Giannis Antetokounmpo: Postgame Behavior Of Tyrese Haliburton's Father 'Totally Unacceptable'
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.”
Via The Athletic
