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NBA ALL-STAR 2020February 16, 2020Giannis AntetokounmpoKemba WalkerChicago, Illinois - Team Giannis Postgame Team LeBron 157 - Team Giannis 155 Q. Kemba, just given the road it took to get to this point in your career, what did it mean to go out there and have the game you had tonight? KEMBA WALKER: It was fun. We just wanted to be competitive. That's all we spoke about in the huddles. It's always a blessing and an honor to get here. I've come a long way in my career. This is my fourth All-Star. I'm blessed, and it's always an exciting time to get a chance to be a part of this. Q. Can you talk the behind-the-back to Embiid who went with the windmill. Did you think that was what he was going to do? KEMBA WALKER: I had no idea. He was open. I just wanted to give him the ball, and he made a spectacular play. Q. Giannis, I want to ask you about yesterday, being on the same stage with President Obama. What did you get from that experience, and what was the biggest thing you learned? GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: It was a great experience. Obviously, I was extremely nervous. It was the second time meeting Barack Obama. Had guys on the stage, Chris Paul was there with me, Kevin Love was there. We were just there to like share our stories, what we've done for the community, what we are about to do for the community. Personally, I was just there to learn. Obviously, Chris Paul has been in the league for 15, 16 years, Kevin Love the same. I was there to learn from them, and what I've heard, because I'm a private guy, I don't like sharing a lot of what I do, how I spend my time, but what I learned from him is that, in order for you to change people's lives and make a change and hope that other people can change and follow the right path, you've got to be more public. So that's what he told me. And we had a conversation, and he gave me a lot of advice about my son. But it was a great experience. It was great being next to Barack Obama and obviously Kevin Love and Chris Paul also. Q. This All-Star Game played with a very different format than what we've seen in the past. I just want to get your general thoughts, both of you, on this format. Would you like to see this type of format going forward? KEMBA WALKER: Yeah, I thought it was cool. I had no idea coming into the game, I didn't know what to expect. As we played, it was great. That's what everybody wants to see. They want to see a competitive game. That's what it was in the fourth. Hopefully, we can keep it going. GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: After the game, my brother came down, and he said, this has been the most fun All-Star he's been a part of. And I asked him why, and he told me, "Because you guys were really competitive. You guys were playing to win." Team Giannis, that's what we were trying to do. We were trying to come out, set the tone, play hard. Especially in the fourth quarter, the defense got tighter. Guys were hitting one another. Every possession counts. We had a little bit of playoff intensity out there. So I loved it. I hope we can keep the same format for a lot of years, and I think people had fun, we had fun. So that's what it's all about. Q. Giannis, why was it important for you to have your brothers, Pascal Siakam and Joel Embiid on this team and picking them, given your African heritage, and what was it like to share the floor with them and what message does it send to the world about the talent from that continent? GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: Obviously, it meant a lot to me. Obviously they're from Africa. Bam Adebayo also. I don't know if he claims his African side. He says he's half African, but okay. It's really important. Obviously, Africans are really hard-working people. I've played with Joel in the past. I love playing with him. Siakam, I've never had the chance to play with; that's why I picked him. Obviously it can send a message that Africans unite, we have one another's back. Q. Kemba, just curious, you and Jayson had talked for two weeks about potentially matching up for a possession during this game. What was it like when it actually happened, and what did you say to him after you got the stop? KEMBA WALKER: I locked him up, like I told him. It's cool, man. That's my little brother. He's been having a hell of a season. He deserves to be here. And it was cool for me to get a chance to go up to him. I'm super proud of him. It was a great moment for both of us. Q. Giannis, for you to close out that game, defensively you got to switch on a lot of guys, make plays that way, and then offensively you were getting the ball. Can you take me through the last couple of minutes on both sides of the ball. GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: Obviously, defensively I got a little bit out of breath. We played for like 25 minutes in the fourth quarter. Yeah, they were trying to like make the small guys switch on LeBron because they knew that we were switching. Coach Nick Nurse told me to send towards the middle, so he could not go to the screen. That's what I tried to do. Offensively, we were just trying to find whoever James Harden was guarding. That's who we thought we'd have the opportunity to score on. Obviously, you cannot go wrong -- Kemba, Kyle, Joel, me, Siakam, everybody is great players. Whoever has the ball is going to make a play for the guy next to him, and it's going to be good because we're all great players. Q. If you're comfortable sharing, LeBron James had said that you can kind of feel Kobe's presence here through all the pregame and the ceremony as well. What did this game day feel like for you, especially with that type of compete that you would see in Kobe Bryant? KEMBA WALKER: I agree with him. I definitely do. We definitely felt his presence. Growing up, watching Kobe in those games, I felt like he was always competitive, and he was kind of the one who got the game going. I think we kept that going tonight. I think he definitely would have loved to watch the way we went out there and competed tonight. Over the years, the All-Star Game has been a game where it just hasn't been as competitive as probably the fans would like, but tonight it definitely was, and we got to keep that going. Q. Giannis, how proud are you of the way that Milwaukee was represented this weekend? Knowing that just a few years ago you guys won 15 games. GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: I'm really proud of Khris, Pat, Bango. I think we did a great job just representing Milwaukee, our families also. I mean, a few years ago we won 15 games, and now we're one of the best teams in the league. So we've just got to keep going. Just got to put our head down, stay humble, and just keep going. Obviously, we enjoy this journey, but we've got a long way to go. Q. Giannis, a few years ago, Kobe challenged you to win an MVP. You went and did it. Now you're an All-Star Game team captain. How will you continue to carry on his legacy? GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: I'm just trying to do what I've been doing since day one, which is get better, be humble, help my teammates be great. But at the end of the day, I think the most important thing is get better. Whenever I have a chance to go out there, I just play with an edge. That's pretty much it. When you do that, I think everything takes care of itself. Q. You played what essentially was an entire fourth quarter at the end there. Is that something that you expected coming into a game like this? And what was it like in that moment? KEMBA WALKER: No, I wasn't expecting it at all. I was actually supposed to be on a minute restriction, but the game got too close. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to compete. I knew down the stretch that it would get serious like that, and I wanted to be a part of it. So, yeah, it was cool. Q. Giannis, yesterday you said that the Dunk Contest last night was the best Dunk Contest you had ever seen. You had been in the Dunk Contest once before. I'm wondering if you would ever entertain the idea of returning to the Dunk Contest. GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO: No. There's no way I can compete with the guys that was in the Dunk Contest yesterday. No way. But you know why I said that? I think because every dunk we saw, somebody was jumping over a person, and every dunk it was the first time we've seen a dunk like that. Like we can go through every dunk, there's never been a dunk like the dunks we saw yesterday in the previous years. It was kind of crazy because like, when I realized that even Pat jumped over Christian Yelich, and he took a 45. Past years, you jump over somebody, you take a 50. That's what it was. I think everybody had fun. But, yeah, hopefully, the Dunk Contest moving forward can be as fun as the one last night. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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