Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo was ready to fight Blake Griffin during fiery clash vs. Pistons

Dom Farrell

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Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo was ready to fight Blake Griffin during fiery clash vs. Pistons image

Giannis Antetokounmpo was ready to "fight" Blake Griffin during the Bucks' fiery 127-103 victory over the Pistons.

Antetokounmpo scored 35 points as the Bucks extended their hot streak to 13 consecutive wins — their best run since a 16-game winning streak spanning the 1972-73 and 1973-74 seasons. Milwaukee also boasts a dominant recent record against Detroit, having won all eight encounters across the regular season and playoffs last season before prevailing in the initial 2019-20 matchup.

Tempers threatened to boil over this time, with Antetokounmpo and Griffin's initial altercation coming after a second-quarter collision.

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In the third, Milwaukee's Khris Middleton confronted Griffin after the Pistons star stepped over a prone Antetokounmpo, who was on the floor after being fouled.

"There's going to be a lot of teams that are going to come out and try to be physical with me — try to hit me, knock me down to the floor," Antetokounmpo told reporters. "I just got to keep my composure. At first, I was trying to ... talk back, let them know that this is more than basketball. We can stop playing basketball and we can fight.

"At the end of the day, my teammates want me in the game, my teammates want me to keep my head in the game and I was like, 'whatever.' At this point, 'whatever.'"

Antetokounmpo was grateful for the intervention from Middleton, who scored 17 points.

"I was on the floor, I didn't see exactly what happened, but I saw Khris going out defending me. That's my big brother," he added. "It means a lot. I always had his back, but now I have it even more."

Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer felt his team channeled any frustration with Detroit's roughhousing effectively.

"I liked our fire in the second quarter. I liked our fire in general," Budenholzer said. "I think the guys, they're in a good place. They're playing good basketball. So we'll keep it going."

Dom Farrell

Dom Farrell Photo

Dom is the senior content producer for Sporting News UK. He previously worked as fan brands editor for Manchester City at Reach Plc. Prior to that, he built more than a decade of experience in the sports journalism industry, primarily for the Stats Perform and Press Association news agencies. Dom has covered major football events on location, including the entirety of Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup in Paris and St Petersburg respectively, along with numerous high-profile Premier League, Champions League and England international matches. Cricket and boxing are his other major sporting passions and he has covered the likes of Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury, Wladimir Klitschko, Gennadiy Golovkin and Vasyl Lomachenko live from ringside.