Giannis Antetokounmpo Has Bleak Assessment of Bucks After Suffering Latest Blowout

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The Milwaukee Bucks were once again trounced on Wednesday night as their lackluster season continues. Their latest stumble against the Oklahoma City Thunder was even more disappointing because the defending champions were missing multiple players due to injury and making the playoffs isn't getting any closer to realistic for the Bucks.
Milwaukee has dropped four of their last five games and three of those have been by at least 18 points. Giannis Antetokounmpo, who has been candid with his assessment of this year's team previously, was asked after the game if he saw some sort of a trend as it relates to all the lopsided defeats.
"We're not playing hard," Antetokounmpo said. "We aren't doing the right thing. We're not playing to win. We're not playing together. Our chemistry's not there. Guys are being selfish, trying to look for their own shots instead of looking for the right shot for the team. Guys trying to do it on their own."
"At times, I feel like when we're down 10, down 15, down 20, we try to make it up in one play, and it's not going to work."
The Bucks are now 18-25 and 1.5 games behind the Atlanta Hawks for the last spot in the Play-In tournament. And that's just to have a small whiff of postseason action. Something must change, and change dramatically, if they are to reasonably expect to compete in the playoffs.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is certainly trying to make this not go down as a completely lost season but evidence keeps mounting that this will be Milwaukee's destiny—a tough pill to swallow with one of the game's all-time greats in his prime.
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Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.
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