The Milwaukee Bucks and the Oklahoma City Thunder qualified for the NBA Cup final, beating Geneva’s Clint Capela’s Hawks and the Houston Rockets respectively on Saturday in Las Vegas.
The Bucks won 110-102, while the Thunder dominated the Rockets 111-96. The two teams will meet in the final on Tuesday in the city of the game, where the last four of this competition created last year is being contested.
For the Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 32 points, grabbed 14 rebounds, offered 9 assists and made no less than 4 blocks, including a decisive one on Clint Capela at the end of the match.
“We turned our season around, but we have to continue, because our job is not finished,” reacted Antetokounmpo, whose team had won only two of its first ten matches this season before moving up to sixth place (14 wins, 11 losses).
With 57 matches remaining in the season, “we must continue to play together and we hope we can continue to improve,” added the Greek, MVP (best player) in 2019 and 2020.
The Hawks fought well, like Trae Young on fire (35 pts, 10 assists, 7 rebounds), and only really collapsed at the very end of the match against the Bucks’ offense.
Clint Capela was lined up in the starting five by his coach. The Genevan had to be satisfied with a harvest of six points and eight rebounds.
All NBA Cup matches also count for the regular season, except the final. Each player on the champion team will receive a reward of 514,971 dollars (approximately 490,226 euros).
