After winning a league-best 58 games during the regular season, the Bucks could only manage one victory against a determined Heat team, writes Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The betting favorite to win the title heading into the playoffs saw its season end in shocking fashion Wednesday night with an epic fourth quarter collapse and an overtime loss.
“For me, I think this has been the worst postseason ever,” Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “I don’t think, you know, like we have a number in there, like every other team has a number (of games to win a title) like 16, 15, 14, and this like, we’re stuck at 15. I don’t think we’ve ever, as long as I’ve been in the playoffs, been stuck – maybe we lost in the first round – but not stuck at 15. Which is kind of hard to deal with.”
The back injury that Antetokounmpo suffered in Game 1 affected the direction of the series, but there were plenty of other explanations for Milwaukee’s first-round defeat. There were turnovers, missed free throws, rebounding lapses and a lack of focus at critical times.
Several players refused to talk to the media after being eliminated, but those who did expressed severe disappointment.
“I feel like we had the roster to do more than what we’ve done,” Jae Crowder said. “We came up short. Obviously we had a championship in mind and that’s the only conversation wea always had, is championship. So we came up short big time. And we failed.”
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