Bucks really had no chance to repeat
Explanations are not the same as excuses.
There are some glaring issues to be addressed if the Milwaukee Bucks want to win another ring while Giannis Antetokounmpo is still in his 20s.
But the NBA stacked the deck against the Bucks to repeat as champions when it threw the league back into a normal schedule a mere 10 weeks after the Bucks won Game 6 against the Phoenix Suns on July 20, 2021, to claim their first NBA title in a half century.
It should not be surprising to anyone who follows the sport that Milwaukee ran out of gas Sunday in Boston in its 12th postseason game.
The Bucks have been on a whirlwind, unprecedented (and I would argue, physically and mentally unhealthy) stretch that began with a 72-game, midCOVID-19 pandemic season with training camp practice beginning early December 2020. That never really stopped, for the Bucks or the Suns, until this season concluded for them both on Sunday, May 15, 2022.
In fact, I wonder if the Bucks may be lucky that they suffered only one devastating non-contact injury – to All-Star and second-leading scorer Khris Middleton – given how much everyone was pushed to perform, practice, travel and repeat over and over on an endless train track of demanding games for 18 months.
When I hear some garbage that the players are well-paid for their suffering and should be able to play through it all, I mute it. Bodies don’t turn cash into fuel. The withdrawals of performance had better match the deposits of rest and recovery, and that’s nearly impossible in a normal season. It just didn’t look like the Bucks could ever get out of debt, so to speak, even with their off week in April before the playoffs.
In all sports, and in pro basketball with some of the best athletes in the world, fatigue is a top contributor to common non-contact injuries. The Bucks seemed to know it and relied on a top training and strength staff to help them through it. Coach Mike Budenholzer also tried to manage his players’ intense workload all season, whether it was having fewer practices or resting players from time to time.
And remember, Budenholzer sat the Bucks starters in the final game of the regular season, while Boston – which a year ago bowed out in five games in the first round – had the fire this spring to claim the No. 2 seed, pushing Milwaukee to No. 3.
“This is what we played for, why we played the season out, to have homecourt advantage in the Game 7,” Celtics first-year coach Ime Udoka said. “And I believe in the basketball gods; those things matter.”
There’s no luxury of load management in the playoffs. The NBA playoffs are far too long (how many postseasons last two months, or the equivalent of a third of the regular season?) and the Bucks were far too competitive to fold at any point.
In a bumping, bruising, bloodying series against Boston that challenged the referees in every game, even Udoka assumed nothing with a 94-75 lead in the fourth quarter of Game 7.
“5:33 on the clock and I was telling our guys, let’s finish, it’s not over yet,” Udoka said.
He didn’t believe he was destined for the Eastern Conference finals until “maybe when they pulled their guys with two minutes or so left ...” when the Bucks emptied their bench.
Here was another sign that the backto-back seasons took a greater-thanusual toll. The Bucks have been known for one thing in the Budenholzer era, besides winning their first NBA championship in 50 years.
Scoring.
The Bucks have finished at or near the top of the league in all four of Budenholzer’s seasons, averaging 118.0 points per game since the start of the 2018-19 season. Milwaukee led the league in Budenholzer’s
first three seasons before finishing third highest this season at 115.5.
But the Bucks fell to 13th among the 16 playoff teams with an average of 102.8 points per game in the postseason.
Shooting percentages will go down in the NBA playoffs naturally, but this drop was turbulent. When an already-tired team like the Bucks has to try to keep up with a strong defensive team like the Celtics, it probably isn’t wild to say that some of the offense was going to suffer.
Bucks point guard Jrue Holiday has played through it all – the two seasons, contracting the novel coronavirus and an Olympic summer in Japan (with Middleton). Holiday still somehow shot an unbelievable 50.1% from the field during the most recent regular season.
That dipped to 40% in the Chicago playoff series and 36.4% in the Boston series. How much of that was the result of Boston’s top-rated defense? The Celtics must deserve credit. But how much was it just Holiday wearing down?
“It’s really no excuse. It’s Game 7, you’ve got to find a way,” Holiday said. “The whole series, my shot hadn’t been falling the way I wanted it to, and I’ve continued to shoot and knock those shots in. I think there was a point in the game where I just felt like nothing was going in.”
On immediate reflection of a series and season, there are issues for the Bucks.
Grayson Allen was completely contained by the Celtics defense. He had 35 points total while averaging 26 minutes per game. This was the first time he advanced to the second round of the playoffs.
This nonsense about making George Hill the scapegoat for the Bucks failing to advance is lazy. Hill didn’t play well in Game 6, it’s undeniable. Budenholzer greatly respects Hill as a player and a person. But Budenholzer will have to address why Jevon Carter didn’t play.
The Bucks’ inconsistent shooting on 3-pointers is a problem.
The Celtics look like a stronger, more balanced team with superior half-court offense. Take no credit away from their diversity of skill and suffocating defense.
But I will forever remember this as the year that the Bucks had the talent to repeat but started the season behind everyone else just by being the champs. People like Antetokounmpo, Middleton and Pat Connaughton devote so much to their offseason to getting stronger and better but also need to rest and recharge. I argue they were not given enough time.
The greed is never going to subside and the fan interest is never satiated, so I’ve given up hope that the NBA will reduce its regular seasons by 10%, as it should, for the sake of getting peak performances by the greatest athletes of our generation.
The Bucks are way too competitive to admit to us, and maybe even to themselves, that they are depleted physically. Bent over at the waist, resting hands on the knees or splayed out on the floor, they vow to fight and fight again. Their No. 1 mantra is that the mind is stronger than the body and a competitor never concedes.
To their credit, the Bucks followed this mantra until their bodies literally gave out.