The dollar were motivated by last year’s loss as they advanced to Saturday’s NBA Cup semifinals, writes ESPN’s Jamal Collier. Milwaukee, which had the honor of reaching the title game in the league’s first regular-season tournament last December, was surprised by a surging Indiana team, and the players were determined not to let that happen again.

“We probably looked a little sharper this time” said Damian Lillardwho contributed 25 points and seven assists in Saturday’s win over Atlanta. “This time we remembered our last experience. We were right. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy playing against a good team, but we prepared and it just felt familiar.”

After a disastrous 2-8 start that led to speculation that big changes were coming, Milwaukee appears to have turned their season around. Saturday’s win was their third in a row, and with a record of 14-11 they are just two games out of third place in the East. According to Collier, coach Doc Rivers has been telling his team for weeks that they are capable of winning the NBA Cup.

“It’s a competition, man, and you want your team to be competitive.” Rivers said. “You want them to take on the challenge, that’s all I’ve talked about. … That’s what I’m proud of for our guys.”

There’s more about the Bucks:

• Last year’s loss helped seal the first-year coach’s fate Adrian Griffinwho was ultimately fired midway through the season, notes Sam Amick of The Athletic. Bobby Portis gave an impassioned postgame speech urging his teammates and Griffin to be more focused and stop missing winnable games. Portis recalled those comments after Saturday’s game. “It went viral, man. It was everywhere,” he said. “But everything I do is for good. I have been a leader my entire life. Just because you make it to the NBA and there are people (on your team) who are top 75 on your team, that doesn’t stop you from being a leader. The message was: “We need to improve late-game execution.” We need to get better down the stretch. We have to know what the hell we’re doing on the track, have the people in the right spots so we can get a good shot. The last five or six minutes are winning time.’”
• Giannis Antetokounmpo Amick added that he slipped out of the MVP conversation given the team’s slow start, but the star forward provided further evidence on Saturday that he is a serious candidate for his third award. Antetokounmpo may be in the midst of his best season, says Amick, and he delivered 32 points, 14 rebounds and nine assists in the win over Atlanta, capping the performance with a spectacular block from Clint Capela End of fourth quarter (Twitter video link).
• Antetokounmpo spoke with Amick about his partnership with Lillard, which seems to be going much more smoothly in their second season together. Lillard has improved his shooting from the field and from three-point range, and he’s looking more like the dangerous scorer he was in Portland. “It takes time” Antetokounmpo said. “You know, I feel like a lot of people had such high expectations for us on day one, that we were going to be the best duo to ever play this game. But it takes time. Now it’s our second year playing together. We feel more comfortable with each other and know each other’s places better. And as you can see, our chemistry has gotten much better. Moving forward…we feel very, very comfortable that we can both get to where we are and be more effective by playing this two-man game this year.”