Giannis Antetokounmpo did everything in his power to try and lift the Milwaukee Bucks against the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday night. The former back-to-back MVP finished with 30 points on 10-of-17 shooting, to go along with 13 rebounds, four assists, and a steal in 33 minutes of action.
It was all for nothing, though, as the Kings thoroughly dismantled the Bucks en route to an embarrassing 129-94 blowout.
Milwaukee Bucks Star Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Statement on Leadership
Antetokounmpo did not hold back in post-game presses as he criticized his team for their lack of effort against Sacramento. The eight-time All-Star pointed to their lack of ball movement as one of the biggest culprits in their embarrassing loss:
“Gotta move the ball but…I get it. I get why it’s happening,” Antetokounmpo said, via Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Especially, for example, when you get double teamed every single time in the post, you want to play. You want to impact the game. You cannot just be passive and just passing the ball. You gotta impact the game in a way. Sometimes you gotta beat the double team. Sometimes you gotta make something happen. When they’re blitzing Dame every single time, sometimes he’s going to hold the ball, try to see if he can find a crack, try to make something happen. I get why it’s happening.
“But, we have to work on it. We’re going to see that in the next game we play against Philly. We’re going to see to see that in the next game we’re gonna play in the playoffs. We gotta be able to beat the teams from the post when they double team us. We gotta be able to beat teams when they blitz us. Find the right outlets, guys get to the middle of the floor, try to spray it out to the corners, guys making shots. You have to find ways to be effective no matter what the defense does. Do I believe the ball was sticky tonight. One hundred percent it was sticky. Again, we didn’t make shots either.”
Giannis clearly has his sights set on what the immediate future holds for the Bucks and he will want to move on from this deflating loss as soon as possible.
He then took the opportunity to speak on the difficulties of being the leader of this squad. At the same time, however, Giannis knows that times like these are when his fortitude and steadfastness are put to the test:
“So, what are you going to do? When you’re the leader of the team what do you do? When you’re Dame what do you do? When you’re Giannis what do you do? You just keep on giving it or you try to make something happen? So that’s the struggle of being a leader of a team,” he said. “At the end of the day, today was a game that the ball was sticky. Maybe next game we can be better, we can make shots. It’s easy when everybody’s feeling the ball and everybody’s making shots and the ball is moving. That’s when it’s easy.”
Antetokounmpo and the Bucks will be hoping for an “easier” outing when they face the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday in Milwaukee.
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