{"id":145192,"date":"2025-09-15T08:19:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T08:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/145192\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T08:19:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T08:19:06","slug":"giannis-responds-to-senguns-subtle-jab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/145192\/","title":{"rendered":"Giannis responds to Sengun’s subtle jab"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Turkey\u2019s win against Greece in the EuroBasket semifinals, Alperen Sengun spoke to the media about how Turkey contained two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, holding him to 12 points in a 94-68 blowout.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not a great passer. He\u2019s an amazing player, you know, but he\u2019s not a great passer. So we just tried to help and jump to close the paint,\u201d said<\/a> Sengun.<\/p>\n

While Antetokounmpo isn\u2019t known first for his passing, he\u2019s come a long way. After averaging 1.9 assists in his rookie season, Giannis tied a career high with 6.5 assists for the Bucks last season and has averaged 5.0 assists per game across his 12-year career.<\/p>\n

Following Greece\u2019s bronze medal victory against Finland, he responded<\/a> to Sengun\u2019s comments. \u201cI\u2019m a guy who doesn\u2019t like to talk a lot. You know, I let my game talk,\u201d Giannis said, adding: \u201cI\u2019m going to my 13th season in the NBA. I\u2019ve won everything. Everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greek head coach and all-time EuroLeague leading scorer Vassilis Spanoulis had a much sharper reaction<\/a>: \u201cSengun is a very, very small kid to talk about Giannis.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Sengun\u2019s comments didn\u2019t appear to carry ill will, critiquing a star after a lopsided victory \u2014 especially an all-time great like Antetokounmpo \u2014 won\u2019t always go over smoothly.<\/p>\n

The two players won\u2019t have to wait long for another matchup. Giannis\u2019 Milwaukee Bucks face Sengun\u2019s Houston Rockets on Nov. 9, with a second and final regular-season meeting set for April 1, 2026 \u2014 dates Giannis may have already circled on his calendar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Turkey\u2019s win against Greece in the EuroBasket semifinals, Alperen Sengun spoke to the media about how Turkey…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-145192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}