MILWAUKEE -- "Where was Giannis Antetokounmpo?" That was the main question everyone was asking after Game 5 of the Milwaukee Bucks' first-round series against the Boston Celtics. The Greek Freak, Milwaukee's best player, had just 10 shot attempts in 41 minutes as the Celtics took a 3-2 advantage in the series.

There was no need to ask that question after Game 6. 

Elite players rise to the occasion in big moments, and on Thursday night Giannis proved that's just what he is. All night long, he made big play after big play, delivering a performance worthy of the "M-V-P" chants the Bradley Center faithful rained down upon their hero. Finishing with 31 points, 14 rebounds and four assists, Giannis led the Bucks to a 97-86 victory, forcing a Game 7 back in Boston on Saturday.

"My team did a great job looking for me," Giannis explained in front of his locker after the win, giving credit to his teammates as always. "I was able to rebound the ball and find lanes in transition too. I was out there, I was trying to make plays and be aggressive, and that's what I did tonight."

Most impressive about Giannis' night was that he showed up in the fourth quarter, when the Bucks needed him the most. In 10 fourth-quarter minutes, he put up 12 points and five rebounds -- a good line for some players for an entire game.

Whether it was in transition, in the post, cutting to the basket or grabbing offensive rebounds for putbacks, he did it all. In particular, his rebound and putback with just over three minutes to play was a backbreaker for the Celtics.

"One of his best baskets was when he jumped up for an offensive rebound," Bucks head coach Joe Prunty noted in the postgame press conference. "He jumped, put his arms up, and made a play not many players in this league can make. … To be able to go up after playing as hard as he does, at that point in the game, it's a massive play."

Down by as many as 12 points in the fourth quarter, the Celtics had the deficit down to six, and looked to have gotten a stop, before Giannis snatched the ball and put it back in to push the lead back to eight. The Celtics never got closer.

Giannis' ability to put a disappointing Game 5 behind him and step up in Game 6 -- the biggest game of his career to this point -- was the type of performance that cements his place among the game's best.

"If he sat back and watched Russell Westbrook last night, he watched LeBron James last night -- two guys in his elite company -- he sat back, he watched, he observed and he understood what he had to do tonight," Jason Terry explained to CBS Sports. "Whether he shot it 50 times, he had to do whatever he had to do tonight for us to get the win. That's what those two guys did, that's what all the great ones do. Michael Jordan did it. It's tough as a young player, because you want to be unselfish, you want to get everybody involved, but his job is to do whatever it takes on that given night to get us a win. And he did that tonight."

Now the budding superstar, who just five years ago was playing in the Greek second division, will have another chance to build his legacy in the first Game 7 of his career. Asked if he had any expectations for that moment, Giannis paused for a second, then demurred.

"The only thing I know is me and my team are going to play hard," he said.