Learning from defeat
I’ve had a week or so to digest the agonizing end to the Milwaukee Bucks’ season.
For those of you who didn’t watch or maybe aren’t even a Bucks or basketball fan, this was the equivalent of the David and Goliath matchup. The Bucks were supposed to be far superior to their opponent, the Miami Heat. The seven game series followed the story of David and Goliath as the underdog whooped the overwhelming favorite. The series was over in five games. However, it might as well have been over after the first couple of minutes.
The Bucks came out and looked uninterested in winning the series. After watching blowout losses in two out of the first three games, I was talking myself into the Heat’s hot three-point shooting as being a fluke and when Giannis Antetokounmpo came back for the Bucks, they’d find a way to will themselves to victory.
What happened over the course of games four and five broke me to my NBA fandom core. In both games, the Bucks had leads in the fourth quarter of at least 12 points. The Heat, and specifically the Heat’s Jimmy Butler, went on a tear at the end of the game and snatched both victories from the Bucks.
Even though Butler’s performances were something for the history books, he scored 56 and 42 points in the final two games of the series, the Bucks utterly imploded in both games. Turnovers, terrible shooting, bad free throw shooting, poor coaching, you name it. Everything that could have gone wrong, did.
A whole season of working their way to the best record in the league and a MVP campaign from Antetokounmpo was down the drain in five quick games.
Despite the terrible loss, the series did bring some silver linings. I don’t know that this team would have won the NBA title. They had flaws that include an aging roster and lack of athleticism on defense. Losing might cause the roster to be shaken up so that the team is not wasting the rest of Giannis’s prime. The other positive was getting to hear a passionate Giannis in the post game press conference of the series-deciding game five.
Giannis was asked if the season was a failure. His answer was passionate and well thought out. He truly does not believe in failure. He said the season wasn’t a failure, it was just a step towards success.
Whether you agree with what he said or not, what can’t be argued is the man looks at life in a more meaningful way than most of us. His background of skipping meals and selling watches on the streets of Athens, Greece gives him a unique perspective on life and I would encourage everyone out there to take a look at his answer to not only that question, but other questions asked of him in press conferences. We could all learn a little about the world and different perspectives by listening to Giannis talk.
Speeding
Through
L
ife
