Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo expects to miss 4-6 weeks due to calf - ESPN

MILWAUKEE — Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo did not finish Friday night's 102-100 loss to the Denver Nuggets because of a right calf injury, which Antetokounmpo said after the game he expects will sideline him for at least four to six weeks.

Antetokounmpo will undergo an MRI on Saturday for further evaluation of the injury, which limited him throughout Friday's contest. He said the issue felt similar to the calf injury that sidelined him earlier this season.

«After the MRI, they will tell me, probably, I popped something in my calf on my soleus or something,» Antetokounmpo said Friday. «This is from my experience being around the NBA.»

Antetokounmpo appeared to suffer the injury in the first quarter and went to the locker room. He returned to the game wearing a wrap around his right calf and played through the injury.

«I was feeling it majority of the game but did not want to stop playing,» Antetokounmpo said. «But at the end, I could not move no more, so I had to stop.»

Bucks coach Doc Rivers acknowledged he thought Antetokounmpo was favoring his leg for most of the second half before he finally pulled him from the game.

«I asked our [medical] team five different times,» Rivers said. «I didn't like what my eyes were seeing, personally. Giannis was defiant about staying in.»

Antetokounmpo has been no stranger to calf injuries in recent years. In December, he missed three weeks with what he later described as a right soleus strain, the same injury that kept him out of the 2024 playoffs.

«This calf keeps coming up and it's concerning,» Rivers said. «I'm not a doctor, but I'm smart enough to know that his calf keeps bothering him and there's something that is there. It keeps happening, and that's troublesome for all of