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Tim Bontemps
New York– giannis antetokounmpo Losing like this is not a habit.
Although Antetokounmpo maintained his form in his return to the court on Friday – scoring 30 points, 15 rebounds and 8 assists in 28 minutes – it was not enough to prevent box from falling 118-109 till new York Knicks Milwaukee’s seventh consecutive loss.
The Bucks had not lost seven in a row since March 2014 — Antetokounmpo’s rookie year, when the team went 15-67. After Friday’s game, he made an emotional appeal to his team to get their “competitive spirit” back and begin to turn their season around.
“Nobody should have a personal agenda. Nobody should have to worry about what they want out of themselves,” said Antetokounmpo, who has missed the last four games with a groin strain. “Just worry about the winning mentality. The winning mentality. The more we can win games, the more everything takes care of itself.”
Antetokounmpo talked about some things he felt needed to change for Milwaukee (8-12), which is 11th in the Eastern Conference and two games out of a play-in spot to get back on track.
“Can I make the excuse that we’ve played a lot of games and guys are tired and it’s a huge burden on guys? Yes,” Antetokounmpo said. “Can I even make an excuse that it’s human nature.” [Kevin Porter Jr.] Goes down and I go down too, it’s human nature to think that you have to carry the burden. … Maybe it’s a load of scoring, maybe you get a chance to make plays, maybe you feel like it’s an opportunity for you to take more shots. …but that’s not how you win the game. That’s not how you build culture.
“At the end of the day, you’ve got to come in, do your job, do what you’re paid to do, defend… do the little things. And sometimes, when you worry about doing the little things, all the other things add up. If you’re so worried about scoring the ball and being aggressive and it doesn’t work for you, now you feel like you can’t do anything.”
Antetokounmpo also said that some of his teammates are getting frustrated after missing shots, and they are letting it affect the rest of the game.
“You can’t worry about a shot or two that you missed, which took four seconds to decide 47 minutes, 56 seconds of the game,” Antetokounmpo said. “So, we’ve got to get back into that mindset. We’ve got to get back into that mindset that we’ve got to compete. We’ve got to get back into the mindset that it’s not a one-man show, we’ve got to do it together.
“We have to move the ball. We have to find open 3s, we have to run. We have to create gaps. Sometimes our gaps are shaky. The more space we have, the more we can attack, the more ryan rollins I can get into the paint, the more I can get into the paint, the more we can make open 3s for people to shoot.”
Antetokounmpo played his first game since suffering a groin injury in the loss. cleveland cavaliers On 17 November. He was playing with a minutes restriction on Friday, which may have contributed to the close loss.
Almost everyone on the Bucks said they needed to improve their offensive rebounding while avoiding fouls and turnovers. Those issues resulted in Milwaukee taking 13 fewer shots and eight fewer free throws than New York (12-6) on Friday.
“We’re beating teams … but it’s turnovers, offensive rebounding and fouls,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said. “It’s a numbers game, and we’ve got to win that game. Especially with Giannis [on the court]if we win [the numbers game]We are going to win the game.
“Obviously, he was on a minutes restriction tonight, which was really tough in a game like tonight. We lost the lead when we took him off the floor for the most part, but we had to do what we had to do to try to get him back healthy.”
Antetokounmpo and the Bucks return home to play Brooklyn Nets Saturday in the second half of a back-to-back set. He said he felt good Friday night and hopes to get more playing time against the Nets.
“I know what the protocol is,” Antetokounmpo said. “I know that when you come back with my injury, there will be a minutes restriction no matter what you want to do. It doesn’t matter what type of game it is. Would I like to play more? Yes. Can I play more? I don’t know. But I know one thing for sure: Tomorrow, I will play more minutes, and I will try to help the team win.”
