Down 2-0, Bucks head home hoping history repeats itself
MILWAUKEE — For the second time this postseason, the Milwaukee Bucks have staggered home with a 2-0 deficit and key players not shooting straight.
Milwaukee fans waited 47 years to see the NBA Finals return to their city. They will end up watching Chris Paul, Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns celebrate a championship at Fiserv Forum if the home team can’t turn things around quickly.
“We have been down 0-2 before,” Bucks All-Star Khris Middleton said. “Not saying we can do the same exact thing we did last time. It’s going to be tough. That’s a great team over there. But we’ve just got to stay the course.”
Game 3 is Sunday night, the first NBA Finals game in Milwaukee since 1974 figuring to be a raucous scene inside and outside the arena. The Suns are ready. “We’ve got to be us and we’ve got to be the hungrier team, and so that’s what we’ll do,” Paul said.
The Suns had a pair of double-digit victories in Phoenix, where they were largely in control throughout the second half in both games. No team has overcome a 3-0 deficit in the NBA, so the Bucks’ situation is dire.
But they battled back from a situation that appeared just as bleak last month. The Bucks dropped two games in Brooklyn to start the Eastern Conference semifinals and were even less competitive there than they were in Phoenix. Milwaukee trailed by 49 in Game 2 in that series on its way to a 125-86 loss.
“Game 2 we got smacked, embarrassed,” Middleton recalled. “A lot of people thought our season was done. We still believed in ourselves.”
The Bucks took the next two at home to even things up and won the series in a Game 7 thriller in Brooklyn, but they had some help in that comeback. Kyrie Ir ving missed the last three games with a sprained ankle and
James Harden played through them without much speed because of a hamstring strain, leaving the Nets without much good guard play.
No such luck for the Bucks this time. Booker and Paul have combined for 113 points, passing Golden State’s Stephen Curry and
Klay Thompson (106 in 2018) for the most points from a starting backcourt in the first two games of the Finals in the last 50 years.
Injured Craig’s status uncertain
As the Suns’ Finals lead is growing, their rotation could be shrinking.
Suns coach Monty Williams said Torrey Craig’s status for Game 3 is uncertain after the reserve forward hurt his right knee during a collision with a driving Giannis Antetokounmpo in the third quarter of Phoenix’s 118-108 Game 2 victory on Thursday.
Phoenix already is playing without reserve forward Dario Saric, who tore his right anterior cruciate ligament in the first quarter of Phoenix’s 118-105 Game 1 triumph on Tuesday. Craig’s injury isn’t nearly as severe.
“He got some testing done yesterday,” Williams said Saturday. “All of that came back clean, but he’s still sore . ... We’ll be able to make a better statement about his availability tomorrow, and then we’ll adjust.”
Williams mentioned Cameron Johnson and Abdel Nader as players who could have bigger roles if Craig is unavailable. Johnson is averaging nine points and 19.5 minutes in the Finals. Nader has played just one minute over the first two games of this series.
Crowder’s old stomping grounds
Suns forward Jae Crowder is very familiar with the city of Milwaukee after playing for Marquette from 2010 to ’12. Crowder says he still knows some of the Fiserv Forum employees who also worked at the Bradley Center when the Bucks and Marquette played there.
But that doesn’t mean he’s making restaurant recommendations to his teammates. He’s having his favorite local restaurants bring food to the Suns’ hotel to make sure they don’t have to go out.
“You won’t see us in the city,” Crowder sad. “We’re going to get a lot of stuff catered to us from a variety of restaurants here. A couple of us are vegan. I’ve talked to the training staff more than my teammates about food because we’re not leaving the hotel. We’re eating in. We’re locked in. But I do have a few suggestions for my teammates that we’re going to take advantage of while we’re here.”
Antetokounmpo channels Lynch
Milwaukee’s 2-0 deficit in the finals hasn’t impacted Antetokounmpo’s sense of humor. The two-time most valuable player did his best impression of former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch at the start of his news conference. He responded to the first question by saying, “I’m just here not to get fined,” before breaking into laughter.
“We all understand what kind of game we are getting ourselves into tomorrow,” said Antetokounmpo, who scored 42 points in Game 2. “So we know what we got to do. But at the end of the day, you got to keep it light. You cannot tell yourself, ‘Oh, it’s the Finals. You got to do this.’ ”