Antetokounmpo: “I hugged Lillard and told him ‘don’t eat me alone again'”

THE Damian Lillard he had 45 points and 11 assists to lead them Bucks in victory in Detroit (135-141) and John Antetokounmpo praised his teammate.

“We want Lillard to be great for this team to be great. We don’t take anyone for granted. We want him to continue to be aggressive. When he was out for a game because of a personal issue and we were down 30 points to Utah at halftime, when he came back I gave him a big hug and said ‘don’t leave again, don’t leave me alone’ (laughs). He was laughing. But he understands that we want him to be great so we can be too. And he’s been great ever since“, Greek Freak pointed out.

“Offensively we were good, we had good partnerships and Dame did his thing, but defensively we have to do a better job. It’s a lesson for us, playing again in two days with them is like the playoffs. We have to deal better with three-pointers and close outs, rebounds…”, he added.

As for his own performance, as he had 31 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists despite looking “rusty” at the start, he said:In the first twelve minutes and not having played for six days the game seemed very fast to me. I couldn’t run. Along the way I moved up and became more aggressive».