Milwaukee Bucks: Revisiting playoff history with the Brooklyn Nets

Milwaukee Bucks sweep Nets in first round series during 1986 NBA Playoffs

It was only a couple of years later where the Bucks met up against the Nets, this time in the first round of the 1986 NBA Playoffs.

The Bucks had written a 57-win campaign under Nelson and alongside the venerable Sidney Moncrief, the likes of Terry Cummings and Paul Pressey continued to come into their own to form their core at that time. New Jersey, meanwhile, were on the downslope of their run during the 1980s and finished the 1985-86 regular season with a 39-43 record, which led them to holding the seventh seed.

Whereas the first series between the Bucks and the Nets was defined by gutsy efforts and close wins all throughout, this time around was far different and ended in an easy sweep in the Bucks’ favor. Milwaukee won the series by a combined 31-point margin to easily dispatch the Nets and set up yet another rematch with their biggest playoff foe during that era in the Philadelphia 76ers.

However, the series came at a cost as Moncrief was increasingly limited due to having suffered a torn muscle in his left foot near the tail end of that series. It set the stage for the tenuous path the Bucks had to go through to finally get past the 76ers in a hard-fought, seven-game series in that year’s Conference Semifinals.

Getting past Philadelphia led the Bucks to meeting up against the Celtics in the Conference Finals and it wasn’t much of a contest from there. The injuries to Moncrief as well as Ricky Pierce proved to be insurmountable for the Bucks to finally reach the NBA Finals under Nelson’s watch and they wouldn’t make it back to the Conference Finals until the 2000-01 season.