Heat oust depleted Bucks to reach NBA East finals

The Miami Heat punched their ticket to the NBA Eastern Conference finals, beating top-seeded Milwaukee, 103-94, as injured Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo watched from the bench on Tuesday, September 8 (Wednesday, September 9, Philippine time). 

Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic scored 17 points apiece as 6 Heat players scored in double figures and Miami completed a 4-1 series victory in a bruising encounter against the league’s top defensive team.

Khris Middleton led the Bucks with 23 points.

Reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Antetokounmpo – tipped to scoop a second straight MVP award this season – aggravated his sprained right ankle in the first half of the Bucks’ Game 4 overtime victory over the Heat.

The Bucks declared him inactive less than an hour before tipoff on Tuesday.

The loss of Antetokounmpo, who averaged career highs of 29.5 points and 13.6 rebounds per game this season, was a huge blow for the Bucks, as they tried to do what no NBA team has done before: Come back from a 0-3 deficit to win a seven-game playoff series.

It’s the second straight campaign that the Bucks built the best regular-season record only to come up short in the playoffs.

In 2019, they fell to the eventual champion Toronto Raptors in 6 games in the Eastern Conference finals.

The fifth-seeded Heat will face either the Boston Celtics or Toronto Raptors for a place in the NBA Finals.

The Celtics lead their series against the defending NBA champion Raptors, 3-2.

Butler, who added 10 rebounds and 6 assists and was a perfect 8-for-8 from the foul line, said the Heat’s impressive 8-1 record so far in the playoffs means nothing now.

“All of that is behind us now,” he said. “We’ll wait and see who we get out of Toronto and Boston and then we’ll lock in on that.

“But it’s zero-zero now, we’ve got eight more to get.”

The Heat trailed, 28-19, after a chaotic opening quarter in which they committed 6 turnovers leading to 9 Bucks points.

They trailed by as many as 13 in the 1st period, but settled down in the 2nd, outscoring the Bucks, 33-18, to take a 52-46 lead into halftime.

‘Out of the mud’ 

But Milwaukee, with Middleton leading the way, refused to go away.

After going scoreless for more than 6 minutes in the 3rd period, the Bucks put together an 8-0 run to pull within 5 points.

Trailing 73-65 going into the final period, the Bucks trimmed the deficit to 4 points multiple times, but the Heat’s depth finally proved too much.

“It was tough,” Butler said. “They’re a really good team. Obviously they missed their MVP. But we knew we were going to have to get one out of the mud and I think this was the one.”

Antetokounmpo said he felt “lost” as he was unable to contribute.

“Mentally it was a battle, but at the end of the day you’ve got to trust your teammates and that’s what I decided to do,” he said after the Bucks medical staff persuaded him not to risk further injury by playing.

He was hoping he might be able to return for a Game 6. Now he’s got to look further in the future.

“Hopefully we can build a culture in Milwaukee for many years that we can come out here and compete every single year for a championship,” he said. – Rappler.com