Milwaukee Bucks of America basketball icon, Giannis Adetokunbo (Antetokounmpo) is still ruing the personal setback he got on the opening night of the season, as he failed to put away a late free throw that would have given his side the edge, megasportsarena.com reports.
Though the miss is now almost a week behind since Wednesday, ‘The Greek Freak’ is still reeling with goose pimples, as his side went on to lose against Boston Celtics, and the Nigerian-born Greece international acknowledged how different it would have been had he hit bull’s eye.
Indeed, Antetokounmpo had a chance to force overtime for The Bucks in their season opener at TD Garden, but he was unable to tie the score with a free throw at the end of the fourth quarter against The Celtics, whose center, Tristan Thompson fouled him with 0.4 seconds remaining in regulation time.
The NBA’s back-to-back reigning most valuable player and last season’s best defensive star in the league stepped up to the line with a chance to tie the score at 122 but, while he sank the first attempt, Antetokounmpo missed the second, thereby dashing Milwaukee’s hopes for a win and the star admitted he was left frustrated with how the final moments played out.
Despite the miss, pundits and ball enthusiasts were unanimous that Antetokounmpo played very well against The Celtics, scoring a game-high 35 points with 13 rebounds and two blocks, in a performance that showed he has worked hard to improve on his free throw shooting since being drafted in 2013.
After converting 70-plus percent of his free throws from 2014-15 through 2018-19, he dropped to 63.3 percent from the line last season yet, on Wednesday night, he was a solid 6-of-8 on those attempts against Boston, but he was unfortunate that one of his misses proved decisive.
However, while admitting he was upset with his inability to take advantage of such moments that the greatest players relish, Antetokounmpo added that he has put it behind him and he is now taking it in his stride, as he starts looking forward to being decisive and effective in a lot more of such situations as the season expands into 2021.
Antetokounmpo submitted: “I’m upset about it, but you can’t change it. So it’s done. I missed the second one, hopefully when I’m in a similar position I can get the next one. That’s the mentality you’ve got to have.
“It’s fun because you learn from it. The more you’re in situations like that, the more you can succeed. The more you can get the best out of moments like that. I want to be in those moments. I want to (be the guy) down the stretch.
“I want to shoot the last two free throws, I want to shoot the last shot, because if you think about it, if you do that a thousand times, some of the times it’s going to go in. Some of the times, you’re going to be the hero. And some of the times you’re going to miss, but you learn from it.”
