Editor’s Note: With the playoffs in full swing, we’ve brought back “Series of the Week” to supplant the “Games of the Week” feature. These will be extended weekly discussions on a particular team, player, theme or topic from a playoff series happening on a high-priced cable network near you. First up: the eighth-seeded Milwaukee Bucks versus the defending champion Miami Heat.
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While every playoff team is unique — a particular collection of individuals, motivated by different things, pursuing different goals, wrapping up at different end-points — it is possible to draw some broad strokes, and place labels on some of the general models that we see. For the purposes of this conversation, we won’t dwell on the great teams; the 60+ win behemoths who, if they don’t win it all, make a deep, purposeful run into their 28-game tournament, and look dominant regardless of whether they win or lose. We also won’t focus on the wide midsection of the NBA’s final 16; the 46-52 winners that’ll scrap and claw for a round or two before succumbing to a superior opponent, the result of not having a transcendent player, or posessing a fatal flaw that a more enterprising team can take advantage. They’ll get their day eventually, and for now it’s enough to simply watch them play out their first round series.
Instead, I implore you to look closer at the subaltern teams; the bottom-seeded squads that make the playoffs simply because somebody has to round out the final seed. In the NBA postseason caste system, these teams are the untouchables, situated permanently at the bottom of the hierarchy, used simply and generally as stools for more fortunate and endowed franchises to stand upon. While some become memorable and rise to new heights — the 1995 Nuggets, 1999 Knicks, 2007 Warriors and 2011 Grizzlies come readily to mind — most are just anonymous members spinning around an eternally revolving door. And though there have been more exceptions to the rule, they have been exceptions: the one-seed dispatches the eighth-seed.
Now, not every untouchable is the same. There are marked differences between the conferences; huge gulfs of quality that play themselves out in the win-loss columns. Out West, the battle for eighth is almost a mini-playoff series within itself. For the better part of a month, the Utah Jazz and the Los Angeles Lakers battled for a chance to finish eighth, and become chewing gum for either the Thunder and Spurs to unwrap and pop into their foreboding mouths. Additionally, it has taken near to (or exactly) 50 wins to even finish in the top eight out West in many previous years. Those teams are not untouchables; the ones that would finish in the top 4 (or even top 3) in the Eastern conference. Those teams are hampered by circumstance and must perform near the top of their abilities to even have a chance to compete for a championship. It is not fair to label them as an untouchable; as an undesired.
The Milwaukee Bucks, however, are untouchable and are undesired. Every few years, typically out East, a team makes the playoffs simply because somebody has to round out the tournament. This year, that team is the Bucks. They join teams like the 1985-1986 Bulls (30-52) and the 2010 Pacers (37-45) who, even though their record screams “lottery”, they’re somehow standing alongside the other seven best teams in the conference, a draft day wolf in playoff sheep’s clothing. The Bucks went 38-44 over the course of an 82 game season, featuring middle-of-the-road sprint-and-chuck offenses and generally porous, ineffective defenses. They brought back on of the ugliest uniforms in NBA history for a large part of the season (thus covering up the fact that they hadn’t changed their uniforms since the late 1990s), and made one of the only trades at the deadline to pick up yet another combo guard to compete for minutes in their already crowded backcourt. The team shuffled through anonymous head coaches (10 points if you can name who their head coach was at the beginning of the season, 20 if you can name who their interim is right now), and barely got any national airtime before Sunday afternoon. The only thing separating the Bucks from the Sixers, Pistons, Wizards and Raptors was that they were the best of the worst; the least abhorrent choice on a buffet table full of pizza crusts and chickpea slop.
As an untouchable, life is distinctly difficult. At best, one wants to just get through the first round having saved face. No one is expecting a We Believe-esque upset in this case, especially against the Miami Heat. The Heat, of course, cemented themselves as one of the finest regular season teams of all time, boasting a 27 game win streak and the best statistical season ever from a soon-to-be four-time MVP. While many analysts breathlessly hyped up the NBA’s new parity, the first weekend of playoff basketball produced a series of forgettable game ones, filled with 20+ point blowouts and bored-sounding national announcers spinning loosely-wound narratives all leading to a Heat-Thunder conclusion.
The goal of the Bucks will be to give us something to remember; something to touch. It is not their job to win the NBA championship. It is not even their job to win a series. Their job is to give us a set of poignant memories; small landmarks to remember and smile on the way to the big prize at the end of the journey. The 1985-86 first round series between the 67-15 Boston Celtics and the 30-52 Chicago Bulls isn’t remembered for the three game sweep achieved by the C’s. Instead, people remember Michael Jordan’s 63 at the Garden in Game 2, when Larry Bird exclaimed that Jordan was “God in disguise”. To a much lesser extent, few remember the details of the 2011 first round series between the 62-20 Bulls and the 37-45 Pacers, except that the Pacers showed up in game one of the series feeling ready to pop the Bulls in the mouth. Though the better team won in six games, the brashness of the Pacers, who jostled and elbowed alongside the vastly superior Bulls, was the most lasting impression from that anonymous opening series. In both cases, the subaltern team made their foes squirm with anxiousness, and delighted the fans at the same time. Now, it’s Milwaukee’s turn.
The opening salvo hasn’t been auspicious. The Bucks were blown out in Game One after hanging around for most of the first three quarters. The Heat’s Big Three looked as invincible as ever, with LeBron nearly snagging a triple double while seemingly operating in “coast” mode. The Bucks looked overmatched and jittery; almost as if they were looking for the Sixers, Raptors or Wizards to switch places with them and take the nationally-televised beat-down they were suffering. They were looking less like a roadblock and more like an inclined ramp, helping a large vehicle climb a sharp cliff. There wasn’t much glory in being the 38-44 Bucks, who were starting their strange playoff journey down 0-1.
Here’s to hoping that can change. Here’s to hoping that the Bucks three-headed scoring machine of Brandon Jennings, Monta Ellis and JJ Reddick can set up roots outside the line, and rain three balls on the Three Amigos. Here’s to hoping that the length of Larry Sanders, John Henson and Luc Mbah a Moute can harass the Heat’s players just enough to create a few more misses, and give the Deer a chance to run free. Here’s to hoping that Mike Dunleavy Jr., a player most had forgotten about until they saw him on television this past weekend, reintroduces himself to people who may not have seen him since he won a title with Duke in 2001, over 12 years ago. Here’s to the destruction of the caste system, the raising of the Untouchable, the meek inheriting the Earth. Here’s to the unlikely.
Here’s to hoping that, for at least brief moments over the next week or so, we can legitimately fear the deer.
