5 most anticipated games for the Milwaukee Bucks post All-Star break
Here we are, folks. After a long and arduous journey of a 2021-22 season, we’re in the home stretch with the Milwaukee Bucks‘ final 22 games after the All-Star break.
They have the hardest remaining schedule which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s nice that the defending champs will be tested many times down the stretch and can get themselves ready for the playoffs. It’s a curse because, well, there are a lot of tough games coming up!
It’s been a tough year, but there’s still plenty of reasons to be optimistic heading into the final stretch of the regular season.
It’s relatively balanced with 10 home games and 12 on the road. There are only three sets of back-to-backs, so that’s nice, but there are a lot of playoff teams. 14 of their 22 final games are against teams in a top-six seed in their conference (so above the play-in) and it rises to 18 when you include play-in teams. There are going to be a lot of highly anticipated matchups, but I’ve picked out five that I’m most looking forward to.
5 most anticipated Milwaukee Bucks games down the stretch: March 2nd vs. Miami Heat
This will be the final game of the Bucks’ season series with the Miami Heat and it comes early out of the break. They’ve gone 1-2 against the Heat this season with the home team winning each game and this game could certainly have tiebreaker implications.
The Bucks are only 2.5 games out of first place coming out of the break and if they care at all about their seed and home-court advantage, this will be a big game for trying to jump up in the standings.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point, but the Bucks won’t be at full strength for this one. Pat Connaughton will still be out as he recovers from surgery on a broken finger, it would be a surprise to see Brook Lopez back, and there’s still uncertainty around George Hill. That means the burden will be even greater on the shoulders of the big three (it always is, to be honest) to beat one of the teams vying to be the favorites in the East.
Miami should have almost all of their stars available and have been fantastic at full strength, so this will be an early test down the stretch for the defending champs.