Milwaukee Bucks Game Preview: April 10 vs Charlotte Hornets
By Ti Windisch
The Milwaukee Bucks can solidify their playoff standing with a win on Monday night in their game against the Charlotte Hornets.
After some drama concerning the Milwaukee Bucks playoff standing in the last week, a big win on Saturday night ensured the Bucks will be participating in the 2017 NBA Playoffs. A series of events over the weekend also essentially slotted Milwaukee into a likely seed.
It will be tough for Milwaukee to catch the Atlanta Hawks and reclaim the fifth seed. Atlanta somehow beat the Cleveland Cavaliers twice in a row and currently has 42 wins. Since the Hawks have the tiebreaker against Milwaukee, the Bucks would have to win their last two games and the Hawks would have to lose out for Milwaukee to steal back the fifth seed.
On the other side of things, the Bucks currently have both a tiebreaker and a better record than the Indiana Pacers and Chicago Bulls. Even if Indiana or Chicago caught the Bucks in record, the Bucks would get the best seed of the teams thanks to their head-to-head records.
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Milwaukee is one game ahead of the Pacers, meaning it would take Indiana winning out and the Bucks losing out for Milwaukee to drop to the seventh seed. The Bulls have already lost 41 games, meaning Chicago can not get a better playoff seed than Milwaukee this postseason.
The only remaining team in playoff contention is the Miami Heat, who have also lost 41 games already this season. If Miami wins out and the Bucks lose out, the Heat would get the better seed since they own the tiebreaker over Milwaukee.
The long and the short of this write-up is that these last two games likely won’t serve to do much more for the Milwaukee Bucks than to let the team get ready for the playoffs. It would take Atlanta losing out or Indiana/Miami winning out for any shift to happen with Milwaukee’s playoff seed, and even that would be dependent on the Bucks record.
With all of that being said, we’ll still look at major keys for both the Bucks and the Charlotte Hornets to win their game on Monday night, even if the results likely won’t impact playoff seeding much. We’ll also check out a Hornet to watch and make score predictions on the game.