching …

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Giannis Antetokounmpo scores 47 points, Bucks deny Lakers

Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 47 points and Khris Middleton tied Milwaukee’s franchise record for career 3-pointers as the Bucks beat the Los Angeles Lakers 109-102 on Wednesday night at Fiserv Forum.

Middleton returned after missing eight games due to COVID-19, played 30 minutes and made consecutive 3-pointers 30 seconds apart early in the fourth quarter to put the Bucks ahead for good. The second of those 3s was his 1,051st with the Bucks to match Ray Allen for first place on the team’s all-time list.

“That’s a very, very special place to be,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “I think we all just admire what Khris does every night, his ability to shoot, the different ways he gets 3’s and his kind of consistency and longevity here.”

Allen holds the NBA record with 2,973 3-pointers in a career that also included stints with the Seattle Super Sonics, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat.

LeBron James missed an eighth straight game for the Lakers due to an abdominal strain. The Lakers have gone 3-5 during that stretch.

Los Angeles also is missing Trevor Ariza and Kendrick Nunn, who haven’t appeared in a game this season.

“It’s a part of the game,” said Anthony Davis, who scored 18 points for the Lakers. “Same thing with the team we just played. They’ve been hit with injuries as well. It kind of goes with the league, the business of the game. You go out there and put your body on the line every night, God forbid, something is going to happen in the course of a season. Someone’s going to get hurt. We’ve got to adjust and continue to fight until we get everybody back.

Talen Horton-Tucker scored 25 points for the Lakers two nights after getting a career-high 28 in a 121-103 loss to Chicago. Russell Westbrook had 19 points, Malik Monk 11 and Carmelo Anthony 10.

Antetokounmpo posted his highest point total since scoring 50 in a Game 6 Finals victory over the Phoenix Suns that clinched Milwaukee’s first title since 1971.

“I wanted

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