After the eliminations of the Denver Nuggets and the Boston Celtics, the Milwaukee Bucks have not been surprised. Giannis Antetokounmpo’s team has beaten the New York Knicks (146-122) with authority in the quarterfinal game of the NBA Cup. After their victory, they will face the Indiana Pacers in the East in the semifinals in Las Vegas as a favorite.
With their Antetokounmpo-Lillard duo, the Bucks will seek to inaugurate the record of the new tournament. This Tuesday, playing at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, they gave no options to some feisty Knicks, who held their own until halftime, which was reached with a local advantage of 75-72. The game until then was dominated by attacking play, with great accuracy from the 3-point line for the home team.
In the third quarter, the Bucks maintained the scoring pace, but they gritted their teeth on defense and the Knicks were more flawed. Antetokounmpo’s men escaped. After a 37-24 run, the Milwaukee team entered the final stretch of the game with a lead of 16 points (112-96), insurmountable for the visitors, despite the fact that they started the last quarter with a favorable 7-0 that was only a mirage. Immediately, the locals regained control and extended their lead.
For the Bucks, the top scorers were Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, this year’s new signing who has arrived at the team hungry for titles. For the Knicks, the one who battled tirelessly was Julius Randle, the game’s top scorer.
In the Western Conference, the Los Angeles Lakers host the Phoenix Suns at home also this Tuesday in the remaining game of the quarterfinals. The Lakers had an impeccable group stage and in it they defeated the Suns, who qualified as the best runners-up in the group. However, given the irregularity of the Angelenos at this start of the season, this Tuesday’s game appears very open. The winner will play the surprising semifinalist New Orleans Pelicans.
Cuper emotion
The Milwaukee Bucks of Antetokounmpo and Lillard are favorites for the final phase of the tournament, which will be played in Las Vegas. On Thursday the two semi-finals will be played, one from the East and the other from the West, and on Saturday the grand final will take place. All of these matches will be held in La Esfera, the spectacular new space in the city of casinos, which has opted heavily for sport to revitalize itself.
The NBA has bet heavily on this new competition format, similar to the traditional European cup tournaments of different sports. The regular season is long, 82 games per team, and the idea had spread among fans that connecting to the competition before the Christmas holidays was a bit of a waste of time, because nothing had been decided.
The new tournament, with strong promotion, new designs of the parquet floors of the pavilions and the excitement of the single-match qualifiers, seems to have boosted television audiences in this first part of the season, although the acid test comes with the matches. This week.
In addition to the title, the players on the champion team will receive a prize of $500,000 each. The runners-up will receive $200,000 each, while those from the two losing semifinalist teams will receive $100,000 and the players from those eliminated in the quarterfinals will receive $50,000. With all the trappings of American professional sports, the best player of the tournament and the ideal quintet will also be chosen.
The league continues
With the exception of the final, all matches in the new tournament also count towards the regular phase of the league, which has been progressing and has already covered the first quarter of the regular season. After that first twenty games for each team, the Minnesota Timberwolves (15 wins and 4 losses) and the Oklahoma City Thunder (13-6) lead the Western Conference standings ahead of the current NBA champions, the Denver Nuggets (14-7).
The last are Victor Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs, who have only won 3 of the 19 games played and are close to completing the worst streak of their coach, Gregg Popovich. Wemby has not even had the consolation of being named best rookie of the month in the Western Conference, a position that has been taken from him by Oklahoma’s Chet Holmgrem, with similar statistics on a personal level, but many more team wins.
In the Eastern Conference, despite their elimination game from the NBA Cup, the Boston Celtics still have the best record (15 wins and 5 losses), followed by the Milwaukee Bucks (15-6). The real surprise, however, is the Orlando Magic (14-6), a very young team guided by the energy and talent of Franz Wagner and Paolo Banchero, last season’s best rookie.
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