True Grit
One of the biggest differentiators between good teams and bad teams is how they handle less than ideal circumstances. The Bucks, at one point, trailed by 10 points with just five minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Some teams might have given up at that point and mailed the rest of the game in. The NBA season is long and vigorous, and it’s easy in any profession or job to take part of a shift off and just focus on the next one.
The Bucks used to be a team who would do that. They are not anymore. Milwaukee focused on the last five minutes of action and nothing farther than those five minutes, and as a result managed to come back and force overtime.
Milwaukee was 0-3 in overtime games before Friday night’s OT victory. The Bucks hadn’t played an overtime game since late January, when the team was in its worst stretch of the season. Milwaukee has since flipped a switch–the team is playing better than it has at any point this year. Apparently, that extends to overtime periods too.