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Giannis frustrated over the team's poor defense in the loss to Orlando
Poor defense, or the lack of it, led to the Milwaukee Bucks’ second straight loss on Saturday night. This was the take of Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was left frustrated over the team’s defensive effort in their 97-112 loss to the Orlando Magic.
“Sometimes you have to put your body on the line, take that hit, to make it easier for our defense. The last two games we haven’t done it. Right now, I feel like we’re just being stagnant. We’re going back on defense and not showing a lot of help,” the two-time MVP said.
For the fourth time this season, Giannis scored 30 or more as he finished the game with 35 points on top of 10 rebounds and seven assists.
Milwaukee whines a lot
Those were big numbers from Giannis, but Orlando toyed with Milwaukee’s poor defense and earned 35 free throw attempts and made 30 of them. Bucks only had 25 free throw attempts and made just 12.
Giannis observed that the team tends to whine a lot when committing a turnover.
“We’re not protecting one another as much as we should and sometimes when we turn the ball over, we sit and kind of complain. We’ve got to get out of that mentality and stop feeling sorry for ourselves,” said Giannis, who scored 54 points in Milwaukee’s 124-126 loss to the Indiana Pacers two nights ago.
Bad defense, bad offense
Apart from their poor defense against the Magic, the Bucks’ offense was also nowhere to be found, marking for the first time that they did not reach the 100-point mark this season. Milwaukee’s scoring took a major hit after Damian Lillard failed to suit up due to calf soreness.
It also didn’t help that starters Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, and Cameron Payne combined for just 33 points. Malik Beasley went scoreless in a starting role. Milwaukee will try to regroup when they host the Chicago Bulls on Monday night.
