Bucks forego champagne showers after winning NBA Cup championship

When the Milwaukee Bucks won the second annual Emirates NBA Cup on Tuesday night, they sent a message to the league: Don’t look past us.

And they doubled down on that warning with a simple act. We decided not to pop bottles of champagne and douse each other with the bubbly stuff to celebrate the season’s tournament title.

After a 97:81 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Las Vegas to culminate the festivities, the setting was perfectly set for a celebration.

Thanks to the exploits of its two stars, Milwaukee was ready for a well-deserved night of debauchery in Sin City. Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was named Cup MVP after a triple-double with 26 points, 19 rebounds and 10 assists, and Damian Lillard, who scored 23 points with five of 10 three-pointers, had every reason to celebrate that they had defeated their doubters Tandems had silenced .

But instead, the Bucks opted for a more reserved approach as they immediately turned their focus forward. Milwaukee left the goggles untouched and the liquor bottles on ice when they decided to abandon the celebrations to avoid hoisting a Larry O’Brien Trophy at the end of the season.

Rivers even interviewed assistant coach Darvin Ham, who led the Los Angeles Lakers when they won the first tournament of the season last year, to see what the experience was like.

It appears Ham, who has gone undefeated in the NBA Cup for two seasons, warned Rivers to be careful if they were too bold to cheer for a trophy that isn’t the ultimate prize.

When Ham and the Lakers won, they took the traditional approach and kept the corks popping and the champagne flying all night long. LeBron James, who knows a thing or two about championship celebrations thanks to his four NBA titles, was one of the most enthusiastic Lakers and was even seen splashing champagne down the backs of members of the media.

And while some observers enjoyed it, others didn’t seem to think it was appropriate for a team of any size, let alone one as prestigious as the Lakers, to celebrate the NBA Cup on such a scale.

One of the loudest voices of critics was Hall of Famer and TNT analyst Charles Barkley. The NBA legend turned TV personality weighed in on the issue Dan Patrick Show last December and didn’t mince his words.

“You don’t drink champagne for the seasonal tournament,” Barkley said. “It’s better that the Lakers don’t hang a season tournament banner…if (the Lakers) hang this season tournament banner, I’ll roast them (expletive) on TV.”

Spoiler alert: The Lakers put up a tournament banner during the season.

Barkley wasn’t the only one who had an opinion about the celebrations, as Udonis Haslem, a longtime NBA veteran and former teammate of James in Miami, shared that opinion.

“I’m all for people getting their money … but we’re not going to pop champagne and put up banners,” Haslem said on his podcast The OGs Show last year.

And it looks like the Bucks took note of the backlash the Lakers received, or at least listened to Ham after his firsthand experience, and opted for the safer, if less Las Vegas-esque, approach of celebrating.

Nevertheless, the Bucks achieved their goal in the City of Lights. Milwaukee avenged last year’s NBA Cup semifinal loss to the Pacers and reminded people that they remain a threat in the Eastern Conference.

Since the start of the season tournament, the Bucks are 12-3 and have a top-10 rating on both ends of the floor. Skeptics ready to close Milwaukee’s championship window after a 2-8 start were completely shut down.

Now that the Bucks have new hardware and no more champagne stains on their jerseys, they’re looking to keep the momentum going through the NBA playoffs. And if they actually win, no one will stand in the way of these celebrations.