MILWAUKEE — In the wake of a wire-to-wire, 125-103 victory in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, a question for the group: Shouldn’t the Milwaukee Bucks be the favorites to win this thing?
No, not the conference finals. At this point, they’re obviously the heavy favorite to win the East. Prior to this year, 72 teams had a 2-0 lead in the conference finals, and 67 of them went on to win.
But why aren’t the Bucks the favorites to win the NBA championship? Is there a case to be made against 1) what was the best team in the regular season and 2) what has been an even better team in the playoffs?
Maybe this is a we’ll-believe-it-when-we-see-it league. How can you pick a team to win a championship when its best player had never won a playoff series prior to this year? Until they lost in five, it was easier to imagine the Celtics, with their talent and with their recent history of playoff success (back-to-back trips to the conference finals), being the team to represent the East in The Finals in the first year A.L. (after LeBron).
And then the Bucks outscored the Celtics by a total of 65 points over the last four games of the conference semis.
It’s similarly difficult to pick against the Golden State Warriors until they actually lose. The two-time defending champs have Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. Presumably, they’ll have Kevin Durant back for The Finals should they finish off the Portland Trail Blazers in the Western Conference finals. And even without Durant, the Warriors boast the same 2-0 conference finals lead the Bucks currently possess.
But the Warriors haven’t been as sharp as they were in each of the previous two postseasons. Five of their 10 playoff wins have been within five points in the last five minutes. Last year, only four of their 16 wins were within five in the last five. In 2017, it was four of 16 as well.
With the postseason’s 10th-ranked defense, Golden State has outscored its opponents by 6.4 points per 100 possessions over its 14 games. The Bucks have outscored their opponents by more than double that: 15.1 per 100. That feels like the mark of an eventual champion.
Through 10 playoff wins last year, the Warriors had outscored their opponents by 9.6 points per 100 possessions. Through 10 playoff wins in 2015, they had outscored their opponents by just 7.7 points per 100. It was only in 2017, when they won their first 15 playoff games in Durant’s first season in Golden State, that the Warriors were as dominant as the Bucks have been thus far. At 10-0 two years ago, Golden State had outscored its playoff opponents by 16.5 points per 100 possessions.
At that point, the Warriors had the No. 2 offense and the No. 1 defense in the postseason. That’s exactly where the Bucks stand after Game 2 on Friday.
Milwaukee is a complete team in more ways than one. The defense has been there almost every night. The Bucks have held their opponents under a point per possession (the measure of elite defense) in six of their 11 games and only once (their Game 1 loss to Boston) have they allowed them to score more than what was the league average (109.7 points scored per 100 possessions) in the regular season.
That’s how you lose focus. The biggest thing with this group is just taking a game at a time, and not looking forward to The Finals. Anything can happen.
Eric Bledsoe
Even with the rise in 3-point shooting over the last few years, the most important shots on the floor remain those at the basket, and no team has been better at both preventing and defending those shots than the Bucks. After allowing a league-low 29.6 points per game in the restricted area in the regular season, the Bucks have allowed just 22.0 per game in the playoffs.
In this series, Raptors drives have been met with a swarm of Milwaukee defenders, making it difficult to either score in the paint or get off a clean pass to an open shooter. After shooting 57 percent in the paint through the first two rounds (in which they faced two very good defenses), the Raptors have shot just 49 percent (36-for-73) in the paint through the first two games of the conference finals.
On Toronto’s first possession of Game 2, Marc Gasol posted up Khris Middleton after a switch and spun around Middleton for a layup, only to be rejected by Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Raptors went scoreless on their first five possessions, had just 39 points on 49 possessions at halftime, and were too far behind for a 39-point third quarter to matter much.
“I think the way we played on both ends of the court in the first half,” Budenholzer said afterward, “is what we’re trying to get to.”
After a bit of an offensive struggle in Game 1, the Bucks broke out on Friday. The elite defense led to 28 fast-break points, a size advantage inside led to 17 second-chance points, and six of their nine rotation players scored in double-figures.
Three of those six came off the bench. While Toronto coach Nick Nurse has had to both shorten and alter his rotation in these playoffs, Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer has seemingly found contributors wherever he has turned. George Hill and Pat Connaughton were huge in the Boston series, Malcolm Brogdon didn’t need long to find his rhythm after missing the first eight postseason games, and on Friday, Ersan Ilyasova had what Budenholzer called “clearly his best game of the year,” scoring 17 points, drawing three charges, and registering a plus-22 in just over 21 minutes off the bench.
The Bucks have the presumed Kia MVP, but their biggest strength in these playoffs has been their depth. Through 11 games, they’ve outscored their opponents by 12.0 points per 100 possessions with Antetokounmpo off the floor.
Unlike his fellow Eastern Conference coaches, Budenholzer has never had to rush his best player back onto the floor. And this team is now 10-1 with Antetokounmpo ranking 40th in postseason minutes per game at 32.3.
While the Raptors’ offense has struggled to take advantage of the attention paid to Kawhi Leonard, every Bucks rotation player has played with confidence and freedom.
“They’re not going to let me play one-on-one,” Antetokounmpo said after registering 30 points, 17 rebounds and five assists in Game 2. “So this series is not going to be about me; it’s going to be about my teammates being ready to shoot, being ready to make the right play.”
“We try and empower them,” Budenholzer said of his team’s role players. “We try to play a way where they all feel like they can contribute and do things. Hopefully that’s paying off for us.”
There’s no argument to the contrary. But is there an argument against this team being the favorite to win the championship?
While it remains difficult to pick against the team that won last year and remains intact, new champions come along all the time, and it’s easier to see them in hindsight than in the moment.
Of course, as good as they’ve been playing and as special as this run has felt, Bucks players refuse to get ahead of themselves.
“You can’t,” Eric Bledsoe said. “That’s how you lose focus. The biggest thing with this group is just taking a game at a time, and not looking forward to The Finals. Anything can happen. So we’re focused on Game 3.”
“It’s a great opportunity that we have,” George Hill added, “but it means nothing until we get there.”
The players have to keep their minds on Toronto. But the rest of us can feel free to envision the future, one that includes an NBA championship.
