Giannis Antetokounmpo, a monster of empathy and inclusion

With a lot of thought, a lot of hesitation, and insisting that I put the word in quotes, I said last night before the Bucks took on the Raptors that the champions of 2019 are the most hated team in the NBA!

Disgusted or “disgusted”, with or without quotes, doesn’t matter and the punctuation is completely imperceptible.

The Raptors, regardless of their current situation and form, are a team that takes out the liver, lungs and all vital organs of their opponents and is therefore considered undesirable and valued throughout the territory of the League…

Nick Nurse plays with several forwards, mixes positions and roles, often uses… Indian Defenses (Zone or even Box-and-One 1-4) and pushes the so-called bring opponents to their limits with these and with those…

Here we came as we said earlier in the cinema because they pushed Kojam Antetokounmpo to the limit a few hours ago!

The 55 points and the number 74

This time Giannis didn’t score 55, so his previous performance (against the Wizards) would be on par with the 1963 epic war film 55 Days at Peking starring Charlton Easton, Ava Gardner and David Niven…

On Tuesday night the Morphonian from Sepolia did his own version called The 55 Points in Milwaukee and last night he spilled it even further and wrote the number 74…

That was the sum of the 30 points, 21 rebounds, 10 assists, 1 block and (let’s not talk outside) 12 errors!!!

But twelve mistakes, my boy, twelve mistakes?

Those 12 mistakes are a lot that he surpassed his record (at nine, three times), I’m not saying…

But then again, 21 rebounds is a lot, two fewer than his all-time record in those ten NBA seasons (23), which he had again against the… unnamed in the 2019 East Finals series.

At the end of the day, the tally doesn’t matter: within 24 hours and 77 minutes of being on the floor, Giannis “wrote” 85 points, 31 rebounds, 17 assists, two steals, one block, 17 errors and seven fouls.

The abuse of basketball

Throughout the first half, the two teams screamed for reggaes!

It was 13–12 at the end of the first period, which tied the Blazers’ 14–11 win over the Pistons on March 30, 2019, but fell short of the Nets’ 10–9 win over the Blazers on November 28, 2004.

The Raptors started shooting 0/15 and needed 13 misses before making their first 3-pointer to finish the game on 9/46 from 7:25 and 32.8% off the field.

Not even an embalmed bird was successful!

On the other hand, the Bucks shot 39.8%, grabbed 73 rebounds (vs. the home team’s 47) but committed 25 fouls, four of them in the Thriller’s regulation time (Antetokounmpo, Connaughton, Allen, Portis) along with Gary’s Trent two threes that put them in overtime.

The quadruple-double figure

Giannis notched his 33rd career triple-double and first missed quadruple-double!

Since the conversation, only four regular quadruple-doubles have been scored in NBA history: the first by retired Nate Thurmond on Oct. 18, 1974 (Bulls-Hawks, 22-14-13-12t.), the second by Alvin Robertson on February 18, 1986 (Spurs-Suns, 20-11-10-10kg.), the third by Hakeem Olazuwon on March 29, 1990 (Rockets-Bucks, 18-16-10-11kg.) and the fourth by David Robinson on 17 February 1994 (Spurs-Pistons, 34-10-10-10t.).

Yesterday Giannis did everything…

All!

He scored a three, a dunk, a spin move, a layup, a turnaround, a midrange and it didn’t add up…

Get rebounds by jumping on god or sticking your feet on the ground…

He also made a number of errors, including two offensive fouls…

The template for “Arista 10”!

Now to the grill: Giannis gave out 10 assists and in the end it was all about the money!

His tenth assist, which earned him a triple-double, would undoubtedly have given his teacher at the school in Sepolia an Excellent 10!

This assist was indeed an eye opener that was much needed as our treacherous eyes had been sore in the first half!

That support eventually became a pain reliever and, more importantly, a balm for the Bucks, further underscoring Antetokounmpo’s greatness.

The biggest and most important shot of the night (making the final 101-104) was dunked by Grayson Allen and dipped in the corner, confirming cause and effect.

The cause was the three victory points, because that’s why Giannis created them with his ingenious and altruistic move!

empathy and inclusion

If he were selfish as a horn and lacked… empathy and inclusion, he would try at all costs and risks to be the hero of the night, but he instinctively realized that the clutch of a game is not just being the goalscorer can, but also the passer-by.

So he moved into the paint, realizing he was being surrounded and cornered by at least three opponents who were actually five in a larger radius, when at just the right moment he spotted Allen in the corner, passed the ball to him and all the rest was history!

Giannis does not see this history repeating itself but simply moving on and he is the one who every night picks up the tangle where he left it on the previous one…

I’ve been wanting to write something since yesterday, but it’s never too late…

Granted, Antetokounmpo’s 55 points against the Wizards was not only a career high but also an epic.

Ditto for the emblematic assist he gave in Toronto yesterday…

But let me put the numbers and records aside to give him credit, honor and glory, not for something he did, but for something he said…

The respectful superhero and someone like LeBron

Giannis is a basketball superhero, but more than any other talent, he displays his modesty, humility, and respect.

I’m not writing this because I belong to the LeBronism movement, but in fact the disgust of yesterday’s speech regarding “King James” is a damning testament to the inner, mental, spiritual and emotional world of the “Greek Freak”.

At 28 and in his tenth season in the NBA, Giannis wants to be Giannis and he is Giannis…

At 38 – God bless him – if he hasn’t thundered about disappearing like Tim Duncan and becoming a recluse on an island (like he said), he’ll be in his 20th season in the NBA too and he’ll want someone like that Player named Lebron James!

When he praised LeBron, Durant and Harden in our Cosmote TV interview in December 2020, some on Antetokounmpo’s side slammed him, accusing him of being a defeatist and not having a strong personality.

Don’t eat, we have seagull soup!