Basketball
Giannis Antetokounmpo exclusively on SPORT24: “I wanted to start this journey well, but God didn’t want it to happen like this”
Giannis Antetokounmpo was troubled by the Bucks’ defense and told the Sportish camera that his team needed to climb into the TOP-5 on both ends of the floor in order to win trophies, cups and championships.
If you grabbed him by the nose he would explode. The Bucks’ loss to the Pacers in the Final Four semifinals of the historic first NBA Cup hurt him. Giannis Antetokounmpo lives for competitive games, lives for accolades, builds his legacy, but the 128 points conceded by his team were a lot and showed – once again in these first weeks of the season – that Milwaukee’s defense is not at a good level. And as we know, offense wins cards, but defense wins titles.
Sportish mission to Las Vegas: Haris Stavrou
So the first title is gone, but life goes on and the Bucks need to put their heads down, work even harder and get organized. The Greek Freak explained that his team often doesn’t know what to do on the court and that the rants will be discussed inside and outside the organization over the next 24 hours. And it’s debated, because while Milwaukee’s leaders huffed and puffed in frustration at the team’s overall picture, there were some who felt like they’d done their job, gotten beat and just had to think about the next game.
We met Giannis after the semi-final, after his bath, after the press conference and as you will see in the video, his face told everything about how he was feeling.
– You seem to me to be the “craziest” of all. How badly did you want this trophy?
I don’t know if it was because I wanted the trophy. I like to win, I always want to give 100% for my team. Of course we could have played better and won the game, but ok… They played much better than us.
We weren’t good in the fourth quarter, we didn’t make a lot of shots, they got a lot of offensive rebounds. We can be better, I want us to be better. I want to look at my team and myself every day and know that we gave 100% and that we are getting better every game. The.
– You have extreme talent in attack, even if you need work. You’re not that effective on defense. Would you have expected things to be different this early in the season or is the situation more or less as you expected?
To be honest: I don’t expect anything. I try to live each moment individually. We can be much better in defense, we give teams 125 points. We’re not even in the TOP-20 in defense. As history has shown, to be among the best teams and win championships, you have to be top 5 in defense and top 5 in offense.
We have to get better defensively, we have to get better at defensive rebounding. They give us a lot of defensive rebounds. We certainly have a lot of talent offensively, with Lillard, with Middleton, with Lopez, with Portis, with everyone we have, but we also need to come together more as a team. We’ve only played 20 games together.
We’re fine, I definitely wanted to win this match and start this first trip to Vegas off right, but okay. God didn’t want it to be this way, we keep going, learning and improving.
– You saw the Final Four in the EuroLeague, you experienced the first Final Four in NBA history. What would you like to change? They played the Knicks 36 hours after the quarterfinals and people couldn’t even travel from Milwaukee.
Yes, to be honest, we left a day and a half ago. After the game against New York we left, we were on the plane for four and a half hours and got here at 2-3 in the morning and the next day we had 20 minutes of training to learn the field. We had no time, neither to rest, nor to film, nor to watch videos, nor to meet as a team. If we had another day it would be better.
And I can’t understand it… We were the first team in our group and Indiana had more days at the end. And it showed that we were many minutes away. I don’t know if you could understand it, I understood it. They were a little fresher than us.
– What do you think about the fact that the Final Four is being held on a neutral field?
Oh, that’s right… That didn’t cross my mind because I was so focused on what I can control, what I can’t control, what stadium we’re playing at. It would have been much better if we had played in Milwaukee because we also had four or five wins in a row. We played here, we didn’t play well, we lost.
– Next year.
Next year… That’s still a long way away. Tomorrow morning. Let’s rest, wake up well and train to be ready for the next game.
Source: sport 24
I am a sports writer and journalist who has written for various online publications including Sportish. I’m originally from the UK but currently live in Toronto, Canada. I’m also an author on Sportish and have written several articles on a variety of sports-related topics.
Head coach of “Kharkov Falcons” Valery Plekhanov He summarized the team’s 2025 results and talked about the preparations for the continuation of the season:
“Summing up the results of the calendar year, I want to congratulate all our fans on the upcoming New Year and Merry Christmas, wish our favorite team peace and good victories! “Kharkov Falcons” are the first players of this Super League season, so second place at the moment is a good result.
There are a few points we would like to emphasize separately. First of all, seven players from last season’s active squad won the Premier League together, but five of them never played in the Super League. Therefore, the experience they gained in the first half of this season is almost priceless. Secondly, Kharkiv Falcons are one of the two champion teams that did not play a single match at home. It’s very difficult when you’re not playing for your fans, you’re training in one gym, and you’re playing in a different gym every time, even on home tours. In these conditions, 4 defeats in 13 matches is a good result.
One of the most negative moments of this year was not being able to participate in the last four of the Ukrainian Cup. Unfortunately, we were a little unlucky in the draw. After an emotionally difficult and physically exhausting match with Krivbass, we did not have enough strength for the next match against Kiev-Basket in the quarter-finals. Unfortunately, our performances in the cup are over, but now we will be able to focus all our efforts on the championship.
Our main problem now is injuries. We have five injured players, three of whom have serious injuries that require a long recovery period. We’re about to get off to a very tough start to the new calendar season because the Falcons will be playing basketball six weekends in a row, which means six road trips with no rest time. If we could count on all twelve players in the squad at the beginning of the season, there will no longer be such a rotation. Therefore, all the responsibility and burden will fall on the players in the rankings. I hope they get over their injuries in the new year, recover from their injuries as soon as possible, return to work and help their beloved club properly represent Kharkiv in the Super League.
Despite the holidays, we have training scheduled almost seven days a week. “I really hope that by January 10 we will be a combat-ready team that can solve serious problems.”
Source: Sport UA
Ralph Bean is a writer for Sportish. Ralph has written about sports news for the last two years, and is currently an author on the site. He enjoys writing about sports, and hopes to cover more stories in the future.
On December 23, as part of the 1/8 final of the Romanian Cup, the Ukrainian derby was played between Bucharest and Dinamo. Vyacheslav Bobrova and “Fast” Alexandra Lipovoy.
Dinamo won the match 89:79, and the fate of the ticket to the next round was decided in overtime, as Rapid won the first match – 83:73.
The home players acted more accurately in extra time and won with a total score of 101:85 and advanced to the quarter-finals.
Vyacheslav Bobrov made a double-double in 33 minutes on the field, scoring 10 points (4/7 two-pointers, 0/1 three-pointers, 2/2 free throws), collecting 10 rebounds, 1 block, 5 turnovers and 2 fouls.
Alexander Lipovoy played 38 minutes, scored 16 points (1/2 two-pointers, 4/7 three-pointers, 2/2 free throws), collected 3 rebounds, made 2 assists, 1 steal, 1 turnover and 4 fouls.
Romanian Cup. 1/8 final. 2nd match, 23 December
Dinamo Bucharest – Rapid Bucharest – 101:85 Overtime (17:22, 28:12, 24:19, 20:26, 12:6)
Match record:
Source: Sport UA
Ralph Bean is a writer for Sportish. Ralph has written about sports news for the last two years, and is currently an author on the site. He enjoys writing about sports, and hopes to cover more stories in the future.
Basketball
Mikhailyuk repeated his personal best from the NBA regular season in the match against Memphis
Ukrainian basketball player who plays for Utah Jazz Svyatoslav Mikhayyuk He repeated his personal best in starts in the NBA regular season.
This happened 128:137 in the game between the Utah Jazz and the Memphis Grizzlies on the night of December 23-24.
In this match, Mikhailyuk stayed on the field for 22 minutes and during this time he recorded 9 points (4/4 free throws, 1/4 two-point, 1/5 three-pointers), 4 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, 1 turnover and 1 foul.
This match was Mikhailyuk’s 27th match as a starter this season. So, at the end of December, Svyatoslav repeated his career record in terms of starts, missing only one game against Dallas.
Previously, Mikhailiuk managed to play as a starter in many matches only in the 2019/20 season as part of the Detroit Pistons.
The Jazz are in 12th place in the NBA Western Conference rankings with 10 wins in 29 games. Utah will play its next game against Detroit on Saturday, December 27 at 04:30 Kyiv time.
Source: Sport UA
Ralph Bean is a writer for Sportish. Ralph has written about sports news for the last two years, and is currently an author on the site. He enjoys writing about sports, and hopes to cover more stories in the future.
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