Giannis Antetokounmpo delivered an impassioned message to his Milwaukee Bucks teammates after their seventh consecutive loss, urging them to abandon personal agendas and focus solely on winning. The two-time MVP scored 30 points with 15 rebounds and eight assists in his return from a groin injury, but the Bucks fell 118-109 to the New York Knicks on Friday night.
Milwaukee has not lost seven straight games since March 2014, Antetokounmpo’s rookie season when the team finished 15-67. The Bucks are 8-12 and sit 11th in the Eastern Conference, two games out of a play-in spot.
“Nobody should have a personal agenda. Nobody should worry about what they want from themselves,” said Antetokounmpo, who missed the previous four games with a groin strain. “Worry only about winning mentality. Winning mindset. The more we can win the games, the more everything takes care of itself.”
Antetokounmpo criticized teammates for trying to carry too heavy an offensive load during injuries to him and Kevin Porter Jr. He said players focusing on their individual scoring opportunities undermines team culture and prevents Milwaukee from winning games.
“Can I make an excuse that we’ve played a lot of games and guys are tired and it’s a huge load on people? Yeah,” Antetokounmpo said. “Can I also make an excuse that’s human nature when [Kevin Porter Jr.] goes down and myself goes down, it’s human nature to think that you got to carry a load. … Maybe it’s a scoring load, maybe you got to make plays, maybe you think it is your opportunity to get more shots. … But that’s not how you win games. That’s not how you build culture.
“At the end of the day, you 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 concerned about scoring the ball and get yourself going offensively and that doesn’t work for you, now you feel like you cannot do nothing.”
Antetokounmpo said teammates are letting missed shots affect their performance for the rest of games. He emphasized the need to maintain competitive spirit regardless of individual offensive struggles.
“You cannot worry about one shot or two shots that you miss, which took four seconds out of the game to dictate 47 minutes, 56 seconds of the game,” Antetokounmpo said. “So, we got to get back to that mindset. We got to get into the mindset that we got to compete.”
“We got to move the ball. We got to find open 3s, we got to run. We got to create spacing,” Antetokounmpo said.
Antetokounmpo played under a minutes restriction in his first game back from injury. He said he expects to play more minutes Saturday when Milwaukee hosts the Brooklyn Nets in the second half of a back-to-back.