Giannis Antetokounmpo was taunted on the middle of the court by the father of Tyrese Haliburton immediately after the Milwaukee Bucks were eliminated by the Indiana Pacers in Game 5 of their first round series.
“This is the last I’m going to say, I don’t want to talk about it,” said Antetokounmpo. “We lost the game. It doesn’t really matter. All I’ll say is that I believe in being humble in victory. That’s the way I am. Now, there are a lot of people out there that can say, ‘No. When you win, you gotta talk [expletive]. It’s a green light for you to be disrespectful towards somebody else.’ I disagree.
“I have won a championship. They haven’t. That doesn’t say anything. I’m not trying to minimize their effort. When we won a championship, I remember my mom was scared to cross. She was like, ‘Am I allowed to come and hug my son?’ This is not something that we do. We don’t. I try to keep my family away from the game.
“But losing a game, emotions run high, having a fan, which at the moment, I thought he was a fan and then I realized, it was Tyrese’s dad. I love Tyrese. He’s a great competitor. – coming in the floor and showing me his son’s towel and saying, ‘This is what we do. This is what we f’ing do. This is what the eff we do.’ I feel like that’s very, very disrespectful.
“Having somebody’s dad – and I’m happy for him and I’m happy for his son and I’m happy that he’s happy for his son, that’s how he’s supposed to feel – but coming to me and disrespecting me and cursing at me is totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. I’m not a guy that points fingers because in my neighborhood snitches get stitches, so I don’t want to say something for him to get fined or anything, but it’s not respectful. I talked with him at the end. And I think we’re in a good place.”
Tyrese Haliburton also took issue with the behavior of his father and spoke to the media about how he felt.
“After we won, I kind of blacked out a little bit,” said Haliburton. “I don’t really remember a ton (other) than all of the guys grabbing me on my head. As far as the incident between Giannis and my pops, I had no idea it happened until I got to the back [and] was showed the video. Me and my pops have talked about that, and I don’t agree with what transpired there from him. I think basketball is basketball and let’s keep it on the court. I think that he just got excited. [He] saw his son made a game-winner and came on the court. But we had a conversation, and I think he needs to just allow me to play basketball, stay over there and I’ll come to him to celebrate. But I think just the emotions of the game, [he] got excited there. But I’ve talked with him, (and) I’ll talk with Giannis eventually about it. I don’t think that my pops was in the right at all there.”
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