Much like the rest of us, Milwaukee Bucks superstar Damian Lillard witnessed greatness unfold on Wednesday night. The main difference is that Dame had a front-row seat to Giannis Antetokounmpo dropping a career-high 64 points in Milwaukee’s 140-126 win over the Indiana Pacers.
After the game, Lillard shared with reporters how Giannis left him in awe with his insane scoring feat. I guess you could say that Dame was impressed.
“Any time you can score that many points in an NBA game, it’s special,” Lillard said, via Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “There’s guys that come along that randomly go out there and score 50. And then there’s guys who the other team is trying to stop and they game-plan for you and they’re there the whole time, I think that makes it more impressive, just how he was going and going and going and going. It was special to watch.”
Lillard hit the nail on the head here. The Pacers did all they could to stop Giannis but clearly, they just proved no match to the former back-to-back MVP on the evening.
Milwaukee Bucks Star Damian Lillard’s Confession
Lillard has been around long enough to see all sorts of crazy things unfold in the NBA. However, even the seven-time All-Star himself admits that watching Giannis go off like he did on Wednesday night was unlike anything Dame had ever experienced in his career:
“There’s a lot of times that I’ve been in that situation and I think this was the first time where I was like, man, you just don’t want to get in the way,” Lillard said. “You want to see him just keep going and keep going. It’s fun to watch but it’s also just good possessions for us. When you get in a game like this it’s looking like he’s going to score every time. He made a significant amount of free throws, too. It was just fun to watch. I think anytime a great player gets in that type of flow and is going like that you gotta allow them to keep going and try to contribute to it and also appreciate it when you’re there to be a part of it and witness it.”
Lillard is himself one of the most elite scorers this game has ever seen. For him to talk so highly of Giannis — and for Dame to admit that he wanted to get out of Antetokounmpo’s way — speaks volumes of what kind of performance this was from the Bucks talisman.
