Things are getting a bit scary for Milwaukee

I made a prediction the other day that Milwaukee was going to sweep the Heat and they were my favorites to win the entire Playoffs in the NBA. I am starting to feel as though my confidence might have jinxed them because they are entering a very dire situation after losing a 2nd game in the final seconds to the Miami side.

src

The reason why I had so much confidence in the Bucks is because they have appeared to be in top form and were already at top tier team with the power of Giannis Antetokounmpo (I copy/pasted that), Khris Middleton, and Eric Bledsoe routinely racking up 20 points each. However, the Miami Heat are looking like the Kryptonite for the Bucks as Milwaukee seems to be at a loss of what to do out there.

Miami's defense is out of the world and completely unexpected by me and many others. They are somehow able to all but completely shut down the Bucks' offense as you can tell by the general lack of circles in the above graphic. The Bucks shot an abysmal 7 for 25 from 3-point range and when you are missing this frequently, it kind of begs the question as to why you continue to pursue that route. The 7 foot tall Center, Brook Lopez had a better 3-point conversion rate than every other Buck in the game. Two questions here: Why TF is Lopez even attempting 3's and why is he doing it better than the players whose job it is to score from that range? I get it, Lopez is an anomaly and he has been making 3's all season. However, when you take your center out of the middle to do the job of the forwards, you put yourself at a disadvantage for rebounds.

The Bucks had 7 players who missed all of their 3 pointer attempts. This is embarrassingly bad. To make a bad situation worse, this is the 2nd game in a row where almost the exact same scenario has been true. Lopez is raining down 3's with a very good percentage... where are the guards and forwards?

_{from a different game but i had to include it because his social justice statement looks like something I would type if I just hit random characters on my keyboard}

Now the Bucks did actually look a bit better in game 2 and they only lost by 2 after performing much better in the second half than in game one where they somehow managed to blow an 11 point first quarter lead and perform just awfully in the entire 2nd half.

So there are a few things going forward that do not bode well for the Milwaukee Bucks.

• The Heat seem to be able to exploit all the Bucks' weaknesses that I didn't even realize were there (great coaching)
• Only 20 teams in 282 seven-game playoff series have ever come back to win
• There is no home court advantage

---

So what do you do if you are the Bucks? They have the talent, they have the coaching, they are ranked well above the Miami Heat in the rankings but some teams just have what it takes to beat the "best teams" but not necessarily all teams. Could the Miami Heat be the dark horse this year? It would come as a surprise to me because even though they have basically been dominating the Bucks, the Vegas odds have been favoring the Heat and for game 3 they still do.

For Vegas to still be betting the Bucks suggests to me that every expert out there is also completely in the dark about what exactly it is that is making this happen but I am likely going to watch all of that game, because it could be one of the most important ones of the entire playoffs.

What do you think?