Milwaukee Bucks’ Performance in NBA Cup Final Could Determine How Rest of Season Pans Out

Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo felt like Milwaukee was snubbed when he saw that the league had left it off the Christmas Day slate.

Antetokounmpo still found a way to get on national television around the holidays, though, as the Bucks are set to face the Oklahoma City Thunder in Las Vegas on Tuesday night in the championship game of the NBA Cup.

Milwaukee went a perfect 4-0 in East Group B play to punch its ticket to the quarterfinals, where it edged the Orlando Magic 114-109. The Bucks then topped the Atlanta Hawks 110-102 on Saturday, getting 32 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists from Antetokounmpo to set up the date with Oklahoma City.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on the in-season tournament. Some hate it, some love it, and others just straight up couldn’t care less about it. 

But Milwaukee needs to be treating its upcoming meeting with the Thunder like Game 7 of the Finals—you know, the ones in June.

When the Bucks traded for Damian Lillard just before the 2023-24 campaign, it felt like Milwaukee had virtually locked up a spot in the Eastern Conference finals, where it would likely collide with the Boston Celtics.

However, the Bucks never really found a groove, with a mid-season coaching change adding to the disarray in Milwaukee. Once the playoffs rolled around, 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 any better when Milwaukee dropped eight of its first 10 games this season, but the Bucks are 12-3 since and sit at sixth in the East. 

Still, the Antetokounmpo-Lillard era has yet to give Milwaukee fans anything to truly cheer about. The duo hasn’t really proved it can actually hang with the best of the best, either.

We won’t find out if Antetokounmpo, Lillard and the rest of the Bucks are cut out for the actual postseason until the spring, but Tuesday will at least give us some idea of how this team looks when the stakes are raised.

An in-season tournament title doesn’t mean this team is bound for a championship this season, and it honestly probably doesn’t even warrant a banner—at least not one the size of the two currently hanging in the rafters of Fiserv Forum for Milwaukee’s titles in 1971 and 2021.

What it does show is that the Bucks truly are contenders, and don’t be surprised if they use it as a foundation for the rest of the regular season.

Oklahoma City is in the same boat, just to a lesser extent. Few tabbed the Thunder as the best team in the West a season ago, but they were, shattering expectations by going 57-25 before coming two wins shy of a trip to the conference finals.

Thanks to 20 wins in its first 25 games, Oklahoma City is still in the spotlight, but it isn’t nearly as pressed for time as the Bucks are when it comes to winning an NBA championship. The hope for the Thunder is that they will be ready to go all the way in two to three years, while the time to win for Milwaukee is now.

Whatever happens on Tuesday, let’s not overreact, but this game really does mean something. So don’t go and just shrug off the in-season tournament.