{"id":28663,"date":"2024-12-18T12:11:43","date_gmt":"2024-12-18T12:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/18\/giannis-in-bloom-and-the-elephants-in-the-room-seven-nba-cup-takeaways-claire-de-lune\/"},"modified":"2024-12-18T12:11:43","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T12:11:43","slug":"giannis-in-bloom-and-the-elephants-in-the-room-seven-nba-cup-takeaways-claire-de-lune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/18\/giannis-in-bloom-and-the-elephants-in-the-room-seven-nba-cup-takeaways-claire-de-lune\/","title":{"rendered":"Giannis in bloom and the elephants in the room: seven NBA Cup takeaways | Claire de Lune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Milwaukee Bucks\u2019 romp to the title in Year Two of the in-season tournament in Las Vegas was dwarfed by a persistent bugaboo: the NBA Cup doesn\u2019t <em>really<\/em> matter yet<\/p>\n<p>Giannis Antetokounmpo\u2019s NBA Cup final opponent Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver\u2019s Nikola Joki\u0107 have deservedly been garnering a lot of MVP buzz a quarter of the way through the regular season. But over three days in Las Vegas, Antetokounmpo added to what is already a pretty convincing case of his own to take home his third NBA MVP trophy. He\u2019s been putting up tremendous numbers all season, averaging a preposterous 32.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 6.1 assists while logging a 19-rebound triple-double <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2024\/dec\/18\/nba-cup-final-milwaukee-bucks-oklahoma-city-thunder\">in Tuesday\u2019s final<\/a>, a 97-81 win over Oklahoma City. But his stat line isn\u2019t existing in a vacuum; he\u2019s looking as dominant, if not moreso, than he ever has. And he\u2019s been deadly from the mid-range this year (as Kevin Garnett<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/clutchpoints\/status\/1868763704000757985?s=46&amp;prefetchTimestamp=1734507930010\"> gave him props for<\/a> over the weekend), which is a significant complement to his near-unstoppable inside game. In Tuesday\u2019s showdown between MVP frontrunners, Giannis looked decidedly like the best player on the floor.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2024\/dec\/18\/nba-cup-takeaways-giannis-bucks-thunder\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Milwaukee Bucks\u2019 romp to the title in Year Two of the in-season tournament in Las Vegas was dwarfed by a persistent bugaboo: the NBA Cup doesn\u2019t really matter yet Giannis Antetokounmpo\u2019s NBA Cup final opponent Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Denver\u2019s Nikola Joki\u0107 have deservedly been garnering a lot of MVP buzz a quarter of the &#8230; <a title=\"Giannis in bloom and the elephants in the room: seven NBA Cup takeaways | Claire de Lune\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/18\/giannis-in-bloom-and-the-elephants-in-the-room-seven-nba-cup-takeaways-claire-de-lune\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Giannis in bloom and the elephants in the room: seven NBA Cup takeaways | Claire de Lune\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}