Despite being second place in the Eastern Conference standings, Milwaukee is only 1-4 in their past five games. In their last contest, they got blown out by the Jazz at home by a final score of 132-116 on Tuesday.
Fans in attendance at the Fiserv Forum were clearly dissatisfied after the match and booed their players on their home floor. Giannis Antetokounmpo addressed the crowd’s disappointment postgame and recognized how even he would boo himself.
“At the end of the day, you gotta play hard,” Antetokounmpo said. “I don’t think it’s about making or missing shots. It’s about giving effort out there, and when you don’t, I think people feel that. When you wear a Bucks jersey and you don’t play hard — not just Bucks jerseys, any jersey — I think we have great fans. But around the league, if you don’t play hard and don’t give everything for the team, there are times where you might get booed. S—, I’d boo myself tonight too.”
Despite the fact that The Greek Freak dropped in 25 points last night, the Utah squad scored too many points on the Bucks’ defense. “How many points did they score? 130?” Giannis asked. “Gotta get better, man.”
Milwaukee rank second in the entire league in points per match, but they are only the 24th in the NBA in points per game allowed. The Wisconsin club desperately need to improve their defense if they hope to contend for this year’s championship.
Their seven-time All-Star has been averaging 31.4 points, 11.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.2 blocks per contest this campaign, including 60.7% shots from the field, 23.8% three-pointers and 67.6% from free-throws. He’s already produced 28 double-doubles and 4 triple-doubles so far.
“It’ll come. It’s a team sport. It’s five guys out there,” claimed his coach Adrian Griffin. “I thought we dug ourselves in a hole as a unit and did a good job of getting out of it but just ran out of time. They did a good job defensively.”
Giannis had already asked his team to ‘play better’ after his 48-point performance against the Rockets this weekend
This past Saturday night, Houston overcame the Milwaukee team 112 to 108, despite Antetokounmpo’s 48 points. Rival Alperen Sengun led the Rockets to victory with his 21 points. The Bucks star even added 17 rebounds to his tally in what meant his seventh straight double-double.
“We played as hard as we can,” the Turkish star said postgame. “They’re a really good team. We did everything to stop them except Giannis. He played a great game, but we guarded everybody else good so we won the game.”
Giannis wants everyone to be better after the Bucks’ recent struggles 😬
(via @TheAthletic) pic.twitter.com/13kAZQDZb4
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 7, 2024
At the end, even the Rockets’ bench outscored the Bucks’ 43-22. According to The Greek Freak, every single person inside the Milwaukee organization must improve, as everyone’s role is essential for their success.
“We have to be better. We have to play better, we have to defend better, we have to trust one another better, we have to be coached better,” Giannis insisted. “Every single thing, everybody has to be better. It starts from the equipment manager — he has to wash our clothes better. The bench has to be better, the leaders of the team have to be more vocal, we have to make more shots, we have to defend better, we have to have a better strategy, we have to be better. We have four months to get better, so we’ll see.”
