Giannis Antetokounmpo is one of the guys who embodies the saying, “real power is not having to use it.” In other words, people know not to mess with him, so he never really has any altercations. I mean, just look at the guy.
But Chris Paul is a king antagonizer and has long held a reputation as a downright dirty player. So on Friday night, when Giannis felt Paul had a — shall we say — extra hand in Antetokounmpo ending up on the floor after a spin move in the lane, he had some choice words for the Spurs point guard.
Things pretty quickly escalated when Giannis got up and shoved Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan aside as he pointed at Paul. A bit of a scrum ensued, but fortunately nothing physical came of it.
The play doesn’t look that bad from the angle we’re getting. It does look like Paul give Giannis a little extra shove at the end, and maybe he did stick his foot out a little bit more than this angle shows.
Or, maybe it’s a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back thing, where Antetokounmpo has been tired of Paul’s antics for a while and it just so happens that the play that wound up pushing him over the edge probably wasn’t, on its own, egregious enough to warrant such a reaction.
“Giannis is as level-headed as anybody in our league,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said, via The Athletic’s Eric Nehm. “So if he was upset at something, I’m going to probably guess something happened.”
Whatever the case, Giannis was still clearly upset after game when he continued to want words with Paul.
Now, when Nehm asked Giannis what he felt happened on the play, he didn’t point to anything specific and in fact began his answer by saying “nothing” before calling it a “physical play.”
“I gotta watch the tape,” Antetokounmpo said. “I don’t know if I was tripped or I was pushed. I don’t know.”
Giannis was then asked about his sticking around after the game to confront Paul again, and that’s when Antetokounmpo let his real feelings out of the bag — which is another way of saying he pretty much issued a stern warning to Paul and anyone else who might be mistaking him for a gentle giant.
“They haven’t tried me. You gotta try me. People that know me, they don’t try me. If you try me, it’s a different side,” Antetokounmpo said. “So if you try me, you’re going to get that different side of me. But yeah, OK, at the end of the day, like, I think we’re all men, we all respect one another. And if words cross the line, then there’s gotta be consequences.
“At the end of the day, like, really I don’t say much. I try to play the game the right way. Yeah, but enough is enough. Like if I feel you’re putting my livelihood and my career and my body in jeopardy, in danger, enough’s enough, brother. I have a family to feed. And what makes you laugh can also make you cry sometimes.”
OK then! Not much room for interpretation here. Giannis is pretty much delivering the old “you mess with the bull you’re going to get the horns” warning, and it’s clearly coming from a place of built-up frustrations with Paul, as evidenced by the “enough’s enough” comment.
Let’s not forget that Paul and Giannis went head to head in the 2021 Finals, when Paul delivered this blow to the Bucks’ superstar, who was airborne at the time.
Anyone who saw that foul by Paul knew that was an exceedingly dirty play, much dirtier than whatever he did, if anything, on Friday, and Antetokounmpo pretty clearly remembers.
If Paul didn’t have the reputation that he does, Giannis probably wouldn’t have responded this way. But considering Paul’s history and his specific history with Giannis, it’s more understandable why what seemed like a fairly light shove provoked such a heavy response.
