It would be an understatement to suggest Giannis Antetokounmpo was pleased with Damian Lillard’s heroics for the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday night. The former MVP was the first to greet Dame after she sank the game-winning shot in overtime to lift the Bucks to a 143-142 victory.
Apparently, Giannis got so excited that he nearly choked out his own teammate
A giddy Antetokounmpo spoke to reporters after the game to reveal just how excited he was during the moment:
“It was fun,” Antetokounmpo said, via Eric Nehm of The Athletic.
“After he hit the shot, everything was like slow-motion.”
Giannis had much more to say about the celebrations that followed Lillard’s epic moment, including how Antetokounmpo busted out some of Dame’s most memorable cellies through the years:
“He started doing this,” Antetokounmpo continued with a smile, pointing to his wrist to re-enact Lillard’s signature Dame Time celebration. “I think I grabbed him, but I grabbed him hard, you know? I don’t know if I was like suffocating him, but I grabbed him really hard.”
“I was doing this,” Antetokounmpo said as he pointed to his wrist.
“Then, I was doing this,” Antetokounmpo said as he waved goodbye by opening and closing his hand, just as Lillard had done after hitting a stepback 3 over Paul George to eliminate the Oklahoma City Thunder from the 2019 NBA playoffs.
Needless to say, Giannis knows all about Lillard’s history of clutch-time heroics.
Giannis then went on to confess that he caught himself off-guard with how overjoyed he was during the celebrations. The former back-to-back MVP, however, has no regrets whatsoever:
“I went out of character, but it’s fun, man,” Antetokounmpo explained. “We gotta live life hard. And that’s what we did tonight.
/image%2F1426505%2F20240115%2Fob_929357_1000064500.jpg)
“Everybody was happy for the shot. I don’t think we had to put ourselves in a position to get to that shot, but I’m so happy that this guy made it, and everybody was happy and everybody celebrated, and everybody had a smile on. So we’ve won three in a row. We’re playing good basketball. Hopefully, we can keep it up.”