Bucks stumble
Milwaukee loses to Orlando, 122-110, in the opening game of the playoffs.
It's not like the Milwaukee Bucks can say they were caught unawares.
They knew things would be hard when they signed up to resume the NBA season at Walt Disney World. They knew they were going to be leaving their families for nearly two months, they knew they wouldn't have any home-court advantage and they knew they would have to ratchet up their play as a favorite with teams gunning to take them down.
Back at the start of July, Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo even said that he believed this year's title would be
“the toughest championship you could ever win.” He added: “Whoever wants it more is going to be able to go out there and take it.”
After a wobbly, uninspiring set of seeding games, the Bucks went into Tuesday's playoff opener against the Orlando Magic with confidence. With a few solid practices under their belts, they assured they were ready to get back to their historically dominant ways. Even though the Magic were hampered by a host of injuries – ruling Aaron Gordon and Michael Carter-Williams out Tuesday morning – the Bucks were taking the challenge seriously.
And yet, when the lights burned bright and the ball went up, the Bucks didn't look the part. In their first step in pursuit of the toughest championship you could win, the Bucks weren't the tougher team. In a postseason where whoever wants it more can take it, you wouldn't say the Bucks looked like they wanted it more.
On the other hand, the Magic were tougher. They were more aggressive. They were coherent and consistent on both ends of the court and they played like they wanted it more as they handled the Bucks, 122-110, at The Field House in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, to take a 1-0 lead in the first-round series. The upset – and it was certainly no fluke – marked the first time a No. 8 seed has opened a series with a win
since the Chicago Bulls achieved that feat against the Boston Celtics in 2017.
“We’ve got to get with it,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “I think our group understands that. I think playing hard and playing with urgency is something we’ve built a habit of doing. It’s something that we expect. I think a lot of credit to Orlando today, they played really well. So, we’ve got to play better going into Game 2.”
It’s not that the Bucks weren’t effective at times. They opened the game strong over the first couple of minutes and came out locked in and rolled through the first 31⁄2 minutes after halftime. The problem, though, was that those stretches were the exception, not the rule.
Outside of those spurts, the Magic were clearly in control during the rest of the game. Nikola Vucevic – Orlando’s all-star forward who was obviously going to serve as the focal part of his team’s offense – was dominant all game long en route to a game-high 35 points and 14 rebounds on 15 of 24 shooting.
He wasn’t the only Magic player in a groove, either.
Terrence Ross scored an efficient 18 points. Markelle Fultz got in a rhythm early, making his first four shots as part of a 15-point effort. Gary Clark set up shop outside the three-point arc and went 4 of 12 from deep – clearly following the three-point-heavy game plan espoused by coach Steve Clifford. James Ennis, too, took advantage of open looks.
The Bucks’ defense, which was historically dominant before the hiatus but has slumped in the bubble, didn’t have an answer. There was no stopping Vucevic no matter who was on the floor. Rotations were often slow or didn’t happen. Instead of choosing to clamp down on the arc or the paint, the Bucks got caught doing neither.
“We just got to play harder, just make them feel uncomfortable,” said Antetokounmpo, who led the Bucks with 31 points and 17 rebounds. “Hopefully, we can come out in Game 2 and just be more aggressive, get in passing lanes, use our hands, be a little bit more physical. Just get them off their rhythm.”
It certainly didn’t help the Bucks’ defense that they had 16 turnovers leading to 25 Magic points. Milwaukee’s offense continued its recent trend of looking lost outside of Antetokounmpo’s rumbles to the basket – drives that are understandably harder with Orlando intentionally sinking and mucking up the paint.
Eric Bledsoe provided some help with bursts to the hoop but couldn’t stretch his shot outside. He was 1 of 5 from deep. Khris Middleton, who the Bucks rely on as their second-best offensive weapon, was a relative nonfactor as he went 4 of 12 for 14 points. Brook Lopez, one of Milwaukee’s top offensive performers at Walt Disney World, suddenly couldn’t buy a bucket, chalking up just five points on 2 of 9 shooting while missing all four of his three-point attempts.
Budenholzer – as he did regularly in the playoffs last year – continued to go 11-deep on his roster but didn’t find many sparks from his bench group. George Hill kicked in 9 of his 16 points in the second half, but outside of him, Milwaukee’s supporting cast didn’t provide much lift.
“We’re all competitors, so it’s not a good feeling,” Hill said of the loss. “We’ve got to figure it out; that’s what good teams do. We’ve got to find out a way to continue to be the team that we were before this whole pandemic. We’ve got to do a little soul searching, but I think we’ll be fine . ... When you get hit in the mouth today, you got to figure out how to get up and throw that next punch.”
Whatever that soul searching turns up remains to be determined, but one thing is for sure – the Bucks haven’t been themselves in the bubble and they can’t rely on anyone outside of it to solve their problems. They don’t have their families with them. In a nominal home game, they don’t have the ability to draw energy from their fans.
Yes, both of those things are difficult. Antetokounmpo and Hill both spoke after the game about how different and challenging things have been in the bubble without their families or fans. Both men insisted that none of that is an excuse for what happened on Tuesday afternoon.
“There’s 16 teams right now in the bubble going through the same things that we’re going through,” Antetokounmpo said. “They’re not able to see their families. They’re constantly in the bubble. It’s always about basketball, but we just got to do our job. We’ve gotta man up and go out there, have fun. Don’t think about nothing else. Just play basketball and try to get a win.”
The discussion itself, though, isn’t the problem. The problem is that the way the Bucks played, they won’t have to worry about being away from their families or playing in a fan-less gym for long.
Tuesday’s game marked the latest nadir in a long, slow spiral that has seen the Bucks fall from 52-8 at the start of March to 4-9 over their final 13 pandemic-disrupted, regular-season games to getting thoroughly handled by an injury-laden, sub-.500 team in Game 1 of the playoffs.
Last year, the Bucks’ first taste of adversity didn’t come until a lackluster Game 1 in the second round of the playoffs. Now, the Bucks face the task of rediscovering their mojo – lost for much longer this time – a round earlier.