Buckeyes star Giannis Antetokounmpo felt like Milwaukee was let down when he realized the league had left the Christmas Day slide.
Antetokounmpo still finds his way onto national television during the holiday season, however, as the Bucks face the Oklahoma City Thunder in Las Vegas on Tuesday night in the NBA Cup championship game.
Milwaukee went 4-0 in the East Group B game to advance to the quarterfinals, where they defeated the Orlando Magic 114-109. The Buckeyes topped the Atlanta Hawks 110-102 on Saturday, receiving 32 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists from Antetokounmpo to set up a date with Oklahoma City.
Everyone seems to have an opinion about the mid-season tournament. Some hate it, some love it, and some just straight up don’t care.
But Milwaukee needs to treat its upcoming meeting with the Thunder like Game 7 of the Finals—you know, the one in June.
When the Bucks traded for Damian Lillard just before the 2023-24 campaign, it looked like Milwaukee had sealed a spot in the Eastern Conference Finals, where they would face the Boston Celtics.
However, the Bucks never found their footing, and a midseason coaching change added to the chaos in Milwaukee. Once the game started, injuries to both Antetokounmpo and Lillard severely hampered the Bucks, preventing them from getting out of the first round for the second straight season.
It didn’t look like things were going to get better when Milwaukee dropped eight of the first ten games this season, but the Bucks went 12-3 and are sitting in sixth place in the Eastern Conference.
Still, the Antetokounmpo-Lillard era hasn’t given Milwaukee fans anything to really enjoy. The duo hasn’t really proven they can hang with the best, either.
We won’t find out if Antetokounmpo, Lillard and the rest of the Bucks are ruled out for the actual season until the spring, but Tuesday will at least give us an idea of ​​what this team looks like when the numbers are up.
A midseason championship title doesn’t mean this team will win this season, and frankly it probably doesn’t even need a banner—at least one the size of the two hanging from the Fiserv Forum’s Milwaukee titles in 1971 and 2021.
It shows that the Buckeyes are a real contender, and don’t be surprised if they use them as a base for the rest of the regular season.
Oklahoma City is in the same boat, just to a lesser extent. Few considered the Thunder to be the best team in the West last season, but they defied expectations by going 57-25 before winning twice before a trip to the conference finals.
Thanks to 20 wins in their first 25 games, Oklahoma City is still in the spotlight, but not as pressed for time as the Bucks are when it comes to winning NBA championships. The hope for the Thunder is that they will be ready to go all these years in two to three years, and the time to win for Milwaukee is now.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, let’s not take it too seriously, but this game means something. So don’t go and just postpone the mid-season tournament.
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