Giannis Antetokounmpo’s EuroBasket journey took a devastating turn in the semifinals, where his Greek squad was thoroughly outplayed by a dominant Turkish team. The game was a personal nightmare for the superstar, who was held to a tournament-low 12 points, a shocking performance for a player who had been averaging over 27 points per game. This loss was compounded by post-game comments from Turkish star Alperen Sengun, who bluntly analyzed Giannis’s game, stating, “He’s not a great passer. He’s an amazing player, you know, but he’s not a great passer,” framing his team’s defensive strategy around what he perceived as a key weakness.

Giannis responded with characteristic, albeit pointed, grace. After leading Greece to a bronze medal victory, he addressed the criticism by leaning on his vast accomplishments. “I’m a guy who doesn’t like to talk a lot. You know, I let my game talk,” he said at a press conference. “I’m going to my 13th season in the NBA. I’ve won everything. Everything.” He simply told critics to look up his highlights on YouTube to judge his passing for themselves. This measured public response, however, seems to contradict his known competitive fire on the court, a duality that has not gone unnoticed by league observers.

This contrast is exactly what NBA analyst Noah Eagle recently highlighted. On the CLNS Media podcast Celtics All Access, Eagle pointed out the fascinating difference between Giannis’s gentle off-court persona and his fierce on-court trash-talking. “Everybody saw then you probably saw on Twitter if you didn’t watch it or weren’t following, but Alperen Şengün essentially said that he’s this all-time great player that can’t pass,” Eagle noted. Doubling down, he said “And then Giannis was like, ‘I don’t I don’t talk. I let my game do the talking,’ when we literally have video of him talking trash constantly on the court in the NBA. I just fake handshake to Jaylen last year. I love Giannis because he can get away with it because he’s like warm and fuzzy about how he does everything”.

Giannis Antetokounmpo had multiple memorable incidents related to trash-talking last season. One involved a heated exchange with Pacers player Bennedict Mathurin, where Giannis whispered in Mathurin’s ear, causing an agitation and physical reaction from the younger player. The other incident occurred after the Bucks were eliminated from the playoffs, with Giannis confronting Tyrese Haliburton’s father over what Giannis described as a “disrespectful” exchange on the court, which led to a postgame confrontation.

Eagle specifically referenced another notorious incident from November 2024 to prove his point, where Giannis Antetokounmpo fouled Jaylen Brown and then fake offered a handshake, pulling it back in a “too slow” gesture that Brown later called childish. Eagle’s commentary serves to justify Giannis’s right to engage in competitive banter, arguing that his status as “one of the greatest players in the history of the game” earns him that right. This perspective frames the entire Sengun incident not as a one-sided attack, but as part of the competitive back-and-forth that defines high-level sports.

A recent event captures the essence of this moment better when during an Instagram Live after Greece’s bronze celebration, a clip went viral. Showing Giannis losing his cool when fans spammed Turkiye flags in the chat, and in the clip he can be heard saying “Take the fu—-g Turkish flag out of here”. The outburst came after he had been picked apart by Turkey’s game plan and after Ercan Osmani erupted for big scoring. And it underlined how personal and national these matchups can feel for elite players.

This on-court drama, however, has spiraled into a far more serious and disturbing off-court situation. The intense rivalry and viral moments have unleashed a vile wave of online toxicity that has now directly targeted Giannis’s family, moving the conflict from a sports debate to a concerning personal safety issue.

Mariah Antetokounmpo reveals details about online harassment

Mariah Antetokounmpo broke her silence to call out direct harassment aimed at her and the family after Greece’s loss to Turkey at EuroBasket 2025, and her post made clear this was no ordinary online taunt. “People in this world are so disappointing! All over a 🏀!” she wrote while also revealing that she planned to name a person who sent a threatening direct message. Mariah framed the anger as unacceptable and asked both sets of fans to remember there are children and private lives behind players.

The messages she shared were chilling and specific and showed how quickly sports rivalry can spill into real world danger. In one message the sender warned “We will k— your entire family. You will be afraid everywhere you go”. Mariah said she would expose the account, and she made a point of congratulating Turkiye’s team while telling fans that abusive behavior crosses a line that must not be tolerated.

This episode has echoes elsewhere in the game and in other players’ families, and that context made Mariah’s response resonate. As an example of the broader problem Nina Westbrook previously described similar harassment when she said “When I’m being harassed on a daily basis over basketball games, and I’m having obscenity’s and death wishes for me and my family…This is not a game to me. Basketball is a game. This is my life, my children’s lives, and my families life”. The comparison underlines how social media can transform sporting passion into targeted abuse.

Even on the basketball side, the national coaching staff defended Giannis and pushed back on the idea that a single technical critique explains the semifinal result. Greece coach Vassilis Spanoulis called Şengün’s comments out directly and said “Sengun is a very, very small kid to talk about Giannis”. He added about the criticism “This is bullshit”. Spanoulis and others emphasized that Greece had simply had a bad night and that the family threats are an unacceptable escalation beyond normal competitive talk. The tournament now leaves a clear wake: rivalries sharpen the game but players and their families should be shielded from threats that go too far.