Antetokounmpo takes honest look at Bucks
There’s a problem in Milwaukee. The Bucks were looked upon as the Celtics’ primary competitors for the Eastern Conference crown, yet that was in the preseason. A lot has changed since. The 76ers have emerged as legitimate contenders. The Pacers have risen to darkhorse status and teams such as the Magic and Knicks could reach the second round of the playoffs and perhaps pull off an upset.
And while the Celtics have had their bumps, they entered Friday with the East’s best record and were one game behind the Timberwolves for the league’s top mark. As for the Bucks, despite a home-heavy schedule, they are 15-7 with one of the league’s 10 worst defenses, and they yielded 128 points, including 37 in the fourth quarter, in their In-Season Tournament semifinal loss to the Pacers.
Something isn’t right with the Bucks, and everybody knows it, especially megastar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“I’ll say, obviously, the talent level that we have is incredible,” he said after the loss to the Pacers. “But we have to be more organized. I feel like sometimes we’re not organized at all. We don’t know what we try to get from our offense, or sometimes defensively we’re not sprinting back. At the end of the day, you have to protect the ball. You have to know where the ball is. We had a lot of situations today that they got a lot of dunks, open threes, early threes. We have to be better.
“And the other thing is that obviously our chemistry, game by game, going to keep on getting closer. Again, because we have new players on the team, Malik [Beasley] and Dame [Damian Lillard], which we’ve played a lot of years in the previous years with the same, basically, core, and now it’s different. We have to know what their weaknesses are, what their strengths are, where they want the ball, what spots on the floor they want the ball, and the biggest thing, I believe, is that we’ve got to want it. You know, nobody is going to give you nothing.”
Antetokounmpo’s words were piercing, and they were similar to what some of the Celtics were saying after last Monday’s loss to the Pacers. It’s only December, but sometimes complacency sets in, especially when teams such as the Celtics and Bucks win most of their games.
The Bucks added Lillard in a blockbuster just before training camp began. The trade improved the team offensively, but the defense has suffered. Lillard is a below-average defender and the team’s defensive identity has been challenged because of age and injuries.
Brook Lopez is still playing at a high level, but he’s 35. Former Celtic Jae Crowder is back on the injured list.
Khris Middleton hasn’t been the same player since a series of injuries cost him a chance to play in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Celtics in 2022.
The centerpiece is Antetokounmpo but he’s noticing that teams are no longer intimidated by his presence or willing to concede because of his athletic prowess.
“Sometimes I feel like we expect just because we have great players out there, that Tyrese Haliburton or Myles Turner or Aaron Nesmith, somebody is not just going to give us the game,” Antetokounmpo said. “We have to be better. We have to go out there and take it. At the end of the day, I think we are great players, but if we don’t go out there and compete, they are not going to respect us. They played their best against us.”
First-year coach Adrian Griffin has dealt with adversity in the early going, losing assistant coach Terry Stotts after a preseason dispute. And Griffin is shouldering the responsibility because of the defensive slippage. Antetokounmpo called out everyone in the organization, not just the coach.
“Even if it was about the organization and the coaches, I try to shoot straight,” he said. “As much as I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus, at the end of the day the players play the game. Coaches can say whatever they want to say and put us in the position to be successful, and you hope that they do that for you. But you’ve got to make the plays. If you don’t sprint back on defense, it’s not the coaches’ fault you don’t sprint back. If you’re not able to execute down the stretch and you turn the ball over and you throw it to your opponents’ hands, it’s not the coaches’ fault.”
Antetokounmpo is being brutally honest about a team that is flawed. The Bucks looked old in the fourth quarter against the Pacers. And they are not in harmony. Antetokounmpo argued with Griffin on the sideline during a nationally televised game with the Celtics because he did not want to be taken out. He wouldn’t call out Griffin as a reason for the team’s struggles, but coaching improvement is necessary.
“We have to come together as a team,” Antetokounmpo said. “This is Game 22. We have 60 more games. We’ve got to keep on coming together as a team. We’ve got to keep on spending time together. We’ve got to keep watching film together. We have to keep on getting on the court together.
“We haven’t had the time to practice. We play every other day. It’s hard. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard to practice in this league. It’s not like playing overseas. Overseas, you play one game, two games a week, you have four days a week you can come back and work on your game plan. You know what you’re going to do defensively, how you’re going to guard teams. But in the NBA, that’s not the case. You practice while you’re playing the game.”
Antetokounmpo is all in. He signed a three-year, $186 million contract extension in the offseason. He approved on Griffin becoming the coach after Mike Budenholzer was fired. Antetokounmpo knows the Bucks can’t win the East in their current state, but they have five months to fix any shortcomings.
“After this game, what are we going to do about it?” he asked. “Are we going to go to our rooms and just whine and cry about it or are we going to break bread and talk about the game, you know, watch this game, comment on the game what we thought, you know, me and Dame, me and Khris, me and Brook, how can me and Brook get the rebounds, how can our bench be better?
“We have to address it. We have three days now until Monday that we play Chicago at home. We have to get on the court. We have to get in the film room. We have to talk as a team and hopefully we can expedite our chemistry. It’s not about the coach. It’s like we have to get better. It’s on us now. We have the talent, we have the experience. It’s on us. We know it’s on us.”