March 6, 2020, Los Angeles, CA, USA: LOS ANGELES, CA - MARCH 06: Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo 34 warms up before the Milwaukee Bucks vs Los Angeles Lakers game on March 06, 2020, at Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA. /Icon Sportswire Los Angeles USA - ZUMAi88 20200306zafi88079 Copyright: xJevonexMoorex
The Milwaukee Bucks defeated The Phoenix Suns in the 2021 NBA Finals
The NBA Finals in 2020-21 have been some of the most exciting, with the games between the Phoenix Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks demonstrating an intense rivalry and capacity for play that has given fans the type of competition that they have been aching for all along.
If anything, the Bucks opened the series slowly, succumbing to the Suns twice, with Phoenix posting 118 points in both Game 1 and Game 2 against the Bucks’ 105 and 108, respectively. This quickly changed in Game 3 with the Bucks blazing ahead of Phoenix with 120 to 100, and then in Game 4, we saw the Bucks and Suns struggle in a never-biting game that saw the Bucks win once again, with 109 to 103.
Game 5 was equally exciting, proving a lot of fun and, if you are a Suns fan, a little disappointing. While Phoenix comes very close to securing it, the team ultimately slipped and let Milwaukee get away with 123 to 119.
It has all been great basketball to behold, and we can’t complain about the series in the slightest. If you live in Pennsylvania and love to bet, you have probably been perusing the available markets at BetMGM PA, looking to find a key to the series. Well, while getting the odds and bets right in such contested series is usually very hard, finding a few key takeaways after the games usually isn’t.
Watching Antetokounmpo do his best has been an inspiration, and if anything, there is a generation of players who will want to be like him and pursue a career in the NBA. Yet, the young Bucks’ ace did run into some trouble during Game 4 and Game 5, missing on fairly a few points, including some fouls.
While you may chalk this up to distraction, the truth is that Giannis has been under immense pressure to deliver. According to Mike Budenholzer, Giannis has missed as many as 27 clear shots in the series, giving the Phoenix Suns some leeway.
However, the term “missed” does a disservice to both the player himself and the Suns, who have been pressuring Giannis a lot. And it shows as he has clearly been cornered on more than one occasion, unable to deliver.
The important thing, though, is that he didn’t disappoint fans where it mattered and led the team to enough victories over the series.
The Suns have run into some issues of their own, with the team declining from its first games significantly and posting a much smaller accuracy and shooting success rate – around 51% compared to 68% in game one. That is natural progress given the fact that Phoenix is not just trying to score but reign in a resurgent Milwaukee, which seems to be pushing back.
Sure, the Suns have been able to corner Giannis near the foul line, and that puts him in a very difficult position as he’s used to having more space to play around with opponents, but in this case, Milwaukee has done what it should have been doing much earlier – exploit the Suns’ focus on Giannis and just let the rest imply pressure.
Game 5 was indicative of how Phoenix has figured out that it’s putting its eggs in the wrong basket, and it almost caught up to the Bucks but couldn’t shake off the focus-on-Giannis mentality soon enough.
For all intents and purposes, the 2021 NBA Finals should be considered as some of the most compelling end-of-season games that have taken place in the past 20 years, and that is indeed the case.
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