Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving on both sides. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday on another side.
Three prior MVPs. Seven NBA scoring titles. Both highest-scoring teams in the league.
Brooklyn against Milwaukee is just a second-round series. Yet with all this ability, there’s a small bit of a NBA Finals feel.
“I think it’s meant for a whole lot of the best players in the league to move up against one another and show why we are who we are,” Irving said.
The teams played three thrillers during the regular season and Brooklyn coach Steve Nash explained the potential is there for this Eastern Conference semifinal between the No. 2-seeded Nets and No. 3 Bucks for a classic.
“We will see how it plays out, but they’re playing as well as any team in the league right now. We have the talent to match virtually any team in the league and it is just a matter of who performs, who has that grit and endurance to try to get ahead in the show and see how the other team reacts,” Nash explained.
“Definitely on paper you could see this being a classic series, but let us see who brings it and who gets the rhythm and timing and performances which are ”
Game 1 is Saturday night in Brooklyn, with the two teams rested and prepared after cruising through the first round. Milwaukee withdrew Miami at a sweep that emphatically avenged its second-round ouster a year ago. The one thing stopping the Nets from a sweep of their own was Jayson Tatum’s 50-point outburst in Game 3 at Boston.
Plenty of guys can opt for 50 in this set.
Antetokounmpo, the two-time NBA MVP, nearly failed against Brooklyn on May 2, pouring in 49 to outduel Durant, who had 42, in the Bucks’ 117-114 success. Milwaukee won two nights later, 124-118, to sweep the two-game place that Harden missed injury.
He made it back for the playoffs and Brooklyn’s Big Three combined to 85.2 points per game against Boston, including 104 in Game 4 to match the maximum total for a trio in NBA postseason history.
Milwaukee has good defenders, with Antetokounmpo the defensive player of the year last year and Holiday long considered one of the league’s best defensive guards. But nobody is even pretending this series is going to be won with ceases, not with the Bucks averaging 120.1 points to Brooklyn’s 118.6 — even though only eight games with Durant, Harden and Irving — throughout the regular season.
“They have three of their best scorers of all time in their own team,” Milwaukee’s P.J. Tucker said. “They’re going to score a bunch of points, we understand that, but we have just got to make it as hard as possible. We have got to make them work, earn every single point, nothing easy and whatever happens, happens. But we are going to go battle and compete. Blood, sweat, tears. Leave it all on the floor.”
