Behind the Bucks Pass
Fansided

Milwaukee Bucks: Imagining a documentary on the early 2000s Bucks

By Jordan Treske

PHILADELPHIA, : Glen Robinson (R) and Sam Cassell (L) of the Milwaukee Bucks rest on the bench during their game against the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA Eastern Conference finals game seven 03 June 2001 at the First Union Center in Philadelphia. AFP PHOTO/Jeff HAYNES (Photo credit should read JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, : Glen Robinson (R) and Sam Cassell (L) of the Milwaukee Bucks rest on the bench during their game against the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA Eastern Conference finals game seven 03 June 2001 at the First Union Center in Philadelphia. AFP PHOTO/Jeff HAYNES (Photo credit should read JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty Images) /
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06 June 2001. (Photo credit: JEFF HAYNES/AFP via Getty Images) /

Where they were in their run

Playoff heartbreak was nothing new for this Bucks squad going into the 2001-02 season.

During the 1999-2000 season, the first full year in which the Bucks’ ‘Big 3’ were in charge, they took the eventual Eastern Conference champs, the Indiana Pacers, full tilt in a five-game first round series that was decided by a Travis Best triple with 16 seconds to go in the decisive Game 5.

Of course, the Bucks had battled to come within a game of reaching the 2001 NBA Finals the previous season. As much as the memories of that defeat still remain bitter and painful to this day, there was plenty of hope about where the Bucks were and what they could become.

After all, they had finally shed their 13-year playoff series victory drought during that run and had an established core between a 25-year-old Ray Allen, 32-year-old Sam Cassell and 29-year-old Glenn Robinson, all of whom were under contract for multiple seasons too.

The same applied to Karl who, near the end of the 00-01 season, signed a two-year contract extension that not only made him the highest-paid coach in all four major sports at the time, but included a one-percent ownership stake in the Bucks.

With Karl pulling the strings and Allen, Cassell, and Robinson playing off each other wonderfully, the Bucks stood as the most lethal offensive team in the 2000-01 season as they finished with the highest offensive rating of any team, per Basketball-Reference.com.

There was no questioning the firepower they had in their three most talented players, but it was certainly a different style and set up than the defensive-minded Karl had been used to previously with the Seattle SuperSonics throughout the 1990s. That, of course, propelled them to the Conference Finals and the 76ers in a classic and controversial seven-game series that saw the Bucks fall in a 108-91 Game 7 defeat on June 3, 2001.

As much as the controversy of outside factors still remains fodder for die-hard NBA fans to this day, many people envisioned the Bucks taking the next step and standing tall as a titan in the Eastern Conference the following season and beyond. But as fate would have it, that was far from the case.

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