Experts expect Bucks in NBA Finals
You’re hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the Atlanta Hawks can pull the upset over the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Finals. Regardless, for a fan base that hasn’t seen its team reach the NBA Finals since 1974, you can forgive a healthy skepticism.
The Bucks and Hawks will square off at Fiserv Forum at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the first game of the best-of-seven series. Milwaukee will try to advance at least one step further after taking a 2-0 lead in the 2019 conference finals against Toronto, only to fall in six games.
Here’s what experts are saying thus far. Spoiler alert: They love the Bucks’ chances.
CBS Sports
Every single analyst polled on the subject sees Milwaukee prevailing over the Hawks, though none of the eight see the series ending sooner than five games.
James Herbert is one of two who believes the series will go the full seven, pointing out that Milwaukee’s depth isn’t necessarily a strength.
Milwaukee started its second-round series against Brooklyn terribly, then, eventually, worked some things out. In the end, the Bucks won … but at what cost? They’re coming off a brutal series made all the more taxing by the fact that this is the most top-heavy of the four conference finalists, particularly with Donte DiVincenzo sidelined. Milwaukee is rightfully the favorite because it employs Giannis Antetokounmpo and it can put Jrue Holiday on Trae Young, but I came close to picking the the Hawks because of their depth, their playmaking and their shooting.
From Colin Ward-Henninger, who also sees the series going the distance.
Atlanta’s defense is underrated and Milwaukee’s occasional offensive droughts are well documented, so I think this will be a closer series than it might appear on paper. The Hawks have played with nothing to lose all postseason, and now the Bucks have everything to lose as the presumptive favorite to make the Finals. I trust Trae Young in close games, and there should be plenty of them on this series. Ultimately, however, the Bucks should pull it out with a Game 7 win at home.
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SI.com
We found someone picking the Hawks! Michael Pina does, in fact, think Atlanta will win in seven, though his five SI.com colleagues all take the Bucks.
I don’t have a ton of confidence in this Hawks pick, but the Bucks might be too thin to survive another injury. And based on how the playoffs have gone for every team, that’s a looming x-factor.
From Michael Shapiro, who chooses the Bucks to win in five games.
Clint Capela could provide some deterrence at the rim against Giannis Antetokounmpo, but I have a hard time seeing Atlanta advance here. Milwaukee is far more functional in crunch time than Philadelphia, and perhaps the win over Brooklyn will relieve the pressure surrounding Giannis & Co. After a grueling Eastern Conference semifinals, this series should be little more than a tune-up for the Finals.
NBA.com
Steve Aschburner breaks down the series and concludes the Bucks will win in 5.
Young has been one of the 2021 postseason’s breakout stars, grabbing the NBA spotlight that burns so bright at this time of year to make himself, at 22, a “gate attraction” (do folks still use that term?) and the first priority for opponents game-planning against the Hawks. Atlanta’s transformation after Nate McMillan took over at the start of March for fired coach Lloyd Pierce, from 14-20 to 27-11 plus 8-4 so far in the playoffs, has been remarkable. But — and you knew it was coming, right? — Milwaukee has the edge in experience, the series’ biggest star in Antetokounmpo and, if you picked teams playground-style, three of the top four picks. The Bucks had their hands full against Kevin Durant but survived, and now they’ve got home court.
DraftKings
Perhaps DraftKings is not the place to consult for team evaluations as a service that built its brand on daily fantasy sports, but for what it’s worth, Erik Buchinger thinks the Bucks will win.
Milwaukee has too much going for them to not find a way to come away with a series victory, and that is reflected in these odds. The Bucks have an effective scoring combination with Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, while the Hawks seem to be a one-man show with Trae Young, who averages 29.1 points per game in this postseason. Nobody else on the roster averages 14 points or higher, and that will be an in issue at this stage of the playoffs.
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ESPN.com
ESPN doesn’t have a prediction yet, but it did ask which NBA player was the “MVP of the conference semifinals,” and ranked Giannis Antetokounmpo third on that list, behind Chris Paul of the Suns and Kevin Durant of the Nets.
Tim Bontemps wrote the entry on Giannis:
But when Antetokounmpo is aggressive and in attack mode — he was in Games 6 and 7 — the Nets had no answer for him. In those moments, he’s unstoppable, making his occasional penchant for settling for those jumpers all the more maddening.
This series, though, saw far more good than bad for Antetokounmpo and the Bucks. As a result, the two-time MVP is halfway to achieving the Bucks’ ultimate goal.
The Ringer
No prediction yet, but The Ringer’s Rob Mahoney asks how in the world the Hawks got past the 76ers to reach this point while giving insight as to how the Hawks could become a problem.
Enough tension can build over the course of a single competitive series to send an entire organization into a spiral. To simply withstand it is an achievement, and to prevail in a pressure-cooker Game 7 against one of the best players in the world and the top-seeded team in the conference is a true brush with greatness. Just to get this far took a level of guile, resolve, and absolute focus we couldn’t have known the Hawks had in them until now. This was the youngest team in the second round. Now it’s one of the NBA’s final four, a few good weeks away from taking the Larry O’Brien Trophy for themselves. The message the fifth-seeded Hawks send by dispatching the Sixers and making it to the Eastern Conference Finals isn’t that they will unfailingly reach this stage every year as their core develops, but that they undeniably could.
JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.
