Milwaukee Bucks: Getting To Know Potential Playoff Opponents
By Rohan Katti
Miami Heat: Regular Season Series 3-1 Heat
Frankly, it’s amazing to see the Miami Heat in with a chance of making the playoffs.
The Heat currently have 38 victories, which is the most a team has had after once sitting at 19 games under 0.500. That’s right, as recently as Jan. 13, Miami was 11-30, fighting for the worst record in the NBA.
Since then, the Heat have gone 27-11, which included a league-high 13-game wining streak. Dion Waiters deciding to vindicate everyone who held on to their property on Waiters Island really aided the Heat in rattling off win after win. With a couple of game-winners to his name and an accompanying, now infamous pose, the Waiters-led Heat have received a lot of attention as a possible dark-horse playoff contender.
As they’ve kept their positive play going through 2017, the Heat are only a half-game out of the eighth spot, but have been losing more often since Waiters got hurt on Mar. 17. While it is looking less likely that Miami will make the playoffs, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be dangerous if they did manage to sneak in.
The Bucks lost the season series to the Heat 3-1, which shows how much of a problem this team has been to Milwaukee. A major factor of that was the advantage Miami has had on the boards.
The monster in the middle for the Heat is Hassan Whiteside, who has averaged a double-double of 17.5 points and 14.3 rebounds per game against the Bucks this season. Keeping him contained would be the major focus for the Cream City in a seven game series.
A healthy Waiters would make life difficult for the Bucks, as would the formidable coaching abilities of Erik Spoelstra, but with how seeding is currently shaping up it would take a host of upsets for these teams to meet again this season.