Lillard and Antetokounmpo won an NBA Cup together. Now the next challenge: chasing the big prize | Milwaukee Bucks News

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo stood side by side at the postgame celebration after the NBA Cup Final. Antetokounmpo held the MVP trophy. Lillard held the larger trophy.

And it was a moment Lillard had been waiting a long time to enjoy.

He was a rookie of the year, a 3-point contest champion, an All-Star MVP and even a member of the league’s 75th anniversary team. And while his ultimate goal is still winning an NBA championship, the importance of winning the NBA Cup was not lost on the 13-year veteran.

“I’ve gained a lot of experience individually, achieved success and things like that,” Lillard said after the Bucks beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 97-81 in the Cup final on Tuesday night. “But having success with the team, winning something and being the last team standing in this tournament is a great feeling.”

The Bucks have a championship coach in Doc Rivers, the core of a team that won a title in 2021 — including Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, Bobby Portis and Pat Connaughton — and one of the game’s elite guards in Lillard. Starting 1-6 and 2-8 that year might have raised some eyebrows, but the Bucks insisted they never doubted themselves.

They’ve been one of the hottest teams in the league since that terrible start, making it through the regular season tournament with a 7-0 record. Winning the NBA Cup could be a reminder, perhaps unnecessary, of the Bucks’ potential.

“I think it reminds us that we can beat anyone,” Rivers said. “And we don’t care if it tells everyone else. We only care about ourselves. That’s what I said on the first day of camp. I also said that we can lose to anyone if we don’t play right.”

Antetokounmpo and Lillard are leading the way, and that can’t be a surprise.

Both are playing at their all-time All-Star level. They are the highest-scoring duo in the league, averaging more than 58 points per game together. They were the two best players on the floor in the NBA Cup Finals. Antetokounmpo posted a triple-double — 26 points, 19 rebounds and 10 assists — and Lillard scored 23 on his way to MVP honors.

The first year of their pairing, after Lillard landed in Milwaukee after 11 years in Portland, wasn’t perfect. It was good, not great. Year 2 is clearly better. It’s another sign of what could be for the Bucks’ future.

“People wanted to put me with Giannis and thought it would be perfect right away because we were both high-level players,” Lillard said. “But I come from a situation where I always had the ball, and he had the ball for a decade and played a certain way.”

“I think time is the most important thing,” he added. “It just took time for us to get to know each other better as people. You can’t simply trust someone you work with if you don’t really know who they are, how they think, and how they operate. So I think time has helped us.”

Time has also helped Lillard.

Last year he averaged 24.3 points and 7 assists per game. These are global numbers for almost everyone. However, he didn’t think much about how he played and he never managed to feel completely comfortable in a new role, in a new place, in a new team.

That’s what he’s doing now.

“Getting healthy, getting my workouts done and coming back into the season with a good head is all it really meant to me,” Lillard said. “When we lost in the playoffs last year, I said it right after the game. ‘People will see it.'”

Seeing is believing.

There are still more than two-thirds of the regular season left. Cleveland – Milwaukee’s first opponent when the Bucks return to the regular season on Friday – and reigning NBA champion Boston have clearly been the two best teams in the Eastern Conference so far. There are a lot of challenges ahead and there will definitely be a lot of ups and downs.

“I’m so happy for Dame that we won our first trophy together,” Antetokounmpo said. “This is just the beginning. We have to continue to improve and get better, and we will get better.”

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