Rivals Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton are now teammates.
SAITAMA, Japan — There was plenty of time to talk about it, had they wanted to. Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton were together on a plane to Tokyo, just days after they had played in the hard-fought NBA Finals. They had roughly nine hours in the air to relive details of that series, to revisit some of their memorable moments. Booker and Middleton both had 40-point games in the series. Holiday provided a highlight that will be replayed in Milwaukee for years to come. So, with all that time to kill on the way to the Olympics, how much talk was about the NBA Finals? “There was actually none,” Middleton said. “We all respect each other. “It was all about moving on and figuring out a way to get this job done here. To sit there and talk about the finals was not something that was on anybody’s mind.” The series ended last Tuesday, when the Bucks won Game 6 to close out Booker’s Phoenix Suns. Middleton and Holiday took part in Milwaukee’s championship parade on Thursday, then flew the next day to Seattle, where they met up with Booker. It was a whirlwind few days after a draining two-week series. And with the U.S. Olympic opener tipping off less than 24 hours after they landed in Japan, the flight was about the only rest the trio was going to get. “I feel like me, Book and K-Midd just slept,” Holiday said. Booker couldn’t be blamed if he didn’t want to talk to two guys who had been responsible for ruining his NBA championship dreams.
