Not that anyone knew it at the time, but the 2000-01 season marked a sole recent high point for the Milwaukee Bucks, and a real opportunity to make history.
To say the Milwaukee Bucks were being highlighted as a potential NBA Finals contender at the beginning of the 2000-01 season would be untrue, but it would be equally inaccurate to say the strong season they produced came as a complete bolt out of the blue either.
The Bucks laid down their credentials at the end of the previous season by winning 11 of their last 15 games, and then just coming up short of a playoff upset over the Indiana Pacers.
So, although the Bucks may not have been Eastern Conference favorites, at the very least they were viewed as “front-runners for the Central Division title“.
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Those kind of expectations and hopes could easily have disappeared right at the beginning of the year, though, following a 3-9 start to the season which concluded on a run of four consecutive defeats.
That stretch was a moment that would later end up highlighted as a turning point of sorts, at least from George Karl‘s perspective, as relayed in this anecdote from Ira Berkow of the New York Times:
"“Coach George Karl had had it up to here on his thick neck. He called his players irresponsible. He called them selfish. He said they were ‘millionaire crybabies.’And he didn’t say this in private.‘George took them on in the press,’ Ernie Grunfeld, the Bucks’ general manager, recalled today at the team’s practice facility. ‘He challenged them.’Karl was particularly critical of his three stars, forward Glenn Robinson, shooting guard Ray Allen and point guard Sam Cassell.‘I called each of them into my office and had a talk with them,’ Karl said. ‘I told them they weren’t trying to fit in, that they were managing their egos very poorly. I told them they had to trust their teammates.’And their response to him at those meetings?‘Don’t remember,’ Karl said. ‘Wasn’t interested in what they had to say. I wasn’t asking for a response. I was only interested in having them hear what I had to say. Of course, Sam, being a kind of a street guy, had a remark or two. But he listened. It turned out, they all did.'”"
In the bigger picture of what ultimately proved to be a painfully brief burst of success for the Bucks, the problems that later surfaced between Karl and key players could be clearly identified from his handling of that situation. In fact, the coach’s habit of venting to the press was explicitly mentioned by Allen years later when reflecting upon his tenuous relationship with Karl.
Still, whether the motivation Karl’s comments provided the players played out in a different fashion to how he expected or hoped, the team’s record shows that they at least corresponded with a major uptick in form for the Bucks.
From that point on, Milwaukee closed out the calendar year with a record of 13-4 to leave them a couple of games above .500 heading into 2001.
From there, there was no slowing down as the month of January even boasted the Bucks’ season-long win streak, stretching to eight games. Improved consistency allowed Milwaukee to recover from their slow start and begin to live up to preseason expectations. With 56 wins, the Philadelphia 76ers finished the regular season with the best record in the Eastern Conference, but Milwaukee’s 52 wins slotted them in just behind in second place, and delivered a Central Division title.
On the whole, the Bucks boasted tremendous individual talent, but even more important was the way they started to mesh together in the 2000-01 season. Ray Allen, Glenn Robinson and Sam Cassell found a comfortable groove playing alongside each other, where the workload and the limelight were shared as close to evenly as was realistically possible.
Speaking of the dynamic between his stars during the playoffs, Karl told the New York Times:
"“Guys still want more touches, they still want more sets — plays called for them. But they’ll give the ball up when they have to. And the egos are under control.”"
Beyond that, Tim Thomas thrived as a key contributor off the bench, even if he never really blossomed into the player many hoped he would become, while the contributions of veteran role players such as Ervin Johnson, Darvin Ham, Scott Williams, Lindsey Hunter and Jason Caffey were also essential.
That left the Bucks with plenty of confidence heading into the postseason, and that was very much on display in Milwaukee’s first round series with the Orlando Magic. Robbed of Grant Hill for all but four games in the season due to injury, the Magic were left to rely on a rising young star by the name of Tracy McGrady.
Having made his first All-Star appearance a couple of months earlier, McGrady did as much as he could to put it up to the Bucks, averaging 33.8 points, 8.3 assists, 6.5 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 1.3 blocks per game.
Still, the talent gap proved telling between the two teams as the Bucks advanced in four games, with the only game they lost coming in overtime following Allen’s game-tying poster on McGrady.
Moving on from the first round, the second round series didn’t force the Bucks to deal with an individual talent of McGrady’s caliber, but instead a much more well-rounded team in the form of the Charlotte Hornets.
Jamal Mashburn and David Wesley had been the driving forces behind the Hornets’ 46-win regular season, yet as the playoffs arrived a 21-year-old Baron Davis also began to come to the fore.
The first four games of the series led to wins for the home team, boiling it down to a best-of-three matchup with the Bucks holding homecourt advantage. A Game 5 loss at the Bradley Center could easily have pushed the Bucks over the edge, but to their credit they instantly took back home advantage with a 104-97 road win in Game 6.
From there, Milwaukee closed out a highly competitive Game 7 in front of a raucous Bradley Center crowd with both Allen and Robinson falling just short of 30 points apiece in sealing their team’s place in the Conference Finals.
The moment was particularly special to Robinson, who had been a Buck since being selected with the first overall pick in 1994. As he explained to Ian Thomsen of Sports Illustrated in the aftermath of that game:
"“I’ve looked at Jordan, Magic and Bird, knowing they played their whole careers for one team. They took their team to the next level, and that’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”"
Even set to play the top-seeded 76ers, the excitement was obvious for the first Bucks team to make the Conference Finals in 15 years, and a group who were one series away from being Milwaukee’s first team to make The Finals since 1974.
The gritty, physical and often defense-centric series that followed certainly gave the Bucks every opportunity to make that a reality too.
After an eight-point loss in Game 1, the Bucks picked up a crucial 14-point win on the road in Game 2 to steal control of the series and essentially take control of their own destiny. Following that up with a home win in Game 3 only further fueled confidence, before a tough 89-83 loss in Game 4 restored parity for the Sixers once again.
A heartbreaking single-point loss in Game 5 left the Bucks up against the wall needing to win the final two games to keep their season alive, and against that backdrop, Game 6 was really where the drama started in a series that continues to generate heated debate close to two decades later.
The Bucks delivered a commanding performance in front of their home fans to get the required win, but an incident from early in that game proved to be significant in what was to follow too.
After a fast start to the game, an undoubtedly over-exuberant Scott Williams caught Allen Iverson with an elbow, and was ultimately assessed a flagrant-1 foul. In the days that followed, preceding a decisive Game 7, the NBA opted to upgrade the incident to a flagrant-2 foul, which based on the points accrual system operating at the time triggered a suspension.
For a group of players, and a fanbase, who had already felt wronged by the officials throughout the series, this acted as the final straw. Williams may not have been a star, but he was a key cog in Milwaukee’s rotation who missed the most important game the franchise had seen in over 25 years due to an arbitrary judgement.
Prior to Williams’ suspension, Allen had already suggested a potential pro-Philadelphia agenda in the media following Game 6. Speaking to the Associated Press, Allen cited the reactions of Commissioner David Stern to certain moments in the series, as well as technical and flagrant fouls assessed to the team in Game 5 as evidence of something approaching a conspiracy.
"“The league, as a marketing machine, the bottom line is about making money. It behooves everybody for the league to make more money, and the league knows that Philadelphia is going to make more money with L.A. than we would with L.A.”"
Karl also shared with the press that he had received calls from three other NBA head coaches on the subject following Game 5.
Regardless of any potential conspiracy, the Bucks were blown away by a dominant one-two punch from Iverson and Dikembe Mutombo in Game 7, which sent the Bucks home and the Sixers on to a Finals matchup with the Lakers.
The strange and heartbreaking circumstances that surrounded the end of that series ensured it was one that would long stick in the throat of Bucks fans, yet even just as painful is how close the Bucks were in 2001, and then how quickly everything fell apart soon after.