On Saturday, the Milwaukee Bucks punched their ticket to the championship game of the NBA In-Season tournament with a thrilling victory over the Atlanta Hawks in Las Vegas. Giannis Antetokounmpo was dominant on both sides of the ball in this one, making one of the plays of this early NBA season with a block on a Clint Capela alley-oop attempt late in the fourth quarter.

The Bucks have been rolling as of late, currently sitting in fourth place in the Eastern Conference despite having stumbled out of the gates with a brutal start to the year.

Recently, head coach Doc Rivers got one hundred percent candid on why no one within the Bucks' organization ever let go of the rope.

“Around here, no one was even f—ing phased. We all believe this is going to work for us,” said Rivers, per Jamal Collier of ESPN.

Rivers also got brutally honest on what wasn't working for the Bucks early on in the campaign.

“We weren't picking up what we worked on,” Rivers said. “We did make some big changes with our bigs being in the paint, more guards having to guard the perimeter, and we didn't do it very well and so that hurt us. That put a lot of stress on our offense, and our offense hadn't caught up.”

The Bucks have since been playing arguably the best basketball of the Giannis Antetokounmpo-Damian Lillard partnership, and have taken advantage of some lackluster play from other Eastern Conference foes to vault up the standings.

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Can the Bucks win the NBA Cup?

Milwaukee Bucks head coach Doc Rivers looks on during the second half against the Atlanta Hawks in a semifinal of the 2024 Emirates NBA Cup at T-Mobile Arena.
Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

Last year, Milwaukee was eliminated in the semifinal round by the Indiana Pacers, who went on to lose to the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Cup Championship.

This year, the Bucks will be facing the Oklahoma City Thunder, arguably the deepest team in the league led by MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, for a chance to win the second inaugural tournament.

While Antetokounmpo remains the best player on the floor, the Thunder do have a large volume of versatile wing defenders who can also spread the floor on offense and give Gilgeous-Alexander maximum room to operate. It will certainly be a challenge for Doc Rivers and company to gameplan for.

In any case, the game between the Bucks and Thunder is slated to tip off at 8:30 PM ET from Las Vegas and will be carried nationally by ABC.