LAS VEGAS – Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo stood side-by-side during the postgame celebration after the NBA Cup final. Antetokounmpo was holding the MVP trophy. Lillard was holding the bigger trophy.
And it was a moment that Lillard had waited a long time to savor.
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He's been a rookie of the year, a 3-point contest champion, an All-Star MVP, even a member of the league's 75th anniversary team. And while his biggest goal is still winning an NBA championship, the significance of winning the NBA Cup was not lost on the 13-year veteran.
“I’ve had a lot of experience individually where I’ve had accomplishments and stuff,” Lillard said after the Bucks beat the Oklahoma City Thunder 97-81 on Tuesday night in the Cup final. “But to have some team success and win something and be the last team standing in this tournament, it feels great.”
The Bucks have a championship coach in Doc Rivers, the core of a team that won a title in 2021 — Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, Brook Lopez, Bobby Portis and Pat Connaughton among them — and one of the game's elite guards in Lillard. Starting 1-6 and 2-8 this year might have raised some eyebrows, but the Bucks insisted that they never doubted themselves.
They've been one of the league's hottest teams since that awful start and rolled through the in-season tournament with a 7-0 record. Winning the NBA Cup might be a reminder — perhaps an unnecessary one — of the Bucks' potential.
“I think it reminds us that we can beat anybody,” Rivers said. “And we don’t care if it tells everybody else that. We only care about us. It’s what I said on the first day of camp. I also said we can lose to anybody 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 perennial All-Star level. They're the highest-scoring duo in the league, combining to average more than 58 points per game. They were the best two players on the floor in the NBA Cup final, Antetokounmpo getting a triple-double — 26 points, 19 rebounds and 10 assists — on his way to MVP honors, and Lillard scoring 23.
Year 1 of their pairing after Lillard wound up 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 might be for the Bucks going forward.
“People wanted to put me with Giannis and think it was just going to be perfect right away because we’ve both been high-level players,” Lillard said. "But I come from a situation where I’ve always had the ball, and he’s had a decade of him having the ball and playing a certain way.
“I think time is the No. 1 thing,” he added. “It just took time for us to get to know each other better as people. You can’t just trust somebody that you’re paired with when you don’t really know who they are, how they think and how they operate. So, I think time has helped us.”
Time has helped Lillard as well.
He averaged 24.3 points and 7 assists per game last year. Those are all-world numbers for just about anyone. He didn't think much of how he played, though, and he never got to the point of feeling totally comfortable in a new role, a new place, with a new team.
He does now.
“Getting healthy, getting my training in and having my mind right coming back into the season was all it really was for me,” Lillard said. “When we lost in the playoffs last year, I said it right after the game. ‘People will see.’”
Seeing is believing.
There's still more than two-thirds of the regular season left. Cleveland — Milwaukee's first opponent when the Bucks return to regular-season play on Friday — and defending NBA champion Boston have clearly been the best two teams in the Eastern Conference to this point. There are tons of challenges ahead and there surely will be plenty of ebbs and flows.
“I’m so happy for Dame that we got our first trophy together,” Antetokounmpo said. “This is just the beginning. We have to keep on improving and getting better, and we will be better.”
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