The Milwaukee Bucks are one of the hottest teams in the NBA, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard form an offensive force and now the Bucks will play for the NBA Cup title.
Now winners of 12 of their past 15 games, the Bucks defeated the Atlanta Hawks 110-102 in an NBA Cup semifinal Saturday and are starting to look like the quality team they thought they could be when they acquired Lillard before the start of the 2023-24 season.
Milwaukee reached the semifinals of last year’s NBA Cup but lost to Indiana. It’s hoping to use this year’s performance as a springboard to a strong season after a 2-8 start. The Bucks are 14-11 and sit in sixth place in the Eastern Conference, two games behind third-place Orlando.
The Bucks will see just how much they’ve improved in the past month when they play the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Cup final. The Thunder defeated the Houston Rockets 111-96 later Saturday and improved to 20-5, good for first place in the Western Conference.
The final will also feature two of the NBA’s best players – Antetokounmpo and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Here are the winners and losers from Saturday’s NBA Cup semifinals:
NBA Cup winners
Giannis Antetokounmpo-Damian Lillard combo
Antetokounmpo and Lillard combined for 57 points – right around their combined league-best 58.5 points per game this season. Antetokounmpo had an efficient 32 points on 10-for-15 shooting from the field and 12-for-18 on free throws and he added 14 rebounds, nine assists and four blocks. Lillard wasn’t as efficient but still produced with 25 points on 8-for-21 shooting, including 5-for-14 on 3-pointers. He also had seven assists, six rebounds and three steals.
Antetokounmpo was stellar in the fourth quarter with 10 points, five rebounds, three assists and one block – a rejection of an alley-oop attempt by Clint Capela. That production from two of the league’s best players makes the Bucks dangerous.
Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams
When points are at a premium, a team needs its best offensive players to come through. Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams did that for the Thunder. Even though Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams were a combined 2-for-13 shooting in the first quarter, they delivered in the second half. Gilgeous-Alexander scored 20 of his game-high 32 points in the second half and Williams scored 12 of his 20 points in the final two quarters.
Gilgeous-Alexander, who was 14-for-15 on free throws and collected eight rebounds, six assists and five steals, and Williams, an All-Star in the making who also added five rebounds and five assists, scored 11 of 13 Thunder points during a stretch in the fourth quarter that pushed Oklahoma City’s lead from 84-79 to 97-82.
NBA Cup losers
Thunder-Rockets offense
In a game featuring the two best defenses – Oklahoma City No. 1, Houston No. 2 – offense was not easy or pretty. There are several ways to break down the atrocious offensive stats. The teams were a combined 6-for-37 on 3-pointers at halftime (Houston led 42-41, marking the lowest-scoring half for the Thunder this season). Oklahoma City’s top two scorers – Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams – were a combined 1-for-10 from the field at one point in the first quarter.
Houston had its problems, too. The Rockets shot 36.5% from the field, 23.9% on 3-pointers and 60% on free throws. The Rockets’ second-leading scorer, Alperen Sengun, had 13 points on 6-for-16 shooting, and their leading scorer, Jalen Green, had just 12 points on 5-for-14 shooting, including 1-for-8 on 3s. Fred VanVleet missed 10 of his 11 3-point attempts. The Rockets were 2-for-15 on 3s in the fourth quarter.
Atlanta Hawks
The Hawks are losers by default – simply because they lost the game. But they played well enough to win. They shot 41.7% on 3-pointers, their bench outscored Milwaukee’s bench 33-26 and Trae Young had 35 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds. Their biggest issue against the Bucks: points in the paint. They tied the Bucks with 42 points in the paint but shot just 42% on those shots compared to 67.7% for Milwaukee.
The Hawks had a strong NBA Cup with group play victories against Boston and Cleveland and a quarterfinals victory against New York. Atlanta jump-started its season after a slow start, and this was evidence it can be a playoff team in the East.
When is the NBA Cup final?
Milwaukee plays Oklahoma City Tuesday (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC).