LAS VEGAS — This could have been a measuring stick recreation for each groups if it had simply been a random Tuesday throughout the common season. Milwaukee is available in having gained 10-of-12, however a lot of that got here towards a delicate schedule; how will the Bucks honest towards one of many NBA’s greatest? For the Thunder, the final time they noticed the Bucks (in March) was a wake-up name.
“We performed them late within the yr final yr on the highway they usually actually took it to us, and it was an important recreation for us,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault mentioned of the night time the place Giannis Antetokounmpo had 30 factors and 19 boards. “As a result of we had been having an important season to that time, and we ran up towards a workforce that was actually able to take it to us, they usually did. Bodily mauled us. Performed with extra edge that night time. It was good — it was like water within the face for us.”
Have the Thunder discovered their lesson from that recreation? Will Shai Gilgeous-Alexander proceed to make his MVP case, this time on a much bigger stage?
Now throw within the motivation of successful the NBA Cup — and the half-million every that goes to gamers on the victorious workforce — and also you get among the finest video games of the common season.
The NBA Cup Championship Sport between the Milwaukee Bucks and Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder takes place in Las Vegas on Tuesday night time (8:30 ET on ABC).
Listed below are three issues to look at for that can resolve the NBA Cup.
Tempo
Whichever workforce controls the tempo, whichever workforce will get to play on its phrases, will win this recreation.
The groups play very completely different defensive types. The Thunder are an aggressive ball-pressure defensive workforce that leads the league in steals, averaging 12.2 per recreation. Additionally they lead the league in deflections (they are often extra aggressive with Isaiah Hartenstein as a backstop to wash issues up within the paint). The technique is easy: Be aggressive, be bodily, power turnovers, after which get out and run.
The Thunder are fourth within the league in share of possessions that begin in transition, the Bucks are twenty fourth.
Milwaukee performs a deep drop protection, with Brook Lopez and Giannis Antetokounmpo defending the rim — and that works.
Milwaukee desires to gradual this recreation down and play it extra within the half-court, though they might be comfortable to get Antetokounmpo out in transition and racing towards the rim a number of occasions.
If this recreation turns into a observe meet, Oklahoma Metropolis will run away with it.
Can Thunder gradual Antetokounmpo?
Oklahoma Metropolis is one of the best protection within the NBA, and they don’t roll out a weak defender of their core rotation. They’ve no person they should cover, when compelled to rotate they’ve been on a string, and with Isaiah Hartenstein as a backstop — and/or Chet Holmgren as soon as he will get wholesome once more — the perimeter gamers will be aggressive going for steals and leaping passing lanes.
Nonetheless, slowing Giannis Antetokounmpo is a completely completely different recreation. He’s huge, he’s bodily, and this season he stopped making an attempt to shoot 3-pointers and is concentrated on getting downhill and into the paint — he has scored 20+ factors with higher than 50% taking pictures for 23 straight video games.
Antetokounmpo is one participant the Thunder battle to match up with — he put up 30 and 19 on them final March (the final time these two groups performed). There isn’t a pure defensive match for Antetokounmpo on the Thunder roster (or perhaps any roster).
“Everytime you’re guarding actually good gamers, it isn’t about only one individual guarding anyone. It is a couple of workforce effort…” the Thunder’s Jalen Williams mentioned. “Clearly, he is a particularly good participant and form of like a one-of-one. So we’ll have a great recreation plan in place, the coaches at all times do a great job of placing us in the suitable place. However it will come right down to how nicely as a workforce will we execute retaining guys like that at bay. “
“The entire workforce goes to attempt to cease the opposite workforce’s greatest participant,” mentioned Lu Dort, who will definitely get a while defending the Greek Freak. “You recognize, Giannis is a much bigger participant, we simply acquired to do it collectively and we’ll be prepared.”
No person is stopping Antetokounmpo, and Milwaukee has seemed much better in current weeks utilizing and enjoying off of the Antetokounmpo/Damian Lillard two-man recreation. Nonetheless, if the Thunder could make Antetokounmpo work for his factors without having to go away different Bucks open — significantly Lillard, who can take over a recreation himself — they’ll win this recreation.
Which half-court offense breaks by
This recreation goes to be a defensive battle: The Thunder have one of the best protection within the NBA, whereas the Bucks have a top-10 protection over their final 15 video games.
Whichever workforce can clear up the puzzle of learn how to rating on the opposite workforce within the half-court may have an enormous benefit on this recreation.
That works for Thunder followers, they only watched their workforce do that to the Rockets within the semifinals, scoring 70 within the second half.
When the Bucks’ offense will get careworn, they’ll fall again on an Antetokounmpo/Lillard pick-and-roll that’s almost unattainable to defend.
That is the place Shai Gilgeous-Alexander earns his cash: his unconventional type will get him into the paint, and whereas the Bucks have Lopez and Antetokounmpo again to guard the rim the five-out system of the Thunder — the place each participant is a risk from 3 — could make Milwaukee pay.
If the Thunder can rating some fast-break factors after which begin to break the Bucks down within the half-court, this recreation is not going to be as shut because the league hopes.
