Bucks vs. Hawks NBA Cup Semifinals: NBA (Cup) Champions?

Milwaukee advances to the NBA Cup Final after downing Atlanta

The Milwaukee Bucks advance to the championship game of the NBA Cup after defeating the Atlanta Hawks, 110-102. Giannis Antetokounmpo was truly spectacular for the Bucks, stuffing the stats sheet to the tune of 32 points, 14 rebounds, nine assists, and four blocks! Damian Lillard added 25 points, seven assists, and six rebounds. For the Hawks, Trae Young was really their only source of offence with 35 points, 10 assists, and seven rebounds. Read our full summary of the game here.

What Did We Learn?

One observation I had watching the game was that the Bucks have built quite a deep nine-man rotation after the return of Khris Middleton. There was a lot of mixing and matching in the final few minutes working out how to keep Trae Young out of the lane. It was AJax for a stretch, then Green (who fouled out again!), and then Trent closed the game. But I thought all three guys did about as good a job as you can do on the star point guard. Although you would almost prefer to mold all three of Jackson, Trent, and Green into one player, watching Doc swap these guys in and out was a fun experience and an interesting chess game. Rivers discussed the difficult task of containing Young after the game, giving a special shoutout to Andre for his effort on him:

“Trae’s tough, man…. our gameplan was to try to make him play one-one-one instead of going downhill. I think Dre deserves a lot of credit because he fought over screens, and it turned into one-on-one. And though Trae can have those games where [that strategy] can hurt you, when he does that he’s not helping anybody else. And so that’s what we were trying to do as much as we could. I thought we did a pretty good job of it.

Three Bucks

Giannis remains the ultimate bail-out plan.

On a night where the Bucks were often unable to run effective offence due to the physical and relentless Hawks defence, Antetokounmpo was able to make timely player after timely play to bail them out. Whether it was an attack to the rim, a lob to the Brook at the rim, or even a fadeaway jumper, he did it all. On the defensive end, Giannis was massive. He obviously had that trademark block on Capela, but he also had some big possessions staying with Young on switches and diving on the floor.

“He makes winning plays, especially late in the game when nobody thinks he can come over and make a block, a steal, whatever it is. Even him diving on the floor to create that turnover and a foul… everybody focuses on his highlight plays, his scoring and whatnot, but the guy makes winning plays every night” – Middleton.

Damian Lillard struggled shooting but helped in other ways.

Lillard hit some crucial buckets down the stretch, but this was not one of his better games, to be sure. Dame ended the night shooting 8/21 and 5/14 on threes. However, he made up for those shooting struggles by setting up his teammates and rebounding the ball, ending up a +5 in 37 minutes of action. Dyson Daniels, a competitor for Defensive Player of the Year, was absolutely hounding Dame all game long. The Bucks’ coaching staff will need to work out how to screen better in order to detach dogged defenders from Lillard to give him some space to operate.

Brook Lopez was back to his best.

Following a few subpar games from Lopez, he was nothing short of amazing. The big fella forced Atlanta’s big men, Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu, into 5/13 shooting. Jalen Johnson also had an off night, going 6/15. Splash Mountain was also important on offence on a night where Khris Middleton really struggled. Lopez went 7/10 from the field and 2/5 from three, adding two blocks and a +21.

Bonus Bucks Bits

• As mentioned above, Khris Middleton had quite a disappointing night. He finished going 2/7 from the field, along with three turnovers and a -5 plus/minus. Khris called his struggles “part of the process” postgame.

“I just have to keep continuing to push myself… I’ve had bad games when I was completely healthy. It’s going to happen. So, tonight… I was bad… but [you] rebound from it, you learn from it… you figure out how to be better.”

• The Bucks struggled to inbound the ball in the closing minute, turning the ball over on a crucial possession. Khris said after the game that he decided to throw the ball to Gary in the deep corner because, if it went awry, at least it likely wasn’t going to be a live-ball turnover. He’s not wrong.
• The Hawks left AJax open for a corner three in the fourth quarter, and he confidently stepped into it with no hesitation and nailed it. We love that!

• Taurean Prince looked a little livelier tonight, as he recovers from sickness.
• The Bucks made valuable ground in the Eastern Conference playoff picture with this win:

Up Next

Milwaukee will now play the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Cup championship game after they won the Western Conference Semifinal over the Houston Rockets. The game will be Tuesday night on ABC at 7:30 PM CST.

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