Giannis Antetokounmpo Reacts To His 55 Points Explosion vs Wizards | Jan 3, 2022

Mikhail, hi for you. 55 points. I remember in the past Michael Red has said at some point you're gonna get him. One bucket short so I guess maybe something for next time. But just for you tonight, what were you seeing as you're attacking the basket against them? I know they sent a couple different people at you, a couple different looks at you, double teams, different stuff like that. Just kind of what did you see? I was just trying to be aggressive, try to make good plays, good decisions. Started the game kind of, you know, hadn't played in four days. They had the chance to, you know, practice because the team was playing. I was kind of rusty, kind of turned the ball over. But at the end of the day, as the game was going on I was, you know, getting my rhythm, going downhill, getting the pain, getting to my spots and just trying to create as much as possible for myself and for my teammates. I'm just curious, last night Diamond Mitchell has 71, it feels like every night someone's going for 50. Is there anything in your mind, I know you're always trying to make the right play, but where it's like everyone else has brought their level up, my level needs to come up in the same way? No, I just, I compete with myself. Every other night is going to be another player. But I just try to be consistent, you know. At the end of the day, there's these players that have come to the league and they've been great and every given night there's going to be somebody that's going to be great. But guys like LeBron, they've been great since 2003, it's 2023, you know. And I want to be one of those guys, you know. I don't want to be one of those guys that bring it one night and the other night. You don't care about him for the next two, three months, you know. I want to be one of those guys that every single night that I bring it. And I think I've put myself in a position to be able to do that, you know. For my team, for myself, obviously the game that we play, it's all about winning. For me, I want to have fun, I want to enjoy the game, I want to create art as much as I can. And I want to get in a position that my game, which I think I've got it, so that position my game is boring, you know. I just do what I do and people don't talk about it because it becomes boring, you know. I do it every single night and that's what I want to do. I want other people to feel like my game is boring but I don't get bored, you know. The greats, the best players never get bored to go out there. They always give their best every given night. It doesn't matter who they play and try to win the game. But that's my mindset. For sure that the level has been high, like you see from Luka, from Donovan Micel, from Devin Booker, like you see guys every single night go and score a lot of points. But, you know, when I was able to, in my journey, every journey is different. I remember when Isaiah Thomas, Paul George, the John Walls, you know, the Jimmy Butler's, like even Porto Zinghi's, those guys were going off and after that there's other guys who were going off and after that there will be other guys going off and, you know, in 10 years from now there's going to be other guys going off. But at the end of the day, can I put myself in a position to be one of, you know, the best players and one of, not necessarily the best players, one of the players that brings it every single night, like a guy named LeBron James. I was able to score 47 on his birthday and the next game I think he scored 43 and it's year 20, 38 years old, that he's be able to take care of his body every single night and put himself to, in a position to be successful and helps his team every single night to win. You know, that's the goal, you know. I don't compete with others, it's impossible. We are eight billion people and everybody's unique, you know. If there was another Giannis out there, I'll be for sure compete with him, but there's not, you know. Even if I had a twin, it'd be hard. He'd have a different name, he was born five or ten minutes before me or after me. You can't compete yourself with other, compare yourself with other players. We are unique, you know. We have to be the best that we can be in what we do and that's what I try to do. I try to create art, I try to be the best that I can be. I know it's early, it's still really early in the season, early January, but the way the team had been kind of struggling the last month or so, was this game any more important than a typical maybe early January game for y'all? We don't hide behind our fingers, that's what we say in Greece, we don't hide behind our fingers. We haven't played great basketball, we lost I think four or five in a row, but slowly, slowly we're gonna keep building good habits, guys gonna get healthy, guys gonna get back with us. We're still waiting for Chris to be back and so we can go back to full strength and start as early as possible to build habits for the team and for the team to realize like how we're gonna play down the stretch, who's gonna have the ball in his hands, who's gonna take the last shots, like just all those little things that we're gonna try to work on. But at the end of the day, like no matter if we lose or win, we gotta build good habits. The year we won the championship, we were always, we were third, we were fourth, third, fourth, third. It doesn't really matter, at the end of the day, in order for you to win a championship, you gotta beat a good team. You know, you gotta beat the Brooklyn Nets, you gotta beat the Boston Celtics, you gotta beat Atlanta, Miami, Philly, you gotta beat a good team so it doesn't matter. As much as we build good habits every single night, that's all I care about, win or lose, it doesn't matter. Giannis, I'm not sure if you knew exactly where you were at, kind of numbers-wise, but that dunkiness, would it have at the time tied your career high? Did you end up jumping too high? What sort of happened on the dunk? I got too excited. My significant other, she's telling me, they don't post you on what is called House of Highlight anymore because you don't dunk the ball. You don't get as high as the young fellas. I said, yeah, it's not the same. I've been here for a decade now, you know, the legs are gone. I don't have legs to get that high, but today I tried to get high. But I had the windmill, so I hope that satisfied her. But I really wanted to finish that dunk. I think I got too excited and I went too high than what I usually jump. Usually I don't jump, I just stretch my hands and get there. But that one actually took off and I got excited and I missed. If I could turn the time back, I hope I could have made that dunk. Just to follow up with that too, I think the last regular season 50-point game you had, I think it was also here at FiveServe, and you said someone in the crowd had yelled, Janis go for 50, and then you get that 55th point today, or at the time the 54th point, and you pulled the jersey. I know you mentioned it with Zora, but how much does the city mean to you to have this kind of moment here at home at FiveServe? It's an amazing feeling playing in the FiveServe Forum and representing our fans that always bring their single night, the energy in this building is always high, it's always loud, so it's always nice to play here. But as I said to Zora, we all have our names in the bag that we obviously represent, but at the end of the day, one thing that everybody has in common is the name in the front. Sometimes you say Bucks, sometimes you say Milwaukee, but that's who we represent, and we have to understand that we represent the city, and we try to play the best basketball we can play and represent it in the best way possible. Jordan and Drew said that dunk was their favorite play of the night too, so maybe you'll have to start doing that a little bit more. Which one, the first one or the second one? The second one that you missed. Over the years, what have you learned about changing pace and changing the speed at which you play with? It felt like so often at night you'd get freed up by going fast, slowing down, and watching a defender go by, or is it simply the spin move or the baseline spin? Just try to read the crowd, try to read the walls, try to see where I can beat them from. But at the end of the day, sometimes they're going to show crowd for two or three seconds, and then once my teammates get close to the 3.9, the shooters get close to the 3.9, there's a second there that they're going to kind of look. There's a second there that you can attack their hips, the seams, and you can change your speed. But this is just a lot of repetition I've done. I do it every single night 25 to 30 times, so I kind of know what I look for. I don't know if I can explain it, but I try as much as I can to attack their hips. Sometimes the crowd is going to be early, sometimes the crowd is late. You've got to attack early while they're not there. And there's good teams that the crowd is early and late, and then you've got to kind of wait until they get to the second half when they kind of forget about you. It's just art that I figured out through a lot of failures, a lot of success. But at the end of the day, one thing that in order for you to be efficient, you have to be aggressive. The moment you start hesitating and going with no full speed, you already lost the battle. The moment that you have them in their heels and you have them paying attention to you and all that, you can create for your teammates and you can create for yourself. We see you shooting free throws after games, you're working on that craft all the time. 15 of 16 from the line tonight, just talk about your effort there, just how locked in and zoned in you were. I just work on it as much as I can. It's something that I need to get better on. I'm not satisfied where I am right now, but I just try to get as many extra reps as I can. Before the game, the day before the game, after the game. Anytime I have the opportunity to be able to just rep it out, I take it. As I said, it's something that I'm not the best at. I have to get better because I know I'm going to put myself in a situation that sometimes I've got to knock down free throws for my team to win a basketball game. I think it's a part of my game that I can be better and I can make a more complete player and can put myself in a position to help my team win a game. So that's why I just rep it out as much as I can. But at the end of the day, some days I'm going to make, some days I'm going to miss. Today was one of those days that I was able to make some. 55 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists. I mean, that is something. We thought this game might go close to Washington again. They had a run in them, they've been playing really well. But Milwaukee in that second half, they just pushed the gas pedal and they just did not stop after that. And it was their front line. How about the fact that we talked about Giannis, but also you had Brooke Lopez and Bobby Portis having double-doubles in that game as well. He's ridiculous. You're giving him options. You can't give him an option. You've got to know, like, here's the game plan. I'm going to send him to the help and I'm not going to give him space because he's 280 pounds, probably got 1% body fat, and he's going to run me over. And then if I'm watching film, he has the ball at the top of the key and he drives by four people. At this point, I don't care about anybody. Kick out for threes all day. He's just too good to allow him to get to look at the shot chart. That tells you all you need to know. I'm sorry, you cannot be a good basketball team and you're going against a guy like Giannis and he's going to get that many shots point blank.