{"id":399870,"date":"2026-11-06T10:50:53","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T09:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/?p=399870"},"modified":"2026-11-11T07:38:43","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T07:38:43","slug":"doc-rivers-takes-swipe-at-giannis-antetokounmpo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/doc-rivers-takes-swipe-at-giannis-antetokounmpo\/","title":{"rendered":"Doc Rivers takes a swipe at Giannis Antetokounmpo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Doc Rivers opens his mouth, it is rarely to hand out praise. So when it comes to assessing the last superstar he coached, two-time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NBA<\/a> MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, he does not hold back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking to Bill Simmons, the now-retired coach stresses how difficult the Greek star was to coach, criticising the fact that he has only one plan on the court, whatever stage of the game it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;He&#8217;s not an easy player. He plays at that crazy pace&#8230; He&#8217;s a really difficult guy. He has a great ability to pass the ball, but at the same time he&#8217;s not super smart. He really only has one way of playing. On every play, he wants to force the action. I wish he had learned to execute better,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"es\" dir=\"ltr\">Doc Rivers tiene una capacidad incre\u00edble de criticar todo equipo o jugador que ha tenido bajo su tutela sin mirarse ni una vez al espejo<br><br>\ud83d\udde3\ufe0f &quot;[Giannis] es un tipo dif\u00edcil. Un gran pasador que no es s\u00faper inteligente&quot;<br><br>&quot;Solo tiene una manera de jugar. Cuesta abajo y forzando&quot; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GRkhaA2xDu\">pic.twitter.com\/GRkhaA2xDu<\/a><\/p>&mdash; nbamaniacs (@nbamaniacs) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nbamaniacs\/status\/2118613456635269391?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 6, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Continuing his assessment of the Miami Heat&#8217;s new franchise player, he understands that playing under one of the best coaches in the game, Erik Spoelstra, should help him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The thing is, he still needs to learn the value of execution, how important it is, when you&#8217;re in practice or in shootaround, to focus on execution. Now he has a coach who is elite at execution,&#8221; he concludes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Doc Rivers and the 2008 ring<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Doc Rivers won the 2008 championship with the Boston Celtics, his reputation soared. He had led to glory a team that had not come close since Larry Bird, and that catapulted him into major projects such as the Clippers of Chris Paul and Blake Griffin or the Philadelphia 76ers of Joel Embiid. He came unstuck at both, as he did in Milwaukee, leaving a legacy that, now that he is retired, is not easy to assess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>(Photograph by IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The now-retired coach discusses the limitations of the two-time MVP, whom he does not hesitate to describe as a one-dimensional player on the court<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":399871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[149,77,42],"class_list":["post-399870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-doc-rivers","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-milwaukee-bucks","no-featured-image-padding","resize-featured-image"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/vie6-anteto-rivers.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Kiera Gardner","author_link":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/author\/kiera\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":399999,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399870\/revisions\/399999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nbamaniacs.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}