Bucks quiet early season concerns, storm into NBA Cup knockout round with dominant win over Pistons

DETROIT — The principal figures of the Milwaukee Bucks insist there was no panic, no rush to call the fire department following a ghastly, alarm-worthy 2-8 start.

Well, at least two of them say so.

“Like, nope. Zero,” Bucks head coach Doc Rivers told Yahoo Sports on Tuesday night. “Our panic meter and everyone around here said zero and that’s where it’s always been.”

“Frustration, but not panic,” Bucks guard Damian Lillard said. “We had a good camp. Everybody came in, in shape. We was ready, and it just didn’t click right away. There was frustration but there wasn’t concern.”

The most important man in the Bucks organization, the reason why the two decorated men reside in Wisconsin and not elsewhere, has a unique take on it.

“People panicked. I know they did,” Giannis Antetokounmpo told Yahoo Sports with a big smile that somewhat belies the seriousness of where the Bucks were a few weeks ago. “That’s what I’m saying, people panicked. Me? Get your backs ready, lift a little bit more weight, lat pull down, get your lats going. Tie your shoes up and let's go. We here now.”

“Here” is advancing to the knockout round of the NBA Cup with a convincing 128-107 win over the previously Cup-unbeaten Detroit Pistons. Here is two games above .500 for the first time this season.

Here is stable ground, quieting the noise, finding reliability among some role players and launching 3-pointers at the most accurate rate in the past three weeks. The Bucks aren’t at a Celtics-like volume, but they’re closer than one would expect. (The Celtics have made three more per game than the Bucks during this 9-1 Bucks stretch.)

They’ve stormed into this spot, one game away from getting to Las Vegas for the second straight year by leaning into what makes sense, led by the maturity of their leaders. Tuesday night, they walked into Detroit knowing it was probably the biggest game this franchise has played in the past five years.

For the Pistons, it was a chance at relevancy after years of shameless losing and misdirection. For the Bucks, the goal is still June but it’s a chance to reintroduce themselves — not just as a former champion worthy of respect, but as a reimagined team ready to make the long, steady climb.

“They put a tournament in front of us, and we want to win it, and we said that early on,” Rivers said.

Unsurprising to anyone with a sense of realism, the Bucks pounced early and didn’t give the Pistons any life. At one point, the Bucks had shooting splits of 71-69-74 in the third quarter while leading by 26 points — with Taurean Prince, Bobby Portis, Gary Trent Jr. and AJ Green launching at will (14 combined 3-pointers).

It was Lillard who was the vocal leader, and Antetokounmpo asserting himself with an efficient, impactful but not forceful performance.

“Dame, Dame, Dame, again. Dame, again,” Antetokounmpo said in the media scrum after the game. “I heard him multiple times in the third quarter, ‘This is where we assert ourselves. This is where we put teams away. Stay locked in.’ When your leader and the guy that has the ball the majority of the time and keeps setting the tone and keep on telling us to play the right way, you got to follow his lead.”

Lillard scored 12 of his 27 points in the first quarter, hitting five triples — which totals 18 in his past three games. That makes it easy to follow.

“We fought to find the answers, like, ‘What do we need to do?’ We needed to compete harder collectively, we needed to be more on a string defensively and trust what we were doing,” Lillard said. “Play together more, give ourselves up in certain moments so that our offense would have more quality possessions. And now we’re seeing success from it.”

It’s happened because Rivers has deployed Green and Andre Jackson Jr. while waiting on the season debut of Khris Middleton, who had double-ankle surgery this offseason. Green is a deadeye shooter (48 percent from 3 on 92 attempts) while Jackson is more defensive-minded, although Rivers wants him to utilize his springy athleticism on the offensive end more.

But their short- and long-term success relies upon the chemistry — and health, more importantly — of the two cornerstones, Antetokounmpo and Lillard. Middleton will certainly be helpful, but one expects the Bucks to be deliberate in ensuring he’s ready for the long haul.

“It takes time,” Lillard told Yahoo Sports. “And we had a lot of [regular-season] success last year. You know, people don't want to talk about that. We were two seed the whole year, injuries. We had injuries. We had a lot going on, and we still managed to have a really good season."

Antetokounmpo’s aforementioned comments suggest he’s following Lillard. The fantasy of the two involved in the same action has finally come to fruition, with Antetokounmpo as the handler and Lillard inverting the pick-and-roll, popping out as a shooter.

“But I think as far as me and him, you know, just took time,” Lillard said. “Now, our communication is different. Our understanding of each other is different, you know, working in a partnership and situations is different, and that's normal, you know, it takes time.”

Antetokounmpo had one rim-ratting dunk in his 10 field goals, where he made his first nine. But so many of them came from the midrange. Comfortable jump shots that saved his worn body from wear-and-tear that has prevented him from being at full strength in the playoffs — he missed the entire first-round series against Indiana, and played in just three of the Bucks’ five games in their shocking first-round loss to Miami in 2023.

He stated he made 39 midrange jumpers last season in 73 games while surpassing that amount already, hitting 40 in 16 games.

“I’m changing my game,” Antetokounmpo told reporters. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. You take a lot of beating, and now, like my body today, I feel great today. I feel like I haven’t been touched.”