After two road victories that saw them claim a 3-1 series lead, the Milwaukee Bucks returned to Fiserv Forum last night with a chance to knock the Chicago Bulls out of the postseason.
To start, the Bucks looked like a team that wanted to come out and make a strong first impression as they quickly built up a 15-point lead in the first quarter. Their lead only continued to increase as Milwaukee claimed a 29-point lead in the second quarter, their largest of the game. While Chicago managed to make things somewhat interesting with a spirited run in the third quarter, Milwaukee kept their composure and answered right back with a large run of their own to maintain control.
In the end, the Bucks defeated the Bulls 116-100 to win the series 4-1 and advance to the second round of the 2022 NBA Playoffs, where they will take on the Boston Celtics. However, before we start to discuss that highly-anticipated series, here are three takeaways from the Bucks’ Game 5 win over the Bulls last night.
Jrue Holiday struggled to find his footing throughout the Milwaukee Bucks’ Game 5 matchup, and they will need him to flip the switch before round two
Following his best performance of the series in Game 4, the hope was that Jrue Holiday could build off that outing in this Game 5. However, that was not the case as Holiday struggled with some of his recurring issues throughout this series, which continued to plague him in this matchup.
Offensively, Holiday struggled to find the bottom of the net consistently as he scored 10 points on just 4-of-14 shooting, including a gruesome 1-of-7 from three. Typically, this may spell doom for a Milwaukee team that is already down its second-leading regular season scorer in Khris Middleton, but thankfully, it was an all-around team effort in last night’s victory, which hid some of Holiday’s struggles. Although Holiday did fall just an assist short of notching a double-double with his nine assists, the guard also tallied six turnovers, most of which were simply head-scratching, which is a trend that was all too common throughout this first round series. Yet, despite his struggles on the offensive end, Holiday finished as a +17, tied for the second-highest on the Bucks in Game 5.
Two trends that hindered Holiday throughout this series were his turnovers and his production in the scoring department, both of which were on display in Wednesday’s Game 5 win. As the Bucks prepare to face off against the Celtics, these are two issues that Holiday needs to address, as they will be relying on him heavily with no Middleton in the mix to start. They managed to secure the win last night due to everyone else stepping up, but Holiday must be better with the basketball in his hands in round two against the Celtics