Giannis Antetokounmpo challenges himself and the Bucks after loss to Grizzlies: 'Do we want it?'
MEMPHIS – In the immediate aftermath of the Milwaukee Bucks’ 113-110 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday, Damian Lillard had his hands on his head, eyes closed and leaned back into his locker. Giannis Antetokounmpo spoke at length with assistant coach Josh Oppenheimer and then his brother, Thanasis. Players quietly dressed and then said their goodbyes for the upcoming all-star break.
Malik Beasley, headed to Indianapolis for the all-start three-point competition, received good luck messages. Doc Rivers and the coaching staff boarded a plane for the all-star weekend also.
The loss, the Bucks’ second in a row and seventh in 10 games, was not an exemplar of effort.
Rivers pointed to the start of the third quarter in which he called timeout 47 seconds in and said, “That tells you all you need to know about where our heads were. We had some guys here, and we had some guys in Cabo.”
He said changes had to made in how the team plays on a nightly basis.
More: Establishing an identity and leveling up: Why Doc Rivers was the choice for the Bucks
But conversations about easing into games, not playing hard, or matching an opponent’s competitive spirit, are not new for this team.
And Antetokounmpo also recognized that coming out of the all-star break, beginning on Feb. 23 in Minneapolis, things must indeed change.
“We have to want it, man,” he began. “Like, enough with the talking. Enough with the, 'our (expletive) don’t stink' mentality. Do we really want it? Are we putting in the work, are we gonna put in the effort, are we going to fight for what we think we that we deserve or what the goals we’re trying to accomplish? That is the most important thing. Guys are tired. Maybe it’s an excuse. New coach. Excuse. New system. Excuse. New defense. Excuse. All these, it’s excuse. At the end of the day, are you going to try to play basketball, try to compete? They competed harder than us (Thursday), they competed harder than us (Tuesday). We are not on track of what we are trying to do.
"I feel like the team feels it. The team feels it. I feel it. And I have now seven days that I have to try to take care of my body, try to rest from this mentally draining season from all the changes and all the things that are going on. Just try to relax a little bit as much as I can, try to take care of my body, try to come back and try to go."
He straightened up, as if to represent that he could handle the weight he was about to put on his own shoulders.
“I have to do a better job setting the tone," he continued. "I have to do a better job moving the ball. So many things that I have to do, but enough with the talking. Do we really want it? That’s going to be the question that I’m going to ask myself every day ‘til the end of the season, and I’m going to ask my teammates every day ‘til the end of the season. Do we really want it? And if we want it, do what it takes. Do what it requires to be good.
"You have to come and shoot at night? Come shoot at night. You have to come before shootaround and shoot? Shoot. You have to lift weights? Lift weights. I. Don’t. Care. Do what it takes to be ready to compete. And that’s all you can do. Sometimes just be ready to compete. Some days it’s going to go your way and some days it’s not going to go your way, but when effort is not there, it’s very hard for it to go your way.”
How can you help change that? That’s a 15-man effort.
Antetokounmpo: "I control what I can control, which is for me to set the tone. I have to work harder, man. I have to work harder. And that’s all I can think about right now. I’m locked in. I’m locked in. I have six, seven days now. I have to work on my game. I have to take care of my body and I have to come back and ... play good basketball and enjoy the game. And hopefully by me setting the tone, by me leading by example, by me working hard, it becomes contagious and we get where we want to get.
"But there’s so many things we have to do in order for us to be better, and it starts with, 'we have to want it.' We have to want it. We have to want it. Like, what can I, what else should I say? Do we want it? Do we really want to win? Do we want to win? But OK. I start with myself. I have to be better. And then it goes down. I have to be way better."
Do you sense that you don’t want to win right now?
Antetokounmpo: "No. I don’t get that sense. I think everybody wants to win. I hear it all the time. Oh, go to the playoffs, playoffs, this and this and this and this. Guys, it’s a very, very, very, long way. It’s a very, very long way from what you are talking about right now. It’s a long way to the all-star game. Today’s Thursday. The all-star game is on Sunday. What, one, two, three days? I hear people talking about the break, what are you going to do for the break, what are you going to do, oh, this, this. That’s far, far away. Today. What can I do today? How can we be better today? How can we build good habits today? How can we compete today? How can we be on the same page today?
"How can we better? How can we take care of the ball? How can we make shots? How can we space the floor? How can our transition habits and our spacing be better? Let me operate, let Dame operate, and guys open the floor up. How when somebody’s being fronted in the post, the other guy flashes and throw the ball down, and if the pass is not there, shoot the shot. That’s what we should be talking about. We should not be talking about when the break (is) and 'what are we gonna do on the break' and 'when we go to the playoffs.'
"We go like this, we’re gonna be in the play-in (part of the tournament). Not playoff, play-in, you know? But again, it’s too far away, man. Today, how can we today be better? ... Me personally, I don’t like to think far away. I have never done it. I have a goal in my head, but I take it day-by-day, you know? I know number zero – Dame – what, he came here to lose? He didn’t come here to lose. He did not come here to lose."
You’ve always led by example and you can’t necessarily tell other people what to do – how do you ramp that up even more, create an urgency everyone else can feel?
Antetokounmpo: "What I am, what I have been doing this year is two different things. I choose, in my comfort zone, I like to lead by example. But this year, I not only do that. I believe I am 10, 20 times more vocal than I’ve ever been in my career. But at the end of the day, I cannot grab you and tell you play hard, you know? I cannot. What I believe (is) I try to do what I can. We have to have – and it starts from me – we have to have more urgency. I have to work on my game, work on my elbow game, gotta work on my free throws. I gotta — I think I lost a little bit of weight —get stronger and be able to take that contact in the paint.
"There’s so many things. Sometimes, I come down and I miss on a few passes that could be more open threes for them, for my teammates I have to deliver them the ball right in the pocket for them to have one, two seconds to shoot the ball. We have to be better. And I want to feel this urgency. I don’t say it for my teammates. I say it for myself. I want to feel this urgency. I want to go to this break with urgency. And at the end of the day, we have to have urgency. We lost from Miami by 30 and we lost today by – we lost, it doesn’t matter by what. We lost. So, it’s not for me what I say, it’s what happened. And what happened, we have to have a little bit of urgency."
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Giannis Antetokounmpo challenges himself, Bucks after loss to Memphis
