Is there no end to Giannis Antetokounmpo’s fierce competitiveness? In Milwaukee’s most recent NBA match against Toronto, the Greek international needed three stitches to close a cut near his right pinkie but then made his way back to the courts to dominate and lead his team to another victory.
Not only did the Bucks earn a 128-104 road win against the Raptors, but their forward star finished with his fourth triple-double of the season, including 11 points, 13 assists and 12 rebounds on Monday night.
Giannis hurt his finger on the rim while chasing down rival RJ Barrett’s breakaway dunk late in the second quarter. As Antetokounmpo missed the ball while attempting to block his opponent’s shot, he banged his hand against the bucket.
Giannis hurt his finger on the rim but he tapes it up and is good to go! https://t.co/3HGTf6q7I5 pic.twitter.com/0kMGdg3l8s
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“I’m fine,” said the Greek Freak, who is currently the NBA’s leading scorer at 31.6 points. “My finger is kind of numb, but I’m fine. I played the second half. It’s just stitches. I’m not going to overthink it.”
Once the game was over and his team was heading out the arena, the 30-year-old gave one last update on his finger. “I feel great,” he mentioned. “I got some stitches in my finger. I told my wife, she’s still with me. She still likes me. We won the game. Good day.”
His coach recognized the player’s will to continue playing despite the cut. “He didn’t want to come out because he felt like he could finish, but it kept bleeding,” Doc Rivers said. “He definitely was effective, but you could see it really hurt his ball handling a little bit.”
While Giannis just played over 18 minutes in the first half and eventually sat out the entire fourth quarter, his coach said he wasn’t concerned about his star’s status for Wednesday’s home game against San Antonio. “I think he’s good,” Doc assured.
After the defeat, Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic explained why his team struggled to contain Antetokounmpo. “I think Scottie [Barnes] did a good job on him one-on-one, but our close-outs were not good. Every time we were supposed to rotate and close-out to the three-point line to break the rhythm and to take away threes, we did not do a good enough job of that,” he shared.
