Bucks guard Khris Middleton to miss Emirates NBA Cup Championship due to illness

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Milwaukee Bucks guard Khris Middleton has been forced to sit out of Tuesday night’s NBA Cup final against the Oklahoma City Thunder due to illness.

“He did a walkthrough today, came down and we sent him back up,” Bucks coach Doc Rivers said before tipoff. “Just didn’t feel good. And we didn’t want to take the chance of him being around the guys. We come out of this, we have a back-to-back game. It just wasn’t worth the chance.”

Middleton didn’t practice on Monday, and the Bucks felt he wasn’t ready to play a day later. The team is hoping he’ll be ready for a back-to-back when regular season play resumes Friday at Cleveland and Saturday at home against Washington.

Middleton missed the Bucks’ first 21 games while recovering from 

offseason surgeries

A three-time All-Star, Middleton was part of two title runs in 2021 — Milwaukee’s NBA championship, then USA Basketball’s march to Olympic gold at the Tokyo Games. He had six points for the Bucks in their semifinal win over Atlanta in Las Vegas on Saturday.