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Tim Bontemps
NEW YORK — Giannis Antetokounmpo isn’t used to losing like this.
While Antetokounmpo’s return to the court Friday night at Madison Square Garden saw him maintain the form he was displaying before he missed the past four games with a groin strain — putting up 30 points, 15 rebounds and eight assists in 28 minutes — it wasn’t enough to prevent the Bucks from losing a seventh straight game, falling 118-109 to the New York Knicks.
Milwaukee hadn’t lost seven in a row since March 2014 — Antetokounmpo’s rookie year, when the team went 15-67. After the game, he made an impassioned plea for his team to get its «competitive spirit» back and begin to turn its season around.
«Nobody should have a personal agenda. Nobody should worry about what they want from themselves,» Antetokounmpo said, standing at his locker in the visiting room long after the game had ended. «Worry only about winning mentality. Winning mindset. The more we can win the games, the more everything takes care of itself.»
Antetokounmpo spoke at length on a variety of things he felt needed to change in order for Milwaukee (8-12), now sitting in 11th in the Eastern Conference and two full games out of a play-in spot to get itself back on track.
«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 also said some of his teammates are getting frustrated by missing shots and letting that impact how the rest of the game plays out.
«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 get to the mindset that this is not a one-man show, that we have to do it together.
«We got to move the ball. We got to find open 3s, we got to run. We got to create spacing. Our spacing sometimes, it’s shaky. The more space we have, the more we can attack, the more Ryan Rollins can get in the paint, the more I can get in the paint, the more we can create open 3s for guys to shoot.»
Of the Bucks’ seven straight losses, four came with Antetokounmpo with a groin injury he suffered in a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Nov. 17. He also had his minutes capped Friday night instead of playing his usual 34 or so minutes, which might have played a role in the narrow defeat.
But that alone wouldn’t change the possession game. Nearly everyone on the Bucks, from Antetokounmpo to coach Doc Rivers to other players, said the team needs to do a better job of offensive rebounding, not turning the ball over and not fouling, all of which are repeatedly adding up to Milwaukee being in the position it was in Friday night, when it took 13 fewer shots and eight fewer free throws than New York (12-6).
«We’re outshooting teams … but it’s the turnovers, the offensive rebounding and it’s the fouls,» Rivers said. «It’s a numbers game, and we have to win that game. Especially with Giannis [on the court], if we win [the numbers game], we’re going to win the game.
«Obviously he was on a minute restriction tonight, which was really difficult in a game like tonight. We lost the lead when we took him off the floor for the most part, but we got to do what we got to do to try to get him back healthy.»
Antetokounmpo and the Bucks will return home to play the Brooklyn Nets in the second half of a back-to-back on Saturday. He said he felt good in his minutes Friday night and hoped to increase his time on the floor against the Nets.
«I know how the protocol is,» Antetokounmpo said. «I know when you come back with my injury, there’s got to be a minute restriction, no matter what you want to do. It doesn’t matter what kind of game it is. Would I want to play more? Yes. Could I play more? I don’t know. But I know one thing for sure: Tomorrow I will play more minutes and I’m going to try to help the team win.»
