Bucks knew they would be special
When the Milwaukee Bucks put the finishing touches on a 125-103 win over the Toronto Raptors on Friday night, a victory that gave them a 2-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference, many saw that as a sign that the Bucks had arrived.
They have a stranglehold on the series, which shifts to Toronto for Game 3 on Sunday, and look like a welloiled machine, primed to make a serious run at the championship.
They’re two games away from the NBA
Finals. All they need to do is avoid losing four games out of five, something they didn’t do all season.
The Bucks aren’t worried about those perceptions. They may be turning heads outside the locker room, but they’ve known what they are capable of for a long time. They put out plenty of signs that could have convinced everyone else over the past few months.
“We haven’t been thinking ahead, honestly,” center Brook Lopez said. “We’ve been so great at staying focused, not looking back at what we’ve done to get here and really just living in the moment . ...
“That confidence has been there all season long.”
Milwaukee won its first seven games to be the last undefeated team standing in November. The Bucks walloped the
Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets on the same road trip. They ended the season with an elite point differential and net rating, the best home and road records in the Eastern Conference and series wins against every East opponent.
The Bucks were dominant. The fact that they’ve continued that run in the playoffs shouldn’t be all that surprising. Combining the regular season and postseason, Milwaukee has earned 53 of its 70 wins by double digits, including eight victories of 10 or more points in 11 playoff games.
Sure, the Bucks haven’t been this far in the playoffs since 2001. The franchise hasn’t been to the Finals since 1974. But the Bucks have no reason to believe they came out of nowhere.
“We just weren’t good,” Bucks wing Khris Middleton said of past seasons. “We worked for it. Of course, we had disappointing years and disappointing nights, but for the most part, we worked for it. We knew we had to get better in order to get where we wanted to get to.”
Middleton knew the Bucks were special not after Friday’s win over the Raptors, but after the one on October 29 that made Milwaukee the NBA’s last unbeaten team. On that night, Malcolm Brogdon said he knew the Bucks would be a “very good team” as early as the preseason.
But this good? Brogdon still doesn’t know if he or his teammates have fully realized that yet.
“We got a really good team this year, man,” Brogdon said. “It’s definitely special. Honestly, I don’t think all of us on the team realize how special this is for us right now, how good we are. But I think we’ll realize it after it’s all said and done.”
The secret to the Bucks’ success is both simple and complex. Not every team can draft and develop a singular star like Giannis Antetokounmpo, who at 24 is the favorite to be named MVP. Putting together the right roster and coaching staff around him isn’t an exact science, either.
But with the pieces that came together this season – the hiring of coach Mike Budenholzer and the additions of Lopez, Ersan Ilyasova, George Hill, Nikola Mirotic and Pat Connaughton – the Bucks assembled a team with enough talent to compete with the best rosters in the league. They also established a chemistry and culture built on hard work, efficiency, enjoying each other and focusing on their championship goal.
“Just being around these guys every day, we have the will to win,” Hill said. “We want to win the free throw games we have after practice. We want to win the shooting games that we do after practice. We just like to compete 1 through 15. All of us like to win.
“It doesn’t matter who scores what, who gets the shot. We just want to win and play the right way.”
That will to win has also meant putting on blinders. Other teams could do whatever they wanted. The media could fire off hot takes for days.
The Bucks weren’t going to change. This mentality, stemming from Budenholzer, quickly took hold among the team. Call it stubbornness or pride, the Bucks adopted the confidence that no matter what anyone said or did, they were going to stay the same.
“It’s about us,” many a Bucks player has said throughout this season, including Antetokounmpo, Middleton, Brogdon and Lopez on Friday night.
In their minds, if they steadfastly followed the same practices and habits nothing else would matter. They would win.
“The guys have learned a way to play,” Budenholzer said. “They believe in it. We believe in it. And the more positive results you get, sure, it reinforces it. It just lets them know that nothing is going to change.
“I think we’ll just continue that going into Game 3, win or lose, going into Game 4. Everybody has built their habits. Everybody to some degree is who they are. Now you’ve just got to just go out and execute and do what you’ve been doing.”
As the Bucks prepare for Game 3 at 6 p.m. Sunday at Scotiabank Arena, it could be considered natural for them to relax a bit. They’re up, 2-0, in the series, winning Game 1 despite not playing well before running away with Game 2. The Raptors have been a strong team at home all season, sure, but the Bucks came away with wins on each of their prior trips to Canada.
Relaxing, though, is not in the Bucks’ DNA. It’s not the habit they built all season.
Each of the Bucks’ 22 losses this season ate at the team. They hated the feeling of knowing they could have played better, could have done more.
That’s why they only lost successive games once all season. It’s also how the Bucks have steeled themselves mentally to reach this point as the only unbeaten road team in the playoffs (4-0).
It’s also why they refuse to let up or get comfortable.
“You’ve got to be greedy,” Middleton said. “We can’t settle, can’t be satisfied by just taking care of our home.”
Lopez added: “It’s just mentality and mindset. We’ve done a great job of not letting up and that’s just everyone, 1 through 15 all around the locker room, holding each other accountable.
“We’re not letting each other let up, let our foot off the gas. We’re not trying to allow that.”