{"id":106018,"date":"2024-11-09T20:52:10","date_gmt":"2024-11-10T01:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=106018"},"modified":"2024-11-09T20:53:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-10T01:53:44","slug":"bucks-superstar-reins-greek-god-like-fury-upon-teammates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/11\/09\/bucks-superstar-reins-greek-god-like-fury-upon-teammates\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucks Superstar Rains Greek God-Like Fury Upon Teammates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Milwaukee Bucks superstar\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/antetgi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> was unhappy, to say the least, after his team lost again on Friday night. It was their fifth double-digit defeat\u2014116-94 to the\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/11\/08\/new-york-knicks-unlikely-trade-giannis-antetokoummpo\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">New York Knicks<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. Six Knick&#8217;s players put up double-digit points of their own, while only\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/antetgi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Giannis<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> and\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lillada01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Damian Lillard<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0cracked ten-plus for the Bucks. It was another dismal letdown to a dismal season in the making. But while the Bucks are trying to figure out what it&#8217;ll take for that illusive spark to churn the fire, Giannis took his\u00a0<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">own<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0approach, and it\u00a0<\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">was<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> fire.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Bucks Superstar Rains Greek God-Like Fury Upon Teammates<\/h2>\n<h3>Bucks Superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo Speaks His Mind<\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Sometimes, you <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">just<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> need a metaphorical throat punch to flip the switch.<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> That could be what the Greek Freak attempted to do when speaking with the media following the Bucks 22-point shellacking at the hands of the Knicks. It was Milwaukee&#8217;s seventh season loss following their second win the night before over the Utah Jazz. The hope was one win would lead to another and another, and then, before you knew it, a string of wins to get the season back on track. Nope.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Following the loss to the Knicks, Giannis once again faced reporters to explain the reasons for another dropped game. While some irritation could already be sense<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">d in his previous postgame media sessions, this time around, there was a different level of heat. One word that\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/p5BWYkduQJY\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Giannis mentioned over and over again<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0was the word\u00a0<\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">compete.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Did we compete the previous game? Yes. Did we compete the two previous games? Cavs and Cavs? Yes. Did we compete today? No. It&#8217;s something that you can control, if you&#8217;re going to go out there and you&#8217;re not going to compete you&#8217;re not going to win the game. Sometimes you compete but you don&#8217;t win the game but at least give yourself a chance.&#8221; Antetokounmpo continued, &#8220;We came to New York, we played great last night. We came to New York we lost by 30. We don&#8217;t compete. Are you OK with not competing? I don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;m not OK with that s&#8212;. We gotta do a better job of competing. We&#8217;ve got Boston in two days. We don&#8217;t compete, we&#8217;re going to lose by 30, simple as that.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>Whose Going To Step Up?<\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Not\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/middlkh01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Khris Middleton<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, we know that. If the Bucks are waiting on their injured star to save them, they best re-think their pathway out of this hole they&#8217;re living in. Getting Middleton back will help to a degree, yes. However, there has to be a deeper issue here than simply roster personnel. If Giannis pegs compete as that underlying issue, then I believe him. He is balling out this season despite the Bucks record. He&#8217;s currently\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/seasonleaders\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">third in scoring<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, averaging 30.1 PPG behind only\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jokicni01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Nikola Jokic<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/davisan02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Anthony Davis<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. He&#8217;s also scoring buckets at 60.5% from the field, with 12.8 rebounds and 5.2 assists. If Milwaukee&#8217;s record were better, these would be recognized as early MVP-esque numbers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">So, the question is, where or who will ignite the spark Milwaukee desperately needs? They can&#8217;t change the coach again, or can they?\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/nba-insider-reveals-struggling-bucks-called-whole-league-search-early-trade\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">According to NBA senior insider Brian Windhorst<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, the Bucks <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">are rumored<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> to be searching for a trade.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The Bucks are doing something that we don&#8217;t see very often, which is scouring the trade market in the first week of November.\u00a0As I was talking to teams this week, they were like, &#8216;The Bucks just called. The Bucks just called.'&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Whatever the Bucks do in the coming weeks, there is no easy way out. They&#8217;re in a hole, and the only rope available to climb out is on the backs and shoulders of each other, one game at a time, one win at a time. As Giannis said, Milwaukee&#8217;s next test is at home against the\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/11\/08\/steve-kerr-boston-celtics-record\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Boston Celtics<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. They should start there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Milwaukee Bucks superstar\u00a0Giannis Antetokounmpo was unhappy, to say the least, after his team lost again on Friday night. It was their fifth double-digit defeat\u2014116-94 to the\u00a0New York Knicks. Six Knick&#8217;s players put up double-digit points of their own, while only\u00a0Giannis and\u00a0Damian Lillard\u00a0cracked ten-plus for the Bucks. It was another dismal letdown to a dismal season [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":106033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1608,15],"tags":[240,49759,187,306,324,72],"class_list":["post-106018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-basketball","category-bucks","tag-anthony-davis","tag-brian-windhorst","tag-damian-lillard","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-khris-middleton","tag-nikola-jokic"],"modified_by":"Aaron J Zacharias","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}