102-100 loss<\/a> to the Denver Nuggets on Friday night. He didn\u2019t appear comfortable the rest of the night and left for good with 34 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n\u201cAt the end, I could not move no more, so I had to stop playing,\u201d Antetokounmpo said.<\/p>\n
The two-time Kia MVP said he expected to undergo an MRI on Saturday and predicted the results wouldn\u2019t be much different from what he heard after injuring the same calf last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the MRI, they will tell me probably I popped something in my calf, or in my soleus or something, probably give me a protocol of four to six weeks I\u2019ll be out,\u201d Antetokounmpo said. \u201cThis is from my experience being around the NBA. After that, I\u2019m going to work my butt off to come back. That will probably be end of February, beginning of March.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bucks coach Doc Rivers was similarly pessimistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it looks great, honestly,\u201d he said. \u201cThis calf keeps coming up and it\u2019s concerning. I\u2019m not a doctor, but I\u2019m smart enough to know that his calf keeps bothering him. There\u2019s something that is there. It keeps happening. That\u2019s troublesome for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antetokounmpo\u2019s earlier calf injury occurred on Dec. 3. He returned to action Dec. 27, but had been on a minutes restriction since.<\/p>\n
This latest injury puts the Bucks\u2019 hopes of a 10th straight playoff berth in serious jeopardy. The Bucks (18-26) are 11th in the Eastern Conference standings and have lost five of their last six games.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee has gone just 3-11 in games Antetokounmpo has missed this season. Antetokounmpo said he would have exited the game as soon as the calf issue arose if the Bucks had a significantly better record.<\/p>\n
He instead stayed in the game and ended up with 22 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like to quit,\u201d Antetokounmpo said. \u201cI felt like I couldn\u2019t explode. I could jog. I couldn\u2019t get on my toes, so I was kind of jogging on my heel the majority of the game. I didn\u2019t have the same explosiveness, but I still felt like I could help. At the end, when it popped, I had to get out. I couldn\u2019t walk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Giannis Antetokounmpo\u2019s earlier calf injury occurred on Dec. 3. He returned to action Dec. 27, but had been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,226935,590,85],"class_list":["post-434088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo-calf","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/giannis-iso-012326-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n