LAS VEGAS — It took them a second try, but the Milwaukee Bucks figured out how to get past the NBA Cup semifinals.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, the league’s leading scorer, finished with 32 points and the Bucks beat the Atlanta Hawks 110-102 in front of 17,113 fans in Saturday’s first Cup semifinal. The Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets play the second semifinal game at 8:30 p.m. ET.
Antetokounmpo added 14 rebounds, nine assists and four blocks. He scored 10 in the final quarter — which began with the Hawks ahead by one — and shot 10-of-15 for the game. Damian Lillard added 25 points and seven assists. His runner with 23.2 seconds remaining made it 107-100, and he poked away a pass from Trae Young to Clint Capela with 11.8 seconds left to seal the game.
DAME FLOATER PUTS THE BUCKS UP 7 🙌
23 seconds to play on TNT 🏆 #EmiratesNBACup Semifinals pic.twitter.com/ahOwxAij6O
— NBA (@NBA) December 15, 2024
Young scored 35 points with 10 assists and seven rebounds in the loss. Jalen Johnson contributed 15 points and 10 boards for the Hawks.
The Bucks (14-11), who started the season just 2-8, were in the final four during the first in-season tournament last year but fell in the semis to Indiana. The Hawks (14-13) had won seven of their last eight with victories over the NBA’s top teams, including two over Cleveland and another over Boston.
The tournament champions get $514,971 per player and the runner-up receives $205,988 per player. Teams that lose in the semifinals get $102,994 per player. The NBA Cup championship game is the only one that does not count as a regular-season contest.
The league sprinkled some Vegas into its game production, installing a red carpet for players to walk upon entering the arena with a lighted path, gold wing-like decals on the walls and the NBA Cup itself on the route to the locker rooms. Cirque du Soleil dancers performed at halftime.
It sounded like the Hawks had more fans than the Bucks (Milwaukee was booed by the crowd several times), perhaps because the Atlanta Falcons will visit the Las Vegas Raiders for “Monday Night Football,” which would have given Atlanta fans months to plan to be in Las Vegas this weekend. One of the challenges of the NBA Cup is teams and their fan bases don’t find out who reaches the final four until a few days before the event, making it difficult to plan travel.
Prices for the Hawks-Bucks started at $29 and $39 for Thunder-Rockets. The average price of an NBA ticket is $94.
The Los Angeles Lakers, who have a massive, national following that extends to Las Vegas, drew 18,000 fans in one NBA Cup semifinal against New Orleans. The Bucks and Indiana Pacers drew 16,800 fans. For comparison, the USA-Canada exhibition game in July — which was also played in Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena — in preparation for last year’s Olympics drew nearly 21,000 fans.
This story will be updated.
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(Photo: Kyle Terada / Imagn Images)
