BUCKS 97, THUNDER 81
Milwaukee Bucks are the 2024 Emirates NBA Cup Champions, upsetting the odds to beat Oklahoma City Thunder in a tight, feisty game.
Betting Results:
Head to Head: Bucks, odds 2.85
Line: Bucks (+5.5), odds 1.85
Total Points: Under (215.5), odds 1.878
Pre-game Prediction:
Bucks, 44.1%
Thunder, 55.9%
LAS VEGAS (AP / MARK ANDERSON) — Tuesday night's championship between Milwaukee and Oklahoma City didn't quite have the intensity of a playoff game, but the high energy that has typified the second version of the NBA Cup was ratcheted up.
With a trophy — and a significant amount of money on the line — it was clear this was no normal mid-December game.
Even for one that doesn't count in the standings.
“It's closer to elevated regular season than the playoffs, in my opinion,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said after his team's 97-81 loss to the Bucks . “Time of year has to do with that. The nature of a series versus a one-and-done situation has to do with that. Playing elevated opponents with some elevated stakes, elevated distractions, is a good experience in December for our team.”
Four technical fouls were called by early in the third quarter, though none after that as the Bucks began to assert themselves and take the mystery out of the game.
The tensions most notably began late in the first half when the Thunder's Isaiah Hartenstein and the Bucks' Andre Jackson Jr. got into a minor scuffle, each drawing a technical. Hartenstein took exception to Jackson hitting teammate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander below the waistline while he was in a shooting motion.
Hartenstein walked toward Jackson and pointed his right index finger at his face and Jackson slapped it away. Others then intervened to prevent the situation from escalating.
“If it would've happened to any other teammate, I would've done the same thing,” Hartenstein said. “The refs don't call it, I have to take it into my own hands. Maybe the refs didn't see it, but I saw it.”
But the most signficant moment occurred early in the third quarter when Oklahoma City's Lu Dort and Daigneault were hit with technical fouls after a scrum for a loose ball. Milwaukee's Damian Lillard made both free throws and then a 30-foot 3-pointer for five points in four seconds of game time for a 64-53 lead.
The Thunder didn't really challenge after that.
“I made my point (to the officials),” Daigneault said. “I'm not going to get too far into it. I like those guys. They did a good job. They didn't lose it for us.”
The Bucks did plenty on their own to win, and Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers said his team brought its own edge to the game, particularly on the defensive side.
OKC was held to its lowest point total of the season, and it wasn't close. The Thunder's previous low was in a 99-83 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Nov. 15. They entered this game averaging 115.6 points.
“One of the guys said yesterday all they heard was the defense of the other team,” Rivers said. “That's all they heard for two days, and I think that bothered guys. They were very intent on trying to hold them to a low number.”
This is the second year the Cup has been played, and the inaugural edition that was then called the NBA In-Season Tournament was more of a feeling-out process for many clubs because of the newness of the event.
The second go-around brought a more intense dynamic that showed up not only in the final but also throughout group play and the knockout stage.
“I feel that teams cared about it a little bit more,” Lillard said. “I think teams played with a little bit more pride about trying to reach Vegas and having an opportunity to win at the end.”
The NBA Cup finalists had different styles in how they play. And how they spend.
LAS VEGAS (AP / TIM REYNOLDS) - Tuesday night's title game in Las Vegas between Milwaukee and Oklahoma City pitted a team in the Bucks that's over the NBA's second apron — a threshold that, once exceeded, limits ways that teams can trade for or sign players — and a team in the Thunder below the first apron.
In NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's eyes, that might be fitting.
“I think it's great for the new (collective bargaining agreement),” Silver said Tuesday in a meeting with reporters before the NBA Cup title game , which Milwaukee won 97-81. “At the same time, there is a correlation between success on the floor and spending — and that’s the reason behind the second apron. We're not trying to make any secret out of it.”
The aprons are certainly going to limit how some teams make trades in the coming months. Earlier this season, when Minnesota and New York were trying to finalize the trade that sent Karl-Anthony Towns to the Knicks, Timberwolves basketball operations president Tim Connelly said the new CBA rules were complex to navigate.
“The new rules … some of the consequences are unintended, quite frankly,” Connelly said this fall. “I don’t know if anyone intended to make it this challenging to make moves, to make trades when you’re above certain aprons.”
Silver reiterated that the league knew what some of the new challenges would be.
“I understand the frustration of some of the general managers because particularly if you go over the apron, we’ve cut down on your flexibility,” Silver said Tuesday. “But that was the very intent of the second apron and with the goal being to have a better distribution of star talent around the league. And I think we’ve been successful in doing that.”
It's the league's stance that big-market and big-spending teams can win, and smaller-market and lesser-spending teams can do the same. Milwaukee is one of four teams currently over the second apron, along with Boston, Phoenix and Minnesota.
“There's many different ways to win,” Silver said.
Cup final future
The NBA Cup is coming back next season. The question is if the NBA Cup is coming back to Las Vegas.
The NBA's new broadcast agreements begin next season, and one of the league's new partners — Amazon — will be covering the knockout round of the tournament. But there's been no decision on where the 2025 title game will be played.
“There has been some interest expressed by teams in playing in the home markets,” Silver said. “It’s complicated enough scheduling a neutral site. I’m not against playing in our markets.
He said the question to figure out is how it would work a scheduling standpoint. There's a flip side of the coin, that being the league has liked how the first two years of the event have been received in Las Vegas.
“You start to build in tradition, you have a lot of fans who can circle these dates on their calendar and plan to come to Las Vegas, plan a holiday around it,” Silver said. "I think the teams are on both sides. I think they like the idea of winning that opportunity to play at home. But then you’ve got to move tickets very short term. We have some experience doing that in the playoffs, but this is a little bit different.”
But if Bucks coach Doc Rivers gets a vote, it'd stay in Vegas.
“Right here. Right here,” Rivers said after his team won the title Tuesday night. “Listen, I was proven wrong in a very good way. I was worried that if a (Los Angeles) team wasn't in the Cup we couldn't get enough people in the crowd. And the people from Las Vegas showed up. It was packed today and that's huge — not only for Vegas, but for the league.”
