Giannis Antetokounmpo Reveals How Bucks Have Been 'Very Bad' This Season

The two-time league MVP reflected on the club's up-and-down 2024-25 run so far.

Jan 2, 2025; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) put up a shot against Brooklyn Nets guard Keon Johnson (45) in the second half at Fiserv Forum. Mandatory Credit: Michael McLoone-Imagn Images / Michael McLoone-Imagn Images

Eight-time All-NBA Milwaukee Bucks power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo and eight-time All-Star Bucks point guard Damian Lillard did all they could, but in the end, Milwaukee couldn't capitalize on a 20-0 late run against the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday, falling one possession short to lose in the game's closing seconds, 113-110. The defeat dropped the Bucks to a 17-15 record on the season, still good for the Eastern Conference's No. 5 seed.

After the contest, Antetokounmpo supplied reporters with an honest appraisal of his team's performance, per Eric Nehm of The Athletic. Brooklyn, despite being a tanking team, has won its season series with Milwaukee, 3-1.

“Let’s not overcomplicate the game,” Antetokounmpo said. “We did not play well. They’ve played harder than us in three out of the four games [that we've played this year]. We did not play smart, and we just got to go back, watch the film and be better. That’s pretty much it.”

The 6-foot-11 superstar reflected on the club's recent predilection to gamble by surrendering massive leads to the opposition and having to crawl its way back. Milwaukee managed to actually win the last such incident, overcoming a 19-point gap in a New Year's Eve clash with the Indiana Pacers.

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“When you go down 20, that’s when the clock starts for us,” Antetokounmpo said. “That’s when we start to compete. We can’t do that. We cannot put ourselves in the hole and then we just gotta dig out of the hole. It takes too much out of everybody."

The 2021 Finals MVP, 30, went on to acknowledge that his team's struggles to keep its foot on the gas extended to the Pacers game, too, even if Milwaukee ultimately did outlast Indiana.

“We’ve done it twice now," Antetokounmpo said. "We did it against Indiana. We did it in this game. Just gotta be more locked in, more focused. I gotta take care of the ball. We gotta all take care of the ball, make smart decisions offensively, defensively, help one another, be in a tandem as a team. We just gotta be better. Gotta be better, for sure.”

Antetokounmpo cited Milwaukee's upside and potential as reason enough to stay the course and try to dial in more consistently in the months ahead.

“When we’re locked in, when we play as a team, we can be good," Antetokounmpo said. "And when we don’t play as a team and we’re not locked in, we can be very bad. So we’ve just got to push ourselves towards the right direction, which is compete, play as a team, play to win, for as many games as we can.”

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