The NBA Cup championship is set.

And the basketball gods delivered one of the most intriguing matchups possible.

On one side, there's the Oklahoma City Thunder, a full-fledged juggernaut in the Western Conference who have gone from scaling the standings to distancing themselves from everyone else in the race. On the other, you'll find the Milwaukee Bucks, who might finally be clicking after encountering tremendous turbulence at the start of Doc Rivers' coaching tenure.

There's an MVP candidate on each side (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Giannis Antetokounmpo), a strong supporting cast around them and a host of compelling storylines for both squads. We'll dissect the most interesting plot points on either side of this matchup.

Bucks' Storylines

When the Bucks stumbled out to a 2-8 start, it was fair to wonder whether the sky might actually be falling in Milwaukee. There were actual trade winds swirling around Giannis Antetokounmpo, which is about as fiery as a red-alert situation can get.

Things have seriously, significantly and (fingers-crossed) perhaps sustainably stabilized since. The Bucks are 12-3 with a plus-5.7 net rating over their last 15 games, per NBA.com.

The schedule has softened, and they've finally gotten Khris Middleton back, but the reason behind this surge might be even more simple. Giannis Antetokounmpo has been unguardable, and the support players around him have started making shots. Six of Milwaukee's top seven scorers—every one but Antetokounmpo—are shooting better than 38 percent from three in this stretch.

"We trust one another now," Antetokounmpo said after Milwaukee's semifinal win over the Atlanta Hawks. "We play together. There's no more hero ball. ... The moment we figured out we've gotta compete as a team, we've gotta move the ball as a team, we've gotta play together, we changed our season around."

Milwaukee's goals go beyond winning the NBA cup, but this is a tremendous test to see how much progress has been made. Most of the Bucks' stiffest competition came during those early weeks—they are only 4-8 against .500-or-better opponents—so this will be a great chance to show how real these statistical gains are.

The sky-is-falling worries might be behind them, but a signature win like this would help restore their championship confidence.

Thunder's Storylines

Is this the best team in basketball?

Yes, we are aware the Boston Celtics still exist, and no, we aren't writing off what the Cleveland Cavaliers have accomplished to this point. Even still, the Thunder are running unopposed in the otherwise fully loaded West and posting some of the best efficiency marks around.

Basketball-Reference's simple rating system is a metric that "takes into account average point differential and strength of schedule." You don't need to understand the calculations, you just need to know this: Oklahoma City's SRS is 11.94. No one else has even a 9.0, and only the Celtics (8.72) and Cavaliers (7.44) are north of 7.0.

And somehow, it still doesn't feel like we've seen the Thunder at their best. Not when a big chunk of this roster is comprised of 25-and-under talent. And certainly not when unicorn big man Chet Holmgren has been sidelined since early November with a hip injury.

No one is talking about the Thunder enough—not their dominance to date, nor their many potential paths to improvement. Maybe because people don't see them enough?

Either way, this is a center-stage, under-the-spotlight battle against a heavyweight title contender with a(n in-season tournament) championship on the line. The Thunder shouldn't need to stamp their arrival considering they've been here for a while now, but they'll still have the chance to convert a host of casuals who haven't paid enough attention to what's happening in the Sooner State.