Saturday night brought more of the same for the Milwaukee Bucks. They were again unable to win a second consecutive game, getting blown out by the Los Angeles Lakers 119-95 on the second leg of a back-to-back that followed a thrilling overtime victory against the visiting Charlotte Hornets on the first leg. 

Between the Hornets and Lakers games, Milwaukee center Myles Turner made it clear that he believed the Bucks were due for a winning streak that would reverse their recent fortunes of alternating wins and losses. The Bucks haven’t won (or lost) consecutive games since beating the New York Knicks and Golden State Warriors in back-to-back games in late October.

After Saturday’s loss, Antetokounmpo agreed with Turner that the Bucks are on the verge of a win streak, but he also had a blunt message for his team and their recent inability to string wins together and maintain momentum in this early part of the season.

“I do feel (like we’re close to stacking wins),” Antetokounmpo said. “I do feel it. I’m optimistic, I always try to play to win. We have a lot of games in front of us, we have 68 more games. My mindset is try to win as many as possible. If that's going to be us winning two, three in a row, ten in a row. It doesn't really matter to me. I just want to keep on figuring out the ways to win.”

“We’ve just got to be more consistent and find a way to not be complacent like when we have a good game. To come in here and be humble and figure out a way to watch film and see what we can do better."

Antetokounmpo elaborated further on his message, explaining that the team often becomes too complacent with the highs despite their success in responding to the lows. He emphasized the fact that it’s still so early in the season that anything you accomplish at this point is essentially meaningless, but too many bad losses can send even the best teams on a downward path.

“Sometimes when we have good games and we feel good about ourselves and we might come here and just drop the ball a little bit,” Antetokounmpo said. “I think that's what we did tonight. Dropped the ball a little bit man. We have to figure out ways when we are on a high, to be humble enough to understand that we have 68 more games to go.”

“There are so many aspects in the game that you can improve and I feel like that's what we are missing. The humble in victory mindset. When we lose, we’re humble and we go out there and play to win. But that shows that when we win, we're not humble enough to understand we've got to keep on improving and go to the next game and be hungry to win that game."

Antetokounmpo and the Bucks will look to get back on the right track against the Cavaliers in a nationally broadcast game on Peacock beginning at 6 p.m. CST.