Milwaukee Bucks: Sorting through 3 first round matchups ahead of final weekend
Heading into the final weekend of the 2020-21 regular season, the Milwaukee Bucks are still unsure of what their playoff path will look like.
Following their 142-133 victory over the Indiana Pacers Thursday night, the Bucks are at 45-25 on the year, which is good for third place in the East. Although they hold the tiebreaker over the second-seeded Brooklyn Nets, the Bucks are a full game back of the Nets with both teams having two games left this season.
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Yes, there’s a slim opportunity for the Bucks to leapfrog the Nets in terms of seeding, but is solely based on Brooklyn slipping up at this point. With games against the Brooklyn Nets and the Cleveland Cavaliers, that’s not a likely outcome, at least on paper.
While that’s going on, the playoff picture in the middle of the East is quite muddled as far as who the Bucks could face going into the start of the playoffs.
So without further ado, let’s scope out the potential first round matchups that the Milwaukee Bucks going into the start of their playoff run.
Milwaukee Bucks could face off against the Miami Heat in the first round of the playoffs
Going into the final weekend of the regular season, all Bucks fans are bracing for the prospect that Milwaukee could once again face the Miami Heat in the playoffs for the second straight year.
Per Basketball-Reference’s playoff probabilities report, the Heat have a 47 percent chance of finishing with the sixth seed going into Friday night’s games. This also comes on the eve of the Bucks wrapping up their season series with the Heat Saturday night at Fiserv Forum, which only heightens the implications going into this pivotal weekend.
After having battled through plenty of adversity this season, the Heat have found their form late into the season as they’re on a four-game winning streak and are 8-2 in their last 10 games.
While they aren’t the same Heat team that surged their way to the 2020 NBA Finals down in the bubble, Miami still has much of the same structure and pieces that dismantled the Bucks in last year’s Eastern Conference Semifinals.
Needless to say, the Bucks would face their playoff ghosts head-on if they were to meet the Heat in the playoffs and Saturday’s clash will have a direct impact on whether that will come to fruition.