Has P.J. Tucker finally found what he has been looking for with the Milwaukee Bucks? (2024)

For seven games in the Eastern Conference semifinals, P.J. Tucker went toe-to-toe with Nets forward Kevin Durant.

To be clear, he did not go basket-for-basket; Tucker versus Durant wasn’t a scoring duel. Tucker put everything he had into his defensive effort and making it as tough as possible for Durant to score in the Bucks’ second-round series.

The Bucks’ wing first met Durant on a University of Texas recruiting trip where Tucker told then-head coach Rick Barnes that Durant is going to be “the best player I’ve ever seen in my life,” so he knew what the job required. And he gave everything to that matchup, so much so that he joked that he exerted so much energy on defense that he told his teammates “good luck” in regards to what they’d get out of him on offense in the series.

After seven games though, despite mammoth numbers from Durant, the Bucks came out on top with an overtime victory in Game 7 in Brooklyn. When asked to consider the journey that led him to that place, to that duel with Durant in the playoffs, Tucker gave a 30-second answer about his journey, but then took an extra second to cap his answer with a three-word sentence:

“I’m just happy.”

The life of an NBA player is focused on wins and losses, victory and defeat, accomplishment and failure. It is black and white. Players either make the shot or they miss the shot. The team either overcomes an obstacle or falls short of a goal. The human existence that exists in between those binary feelings often goes unnoticed and undiscussed as games are decided.

So, it was interesting to hear a player so hyper-focused on an individual battle and getting a win speaking on the more existential nature of being a professional athlete. With so much of a player’s life defined by wins and losses that may not be totally in his control, happiness must be difficult to find.

“It’s impossible,” Tucker told The Athletic in an exclusive interview between Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference finals. “It is. It really is. It’s thee impossible.”

“To be able to go through all the stuff that you go through in seasons with teams and front offices and all the different things, the twists and turns a career has. To be able to get to that point where you go through some tough, dark times, things that fall apart, to finding your footing back at somewhere you want to be, like there are so many different variables, man, to actually get back to a place with yourself that you can actually say, ‘You know what, I’m just enjoying this and happy because I’ve seen the other side and been there and know how that feels to be in that place.’ It’s unimaginable. Like I said, it’s almost impossible in this day.”

For Tucker, going against Durant was the reward for everything he had gone through in the last season.

“I thought about the stuff I was doing with Houston this year, this season has just been a long year for me,” Tucker said. “To go from being a top team in the West to falling apart instantly and being the last one left (in Houston) and everything I went through with that, the transition, it was just a lot this season.

“That battle with KD was just like that big, heavyweight fight. Just night after night, giving it all and being exhausted and just fighting and fighting and just to come out on top of that after going through all of that, plus that (matchup), that was that moment. That was that, you fought all night and then at the end of the day, you just want to be happy.”

While things are going well for Tucker and the Bucks on the eve of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Tucker took a circuitous journey to Milwaukee.

Things went downhill for the Rockets starting in the NBA bubble. After beating Chris Paul and the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the 2020 playoffs, the Rockets took Game 1 against the Los Angeles Lakers in a game Tucker started at center and played 35 minutes. From there, everything fell apart. The Rockets lost the next four games and then head coach Mike D’Antoni and the Rockets parted ways, essentially on the plane ride out of the bubble, on Sep. 15, 2020. One month later, general manager Daryl Morey resigned. Two weeks later, the organization named Stephen Silas head coach.

In a two-month span, the Rockets went from stumbling onto a fun, small-ball, switch-heavy approach with Tucker in a key role at center to a franchise devoid of direction, trying to find the next step forward. They quickly found their direction, but it was moving in the opposite one Tucker might have hoped.

On Nov. 22, the team traded Robert Covington, the switchy wing with length and strength who helped fuel the Rockets’ small-ball starting unit. Two days later, Houston completed a sign-and-trade for Christian Wood, a prized free-agent forward, albeit young and inexperienced. Three days later, they sent Austin Rivers out the door. And then, on Dec. 2, the team swapped Russell Westbrook for John Wall, who had not played an NBA game since Dec. 26, 2018.

Harden, Tucker and Eric Gordon were the only main contributors left on the roster from the day Tucker signed with the Rockets on July 6, 2017, just 10 days after the Rockets had traded for Paul. And then Harden forced his way out of town. On Jan. 14, the Rockets were 4-6 when the Nets traded for Harden. In the weeks after he left, the Rockets fought hard and managed to claw their way to a winning record at 10-9, but then they dropped 20 straight games and those losses weighed on Tucker, who the Bucks often describe as a “winning player,” more than anyone else. While he was watching Paul find success in Phoenix and Harden join a super team in Brooklyn, Tucker was marooned in Houston with one of the league’s worst teams.

“I was low,” Tucker said. “It was low. I did not enjoy that. I gave up so much. Like players put that together, guys getting together, talking, and I left a great situation I was in Toronto, other situations I had, other deals, other offers. I left a lot on the table to be a part of that, so in the end, to be last and be there, to have to deal with what I dealt with them leaving as well, that was, I don’t know if it was the lowest (point in my career), but it was low. It wasn’t good.”

Following the All-Star break, the Rockets decided to make Tucker inactive for games as they assessed the situation and tried to find a trade partner. He sat out for five games before the Rockets eventually found a deal with Milwaukee. Bucks general manager Jon Horst gave up D.J. Wilson and D.J. Augustin, while creatively moving picks around to let the Rockets move into the first round with the Bucks’ 2021 draft pick (eventually No. 24 in the 2021 NBA Draft) while the Bucks moved back to the start of the second round (eventually the No. 31 pick).

The Bucks sat Tucker for 10 games shortly after he joined them to heal a left calf strain that Tucker later revealed he had been playing through with the Rockets in order to help win games, but for Milwaukee, that was not necessary. The Bucks were not focused on winning regular-season games this season. They wanted Tucker to be ready for the postseason, where the Bucks knew they would need his toughness and ability to switch defensively to give opponents different defensive looks.

“His whole career, he’s been a guy that guards one through five,” Bucks star Khris Middleton said at NBA Finals media day Monday. “So to have him on our team to give us the confidence to throw those different lineups out there and rely on him in a lot of different situations, it’s been great.”

As soon as the Bucks hit the postseason, Tucker’s tenacity gave the Bucks an edge they had lacked in the previous two postseasons. In the first round, it was Tucker who split time on Heat star Jimmy Butler with Giannis Antetokounmpo and told the world that this Bucks roster is full of “dogs,” which has turned into a rallying cry this postseason.

DOGS 🗣 pic.twitter.com/X96nPev0nR

— Milwaukee Bucks (@Bucks) May 28, 2021

And then in the second round, Tucker lived his dream and spent an entire playoff series “guarding the best player in the world,” which eventually propelled the Bucks to the Eastern Conference finals for the second time in three seasons. Then, after beating the two other teams Tucker thought about wanting to get traded to in the first two rounds, the Bucks started off the third round with a Game 1 loss to the lower-seeded Atlanta Hawks, who got a career performance — 48 points, seven rebounds and 11 assists — from Trae Young. The Bucks could have been down, but they laughed it off and kept moving forward.

Before Antetokounmpo hyperextended his left knee in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Bucks regularly posted videos of Tucker laughing with Antetokounmpo, the NBA’s two-time MVP.

“I’ve been down here, only way is up now” @bucks

Giannis' mindset in the playoffs 🗣

(h/t @WxvyJxyy) pic.twitter.com/PuAck2FdWN

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 27, 2021

Before joining the Bucks, like most players around the league, Tucker knew very little about Antetokounmpo, but they have quickly developed a friendship.

“If you see all the videos, I’m always laughing because he is hilarious,” Tucker said of the Bucks star. “You really don’t know. He’s really funny. He’ll say anything. He’s real. He’s going to tell you some real stuff. He’s going to keep it real with you. It’ll catch you off guard because you wouldn’t expect it, like the way he comes with it, the way he says stuff. You wouldn’t expect it and I don’t think anybody would that didn’t really know him.”

As the Bucks approached the Finals, Tucker did more than just fit with his new roster; he came to shape its identity. With an injury to Donte DiVincenzo against the Heat in the first round, Tucker took his place in the starting lineup against the Nets and then held onto that spot as the Bucks went up against the Hawks. When Antetokounmpo went down in Game 4, the Bucks decided to switch, a Tucker specialty, on defense for the entirety of the final two games against the Hawks.

“Toughness. He brings that mental physicality that you need to win in the league,” Bobby Portis said during Monday’s media availability. “All guys, all teams need a guy like him on your roster that do all the little things. It’s just not about scoring with him, whether he’s making shots or missing them. He’s the same way every day. Brings that dog to the team, brings that toughness that every team needs, like I said, getting all the loose balls, fighting for the offensive rebounds, coming out of the corners and getting rebounds, things like that. Always gets a big rebound every game.

“He does all the little things for our basketball team that we really, really need, and he’s great in his role. He plays it to a T.”

Part of the reason Tucker initially felt underappreciated in Houston was the organization’s unwillingness to negotiate an extension with him that he believed to reflect the value he brought to the Rockets. So with Tucker once again providing value and this time doing it with the Bucks on the way to the NBA Finals, the thing that might extend his happiness even longer could be guaranteeing a future in Milwaukee.

“No, no, I’m way past an extension now,” Tucker said. “I’m free this summer. The last thing on my mind is an extension. I’m a free agent this summer, so I’ll be able to make some decisions myself.

“I’m excited to be free. I’m really excited to be able to pick where I want to go, so I’m excited. The extension thing was for a different period of time. We didn’t even talk about that when I came to Milwaukee. There was no extension. I just wanted to come play and get a chance to do what I do and that was it. I just wanted to have a chance.”

In Milwaukee, Tucker received that chance and he has given himself an opportunity to prove it all one more time on the game’s biggest stage.

(Top photo: Scott Cunningham / NBAE via Getty Images)