The Milwaukee Bucks have just won the second-ever NBA Cup (in-season tournament) after defeating the Oklahoma City Thunder 97-81.
Every player on the Bucks will receive $500,000 for winning.
In this final game of the tournament, Giannis had a big game scoring:
26 Points
19 Rebounds
10 Assists
3 Blocks
53% Shooting
Giannis was also named the NBA Cup MVP.
Throughout the tournament, he averaged an impressive:
30.5 Points
10.2 Rebounds
7.7 Assists
2.8 Blocks
67% of shots made
Every player on the Thunder also received $200,000 for reaching the championship game
Every player on the Rockets and Hawks received $100,000 for reaching the semi-finals
Every player on the Knicks, Mavericks, Warriors, and Magic received $50,000 for making the quarter-finals.
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What is the NBA CUP?
The NBA Cup was added last season to help keep players motivated and have games still be competitive and fun to watch early on in the season.
All 30 teams were split into six groups of five teams, and each team plays the other four teams in their group on Tuesdays and Fridays in November.
The teams with the best records in their group (plus a wildcard from each conference) move on to a one-week knockout round in December.
If multiple teams in the same group end with the same record, then the tie-breaker is whichever team won by the most points. Part of what makes this exciting is that now even when teams are winning by a lot near the end of the game, they keep the best players on the court to continue to try to score.
Once the competition is down to eight teams, the championship will be decided with a single-elimination knockout stage bracket.
and as mentioned above the teams also earn a good chunk of money for playing well.
The championship game is the only game of the NBA Cup that does not count towards the team's regular season record, so obviously they should be trying to win every game whether they care about winning the tournament or not.
Very informative post