Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks were a couple of wins from beating Toronto. The Philadelphia 76ers were maybe a couple of bounces from doing it a round earlier.
Neither team was good enough to finish the job last season, but both think this is their time after Kawhi Leonard went back to the Western Conference.
That left the NBA champions weakened and the Bucks and 76ers looking like the favorites to represent the East in the NBA Finals—where perhaps they’d have to deal with Leonard again.
The Bucks appeared headed there in 2018-19, right up until midway through the East finals. Milwaukee had the league’s best record at 60-22, with Antetokounmpo eventually winning MVP and Mike Budenholzer the coach of the year. But the Bucks couldn’t get another victory after taking a 2-0 lead over the Raptors, who won the next four games to reach the finals.
The Bucks think they addressed some of their weaknesses and are ready to take another run at it.
“I think everybody on this team wants to show that last year wasn’t just, you know, a year by accident that we just won 60 games,” Antetokounmpo said. “I think we had a great team. We got better, but obviously there’s going to be a lot of teams that expect us. They know us now and they’re going to play hard.”
It took Leonard’s shot that bounced on the rim four times before falling in at the buzzer in Game 7 to knock out Philadelphia in the second round. The 76ers come back with Al Horford and Josh Richardson but without Jimmy Butler or JJ Redick, hoping they’ve given coach Brett Brown the right mix around All-Stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.
“We know what the expectations are and we embrace it. It’s not just Brett, it’s all of us,” general manager Elton Brand said. “We’re in that position now where just getting to the first round, getting to the second round, those expectations are gone. We’re expected to win big and we embrace it.”
Leonard went to the Los Angeles Clippers, but the Raptors still have Marc Gasol and Pascal Siakam in their frontcourt that finally slowed down Antetokounmpo. He knows there will be many more teams gearing up to do the same starting next week.
“We’ve just got to be ready,” he said. “They’re not going to give us nothing. We’ve got to go out there and take everything that we want and we’ve got to earn everything that we’ve got to earn this year.” —AP