The Bucks’ NBA Cup triumph over the Thunder shows it’s never too late to get it right

LAS VEGAS — The joy was undeniable on the faces of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard as the streamers came from the sky at T-Mobile Arena in the wake of the Milwaukee Bucks winning the NBA Cup with a 97-81 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder.

They needed it, not as a dress rehearsal for June, not to complete their resurrection from the NBA’s early slumber — but for each other and this brick-by-brick approach they have to take between now and April.

But as much as the Bucks needed this, the NBA needed it more, and probably in spades.

It feels like a similar refrain was uttered this time last year when the Los Angeles Lakers showed they could concentrate in one-game early-season tryouts better than anyone wanted, but we pretty much already knew that.

Teams seemed to understand the concept of an NBA Cup better this time around, and while Tuesday night’s finals won’t ultimately make a dent in the overall standings, it felt different.

“It was something we wanted to win, and just being in something like that, the second year, I feel like teams cared a little bit more about it,” Lillard said. “I think teams played with a little bit more pride in trying to get to Vegas and have an opportunity to win at the end.”

There was an authenticity in the air, perhaps marked by increased physicality and some harmless technical errors.

It felt… confrontational, but not dangerous.

Or at least it didn’t feel that analytical. It didn’t feel so sterile.

And it’s the biggest win NBA commissioner Adam Silver could have hoped for, regardless of who was center stage in Vegas. Sure, the big American stars would have helped, but they didn’t make it here, and it’s looking increasingly unlikely that the usual suspects will be around when we’re in the thick of the playoffs in a few months.

There was an irony given that earlier in the day, the NBA revealed its latest plans to revamp the All-Star weekend, or Sunday afternoon showcase game, that has become far more of a joke than anyone could wish for.

Silver admitted as much in a small session with reporters an hour before the Cup final.

“I was wrong about last year,” Silver said. “I thought in Indiana, given the fact that it was kind of considered the heartland of basketball and the strong presence of some legends there, that the guys would turn back the clock a little bit and play a traditional game, and it wasn’t meant to be. “

What followed was the most embarrassing mid-season showcase, where calling it “mid” would have been an extreme compliment. Whispers in the aftermath centered on perhaps adding more of a financial incentive — again, the premise that the league should be asking players to play as opposed to someone stepping in among the 24 stars to say “we’ve got to do better.” .

Better was on display on Tuesday, and while it is unfair to compare one type of display to another, the point remains. The competition here was clean. Although Oklahoma City’s woes lay largely at the feet of wayward shooting (five of 32 from 3-point range), that team of long, long contenders went after it and challenged the more experienced, more determined Bucks.

The final spread was not an expression of effort, but of execution. And again, these results are easier to swallow when the game feels driven more by emotion than a mathematical equation.

Milwaukee clearly won the 3-point game, outscoring the Thunder by 35 points, but the tone was aggressive. Fans can connect to aggression, and the league can package it and sell it — they’d probably love to bottle the magic potion and spread it around, if only to change the narrative that players are indifferent and frivolous until Christmas Day at the earliest.

“I’ve even heard from some players and you can see this, it’s not unique to the NBA where analytics start to be too controlling,” Silver said. “And creating situations where players do seemingly unnatural things because they’re being instructed to do something that’s a more effective shot.

“And part of what we’re also focusing on is that what makes these players so incredible is the joy they bring to playing the game and also the freestyle notion of the game.”

Silver again admitted a fault in the league in leaning too much into offense in terms of the rules and trying to walk a delicate balance between gradually balancing the weight – fans want to know what they’re seeing is something really remarkable and difficult, while is also amazed by the creativity of the players and the investment in a team that comes together for a common goal.

The latter is what Oklahoma City has begun to master as they sit atop the West standings for the second year in a row and stand to become more recognizable over the next few seasons, a franchise built to last.

The latter is what Milwaukee has been able to pull off over the past few weeks after a rough start, and with their main duo finding chemistry through repetition, we could see a showdown against the Boston Celtics in a high-stakes playoff series – one that hopefully doesn’t revolve entirely around math.

“An advantage we had and again we came in here and we heard about the old team and all the young guys (Oklahoma City),” Doc Rivers said. “And we just kept talking about our size and the slower the game gets, the bigger we get.”

That’s the benefit of having a supernova like Antetokounmpo and another giant in veteran Brook Lopez. Presumably they can play different styles, especially when Khris Middleton (out with illness) is back to reasonable strength.

But their great strength is the man who elbows his way to the front of the MVP race by the elbows, the player barely above saying how much he wanted this seemingly meaningless accolade just because it was a contest he wanted to win.

“It’s the best feeling ever. Just winning. Winning feels good,” Antetokounmpo said. “Making big plays feels good when you’re able to come to the game and execute your game plan and then the result is accurate, whatever you want it to be.”

Make no mistake, no championship was won, and if either team underwhelms when the going gets tough, a night in Las Vegas in December will feel not like a memory but a mirage.

For one night, though, Silver was reminded, and so were the rest of us, that beauty doesn’t look and feel so homogeneous, and it’s never too late to start getting it right.