With the NBA resuming soon, the Milwaukee Bucks still remain as one of the top favorites to take home the title. Led by MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo, they are the top seed in the Eastern Conference for the second year in a row.

Despite them being a dominant team in the regular season, Kendrick Perkins led a discussion (2:50 onwards) on how no one fears the deer on ESPN’s The Jump. “Teams respect Giannis and the Milwaukee Bucks. But no one fears the deer. They don’t because we’ve seen this before. We’ve seen the Bucks dominate the regular season. We’ve watched them get beat 2 years ago by the Boston Celtics and last year to the Toronto Raptors.” 

Milwaukee Bucks need postseason credibility

Perkins continued by saying, “So we’ve seen this before. The Bucks go on this great regular season run and all of a sudden when it’s the playoffs, teams are ready for them. The Celtics, Raptors, and even the Heat don’t fear the Bucks.”

After two consecutive first-round crashes, the Bucks managed to get to the Conference Finals last year. They won the first two games, but then the Raptors won four on the trot to send the Bucks home. This inability to convert the regular-season success into postseason success is a challenge for Mike Budenholzer and the Bucks.

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However, coach Budenholzer says that they’ve learned from the past and have moved on from it.  “Sure, we’ve talked about what happened last season. We haven’t run from it, whether it was watching something on film, or going over what we could have done differently,” he told ESPN. “But we’ve learned from it and moved on.”

Giannis has been leading the Bucks, but his teammates have also stepped up this year. Khris Middleton is having a career year averaging 21.1 points, 4.1 assists, and 6.2 rebounds. He’s shooting a staggering 41% from three and is 0.001% away in his FG from making the 50/40/90 club. Brook Lopez, on the other hand, is having a stellar defensive season and has had shouts for an All-Defensive team.

With Giannis fully fit after suffering a knee injury back in March, the Bucks will be raring to go. The potentially two-time MVP will be under the most pressure to replicate his regular-season form into the playoffs. They will be looking to win a championship for the first time in almost five decades.