	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

NBA EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: RAPTORS VS. BUCKS

May 16, 2019

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Practice Day

Q. What's it like after a playoff game for you? Do you head home and crash or are you watching highlights, staying up?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: I stay up a little bit, then I go to bed and I get some rest. Usually I get home pretty early. I go to bed as early as I can. Usually after games like that, with so much adrenaline and so much intensity, it's hard for me to go to bed. So probably go to bed around 3:00, 4:00 a.m.

Q. You're a little wired after a game like that?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: Uh-huh.

Q. What was the mood like around the team today in practice knowing what you guys accomplished last night?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: It was good. It was good. But at the end of the day, we can get a lot better. We watched a lot of film. There's part of the games that we can get better. We want to come out and play harder, try to get better from Game 1 to Game 2. I think as the game went on, we were getting better in the game. But we've got to start the game defending like we defended the second half.

Q. Where did the feeling of success rank in terms of Game 5 versus the Celtics, Game 4 against Detroit, some of those games which were series clinchers? Where did it rank for you?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: I'm really happy, but at the end of the day, the job is not done. We've got to protect our home. We've got to be able to get Game 2. The mood got to be better as we move forward because we're going to be playing for a while. I'm happy that my teammates and the coaching staff and everybody is having fun. But at the end of the day, our job is not done here, and we've got to be able to come out and be better in Game 2.

Q. After the game last night, Bud said he thought you played good but you can play a lot better. Would you agree with that?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: Yeah, definitely agree with that. As a person, I try to not make excuses and say, okay, I can play a lot better, the team can win a lot easier. I don't think we necessarily had individually, me, Khris [Middleton], [Eric] Bledsoe, George Hill, good games, but as a team I think we had a great game. We defended well. We moved the ball. There's going to be sometimes that we've got to shoot the ball and not think about it. I think there was a lot of times that we thought about shooting the ball, and that's -- I think it has to do with that we stayed a lot, we didn't play for a week, and now you try to get back into it. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of areas that we can improve, as a team especially, and we want to do that. At the end of the day, you know that the Raptors are going to come out and be more hungry, try to get after us, try to run, try to make shots. We've got to be ready for that.

Q. You're defending Pascal Siakam a lot. He's been a great player this year. He's had Joel Embiid and now he's got you. He's had two tough defensive guys on him. What are you trying to do, and can that really hamper Toronto if you shut him down?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: You know, Siakam is not going to stop playing. He's going to keep playing hard throughout the game, even though he makes shot, even though he misses shots. As much as possible I'm going to try and contain him, not just me, the whole team. At the end of the day, we know who is the vocal part of their offense. It's Kawhi [Leonard], and Kawhi had a great game also yesterday. I think Siakam just does a great job with being aggressive when the focus is away from him, and we've just got to be smart with him, try to not let him get downhill and try to make it as tough as we can for him.

Q. What did you learn from that Game 1 loss against Boston?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: Definitely we learned that nothing is given. You've got to come out and earn every game. At the end of the day, you have an opportunity, you've got to take it. I think in Game 1, I think it woke us up as a team. The rest of the series, we played harder, played harder defensively, moved the ball because we knew it was not going to be easy. Definitely going into this series, we know that we cannot give away a game like that. So, even though we've faced a lot of adversity throughout the game and things wasn't going as well, we were able to keep playing and keep fighting and got it in the fourth quarter late.

Q. What can you guys do to take advantage of some of their defensive schemes, maybe get Bledsoe going?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: We've just got to give ourselves outlets. Whenever they double-team, you cannot just stand around free. We've got to make ourselves available for the guy that's being trapped. When we get the ball and we're wide open we've got to shoot it. We've got to drive it and try to get a better shot, a wide-open shot.

Q. Were you guys surprised that they doubled you a lot last night?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: No, I wasn't. I wasn't surprised. I saw the way they played against Embiid and they were doubling teaming a lot. Marc Gasol was the one with the double-team. So I kind of knew, I saw the double-team crease, so I kind of knew if I got to the post they were going to double-team. But now as a team we know that and got to be able to have guys on the floor be available. And we've got to get the ball out of there as much as we can so we can get the open shots.

Q. How would you describe your leadership style, and when did you start to do that as a responsibility?
GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: Responsibility to lead? I never view it as responsibilities. It's something that I do, it's my nature like that. I've been doing it probably since my third year in the league. It's not easy. It's hard. You've got to be able to lead every single day. Even though you play bad, you play well, you've got to be able to -- the team has got to know that you're going to come out the next day and still lead them. It's hard, it's not easy. But I've had people in my career that's helped me with that, veterans, coaches. So as I said, it's hard. But at the end of the day, that's my job, and I'm going to keep doing it, win or lose, play well, play bad. That's what I do.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297