A true leader knows when it is time to take responsibility for a team’s failures. After ruthlessly shutting down trade rumors last week, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s admission after the Milwaukee Bucks’ defeat to the Washington Wizards on Wednesday was a clear example of who the main man on the team is.
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The Wizards, who are 8–24 and 14th in the conference, snatched a victory on Bucks territory, with CJ McCollum hitting a game-winner. It was Giannis who missed a shot from inside the paint with the Bucks up 113–112 and 12 seconds left on the clock. Washington got the ball, and McCollum took it the other way, knocked down a jump shot, and buried it, giving the Wizards a one-point lead with just one second to play.
Giannis, unsurprisingly, has been kicking himself since he missed the shot. Had he converted, the Bucks would almost certainly have come off as winners. After the final buzzer, the Greek Freak had no shame in blaming himself.
“We just have to stop going back and forth with teams like that. The more you let them believe, the more they stay in the game,” Giannis said. “So this one is on us.”
The Bucks had won two games in a row heading into their clash with the Wizards, and it should have been a routine victory given how underwhelming the opposition was. But it is these types of games against teams with nothing to lose that often come back to bite.
“We need to play downhill and understand that we cannot do this alone. It has to be a team effort, whether we win or lose. We have to do it together,” Giannis added.
The advice does sound generic, but it’s true for the Bucks, who look like a franchise that’s nearing huge turning point, either for the better or the worse.
Giannis’ future itself is up in the air, with trade rumors linking him to several big market teams around the league. So far, he has brushed them off. But if the “team effort” he’s looking for isn’t there, he’d want to go somewhere he can find help to win.
Like Giannis, head coach Doc Rivers too felt that the whole team didn’t come together as a unit. He didn’t blame Giannis though, and instead admitted that they deserved to lose based on how they played throughout.
“Listen, I don’t care about the end of the game. We deserved to lose the game. We didn’t play hard enough. We didn’t play well enough together,” he said.
Currently with a 14-20 record, the Bucks are 11th in the East. They’re flirting dangerously with missing out on a post-season slot, which will be disastrous in the team’s attempts to hold on the Giannis. The Bucks have to be better and can be better.
