From the streets of Greece, to NBA Champion, to Final Jeopardy.

What is, Greece! Giannis!

Well now we know he’s made it. From peddling goods on the streets of Greece to keep his family fed, to the NBA, to NBA MVP, to NBA Champion and Finals MVP, to Final Jeopardy. NOW he’s hit the mainstream.

And how did Giannis prepare for tonight’s potentially clinching Game 5? Was he studying tape? Getting treatment on sore limbs? Sleeping? Nah. Organizing his Oreos in new glass jars he bought:

‘Who is going to eat these?’ ‘Me, and my son.’ PREACH! He’s just the best.

Now speaking of tonight’s game, I’ve seen a LOT of chatter on Bucks Twitter about maybe losing this game, and the next one, in order to get closer to getting Khris Middleton back for the 2nd round. It’s mostly tongue-in-cheek, but I feel the need to dispel with that notion right away: Don’t mess with the sports karma gods. They are vengeful gods. Some would argue that we already tested them by losing that final regular season game in Cleveland to slide into the #3 seed and avoid the Nets.* So while I don’t disagree with the premise that the longer we wait to start the second round, the better it is for Khris, you want to finish this thing tonight. The Bulls are down, they won’t have Caruso or LaVine tonight, they’re wobbling like a character in Mortal Kombat. Hit the ‘Fatality!’ combo and finish them.

*I’ll say what I said when that happened: I don’t think the Bucks were ducking the Nets. If they wanted to duck the Nets, they would have rested everyone when they played the Celtics at home the previous week. But man, for all of the talk from EVERY fan base in the Eastern Conference about avoiding the Nets, they turned out to be a paper tiger. Preseason favorites to win the title and didn’t even win a singly playoff games. Nuts.

PS: This Celtics series is going to take years off of my life. It reminds me very much of the feeling I had going into last year’s second round series against the Nets. The Nets were favored in that series, just like the Celtics will be in this series. The Celtics have been the best team in the NBA since Christmas. They are OOZING confidence, and they have home court. And while I’m not a doctor, it feels pretty unlikely that we’ll see Middleton in this series. If the Bucks win tonight (they will), Game 1 in Boston is on Sunday already, Game 2 would be Wednesday. And Wednesday is the day they are going to evaluate Khris and see how much progress he’s made. Best case he’s maybe coming off of the bench for Game 3 in Milwaukee next Friday. The Bucks will still have the best player on the court, but that Celtics team is humming.