LAS VEGAS — It took them a second attempt, however the Milwaukee Bucks found out the way to get previous the NBA Cup semifinals.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, the league’s main scorer, completed with 32 factors and the Bucks beat the Atlanta Hawks 110-102 in entrance of 17,113 followers in Saturday’s first Cup semifinal. The Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder and Houston Rockets play the second semifinal recreation at 8:30 p.m. ET.
Antetokounmpo added 14 rebounds, 9 assists and 4 blocks. He scored 10 within the remaining quarter — which started with the Hawks forward by one — and shot 10-of-15 for the sport. Damian Lillard added 25 factors and 7 assists. His runner with 23.2 seconds remaining made it 107-100, and he poked away a move from Trae Younger to Clint Capela with 11.8 seconds left to seal the sport.
DAME FLOATER PUTS THE BUCKS UP 7 🙌
23 seconds to play on TNT 🏆 #EmiratesNBACup Semifinals pic.twitter.com/ahOwxAij6O
— NBA (@NBA) December 15, 2024
“What number of occasions do you see that lob get blocked, and I feel we obtained two of them,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers stated. “We drilled all of it day yesterday (at apply) and we’ve got the succesful gamers who can do it, between Brook (Lopez), Bobby (Portis) and Giannis. These are the kind of guys who can go get that and I believed they did a fantastic job of doing that.”
Younger scored 35 factors with 10 assists and 7 rebounds within the loss. Jalen Johnson contributed 15 factors and 10 boards for the Hawks.
The Bucks (14-11), who began the season simply 2-8, have been within the remaining 4 through the first in-season event final 12 months however fell within the semis to Indiana. The Hawks (14-13) had received seven of their final eight with victories over the NBA’s prime groups, together with two over Cleveland and one other over Boston.
The event champions get $514,971 per participant and the runner-up receives $205,988 per participant. Groups that lose within the semifinals get $102,994 per participant. The NBA Cup championship recreation is the one one that doesn’t depend as a regular-season contest.
“It’s humorous — lots of people say it’s the cash and it’s not. It’s the competitors,” Rivers stated. “Now, the fellows who aren’t enjoying, it’s the cash. I’ve by no means been hugged extra by our rookies in my life. They got here in and so they have been celebrating prefer it was a giant recreation.”
The league sprinkled some Vegas into its recreation manufacturing, putting in a pink carpet for gamers to stroll upon getting into the world with a lighted path, gold wing-like decals on the partitions and the NBA Cup itself on the path to the locker rooms. Cirque du Soleil dancers carried out at halftime.
It sounded just like the Hawks had extra followers than the Bucks (Milwaukee was booed by the gang a number of occasions), maybe as a result of the Atlanta Falcons will go to the Las Vegas Raiders for “Monday Evening Soccer,” which might have given Atlanta followers months to plan to be in Las Vegas this weekend. One of many challenges of the NBA Cup is groups and their fan bases don’t discover out who reaches the ultimate 4 till a number of days earlier than the occasion, making it troublesome to plan journey.
Costs for the Hawks-Bucks began at $29 and $39 for Thunder-Rockets. The common worth of an NBA ticket is $94.
“I kinda figured there’d be a whole lot of Hawks followers with the Falcons enjoying Monday,” Younger stated. “Want we might have received for ‘em.”
The Los Angeles Lakers, who’ve an enormous, nationwide following that extends to Las Vegas, drew 18,000 followers in a single NBA Cup semifinal in opposition to New Orleans. The Bucks and Indiana Pacers drew 16,800 followers. For comparability, the USA-Canada exhibition recreation in July — which was additionally performed in Las Vegas’ T-Cell Area — in preparation for final 12 months’s Olympics drew almost 21,000 followers.
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(Photograph: Kyle Terada / Imagn Pictures)
