LAS VEGAS — The joy was unmistakable on the faces of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard as the streamers descended from T-Mobile Arena heaven in the wake of the Milwaukee Bucks clinching the NBA Cup with a 97-81 win over Oklahoma City Thunder.
They needed it, not as a dress rehearsal for June, not to complete their resurrection from the NBA’s early doldrums — but for each other and this brick-by-brick approach they must take between now and April.
But as much as the Bucks needed this, the NBA needed it even 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 better in a one-game sample early in the season than anyone would like, but for the most part we already knew that.
Teams seemed to understand the concept of an NBA Cup better this time around, and even if Tuesday night’s final won’t ultimately make a dent in the overall standings, it felt different.
“It was something we wanted to win and now that I’m in something like this, the second year, I feel like the teams cared a little bit more,” Lillard said. “I think teams played with a little more pride because they were trying to get to Vegas and have a chance to win at the end.”
There was an authenticity in the air, perhaps punctuated by greater physicality and some harmless technical errors.
It felt… confrontational, but not dangerous.
Or at least it didn’t feel as analytical. It didn’t feel so sterile.
And that’s the biggest win NBA commissioner Adam Silver could have hoped for, regardless of who was at center stage in Vegas. Sure, the big American stars would have helped, but they didn’t cut it here and it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that the usual suspects will still be around when we’re in the full bloom of the play-offs in a few months’ time.
It was ironic that earlier today the NBA unveiled its latest plans to revamp All-Star weekend, or the Sunday afternoon showcase game, which has become much more of a joke than anyone would like.
Silver admitted this in a small session with reporters an hour before the cup final.
“I was wrong last year,” Silver said. “I thought in Indiana, given that it was kind of seen as the heart of basketball and the strong presence of some legends there, the guys would turn back the clock a little bit and play a traditional game. And that was not the intention.”
What followed was the most embarrassing midseason showcase, where calling it “mid” would have been an extreme compliment. The whispers in the aftermath centered around perhaps adding more financial incentives – again, the premise that the league had to beg the players to play, as opposed to someone stepping in among the 24 stars to say “we have to do better ”.
Better was on display Tuesday, and while it’s unfair to compare one type of exhibition to another, the point still stands. The competition here was pure. Although Oklahoma City’s misfortunes lay largely at the feet of its wayward shooting (five of 32 from three-point range), that team of tall, lean competitors got after it and challenged the more experienced, more determined Bucks.
The final spread was not an indication of effort, but of execution. And again, these results are easier to swallow when the game is guided more by emotion than by a mathematical equation.
Milwaukee clearly won the three-point game, beating the Thunder by 35 points, but the tone was aggressive. Fans can connect with aggression, and the league can package and sell that. They would probably like to bottle that magic potion and distribute it, if only to change the narrative that players are indifferent and unserious until Christmas. Day at the earliest.
“I’ve even heard from some players, and you see this: It’s not unique to the NBA, where analytics is starting to become too controlling,” Silver said. “And create situations in which players do seemingly unnatural things because they are instructed to do something that is more efficient.
“And part of what we also focus on is that what makes these players so incredible is the joy they bring to playing the game and also the freestyle concept of the game.”
Silver once again admitted that the league had made a mistake by leaning too much into the attack through the rules and trying to walk a delicate balance by gradually rebalancing the balance. Fans want to know that what they are seeing is something remarkable and difficult, while also being amazed by the creativity of players and the investment of a team coming together for a common goal.
The latter is what is starting to take hold of Oklahoma City as they top the West standings for the second year in a row and will become more recognizable in the coming seasons, a franchise built to last.
The latter is what Milwaukee has managed to pull off in recent weeks after a rocky start, and with their headlining duo finding chemistry through repetition, we could see a showdown against the Boston Celtics in a high-stakes playoff series – one that hopefully turns it’s not all about math.
“One advantage we had, and again, we came in here and heard about the old team and all the young guys (Oklahoma City),” Doc Rivers said. “And we kept talking about our size, and the slower the game gets, the bigger we get.”
That’s the advantage of having a supernova like Antetokounmpo, and another giant like veteran Brook Lopez. Presumably they can play different styles, especially then Khris Middleton (dropped out due to illness) will be back to reasonable strength.
But their great strength is the man who elbows his way to the front of the MVP race, the player who isn’t ashamed to say how much he wanted this seemingly meaningless award just because it was a game he wanted win.
“It’s the best feeling ever. Just win. Winning feels good,” Antetokounmpo said. “Playing big games feels good when you can come to the game and execute your game plan, and then the outcome is exactly what you want.”
Make no mistake, no championship has been won, and if either team doesn’t have their way when the going gets really tight, a Las Vegas night in December won’t be a memory, it’ll be a mirage.
But for one night, Silver was reminded, and the rest of us too, that beauty doesn’t look and feel so homogeneous, and that it’s never too late to get it right.
