The Milwaukee Bucks are hours away from a pivotal Game 5 in their Eastern Conference Semifinals series with the Brooklyn Nets.
Milwaukee has already dug themselves out of the massive hole they dug themselves into to start the series. Now they’re back in Brooklyn where they’ve yet to win a game and have endured some of their worst offensive performances on the season. However, the Nets are now really reeling with the seismic injuries suffered to both James Harden and Kyrie Irving throughout this series, though Harden is reportedly planning to play Game 5, per Shams Charania of The Athletic.
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No matter the circumstances, the pressure is on the Bucks to sustain the series-changing swing they’ve put in motion going into this pivotal Game 5.
To say the Bucks are in uncharted waters may be a little far-fetched, but it’s been historically hard for teams to climb out of a 2-0 hole in a playoff series. Per Land of Basketball, only 28 teams in NBA history have climbed out of a 2-0 hole and have eventually ended up winning a series.
Of course, that factoid is very relevant to the Bucks as they serve as a recent example of a team holding a 2-0 lead in a series and ended up collapsing against the Toronto Raptors in the 2019 Eastern Conference Finals.
The Milwaukee Bucks have a checkered past in past Game 5s in playoff series
Throughout franchise history, the Bucks are 18-18 when they’ve played in a Game 5, regardless of whether that’s a best-of-five or best-of-seven series. When tied 2-2 in a series, the Bucks are 7-9 in Game 5 and even that factoid is riddled with some irregularities.
The last time the Bucks won a Game 5 in a best-of-seven series was during the 1986 Eastern Conference Semifinals when Milwaukee finally got over the hump against the Philadelphia 76ers.
Since then, the Bucks have both won a Game 5 in a seven-game series they went on to drop as they did in their 2010 first round series against the Atlanta Hawks. Conversely, the Bucks have also lost a Game 5 in a series that they went on to win when they came back to vault past the Charlotte Hornets during their run to the 2001 Eastern Conference Finals.
The importance of winning Game 5 in a seven-game series can’t be understated. On the eve of the 2018 NBA Playoffs, the NBA released the fact that teams that have won Game 5 in a seven-game series have gone to won said series 82 percent of the time.
While that is a little dated by now, the Bucks have had plenty of heartbreak when playing in past Game 5s. Whether it was Glenn Robinson’s jumper rattling out against the 76ers in Game 5 of the 2001 Conference Finals or falling apart late against the Raptors in the 2019 Conference Finals, the Bucks have plenty of ghosts from past Game 5s that fans will surely hang on to until they can reverse course.
The organization is surely holding on to that too as the outcome of Tuesday night’s game will surely impact the future of head coach Mike Budenholzer, who is clearly on the hot seat this postseason.
The fact that the Bucks have battled back to even up this series is certainly admirable, but their job is far from finished at this stage, even with the injuries mounting for Brooklyn. Not only is the future on the line for the Bucks, but given their recent playoff downfalls, the past is in the back of all Bucks fans’ minds going into Game 5 against the Nets.