Jimmy Butler celebrates the Miami Heat's qualification for the Eastern Conference semifinals (from Miami's official website)
10 minutes to the end of the last quarter against Miami, Milwaukee led by 16 and seemed on the sure path to a victory that forced a sixth game against Miami.
But then all the Bucks' ills were exposed at once: Yannis' penalty problem, Mike Budenholzer's scattered game management, the insufficient range in the standing offense, and on and on.
It ended in what was defined in the United States as "suffocation on a historic scale", and in the Heat's 126:128 victory after overtime that gave them an amazing 1:4 victory in the series and an unexpected meeting with the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Antetokounmpo finished an impressive game on the one hand, but also with warning signs on the other.
38 points and 20 rebounds on the one hand, but also only 10 of 23 from the penalty box, which showed again that the Achilles heel that has accompanied him throughout his career still exists.
In addition, Yanis recorded 7 turnovers, and in the decisive minutes in the last quarter and in overtime, he was unable to stop the deterioration.
Milwaukee was marked by the commentators and also in the betting agencies as the favorite to win the championship after finishing the season in first place in the East and looking dominant and threatening in the last stretch of the regular season, but in the moment of truth it did not live up to expectations.
Is it a failure?
When Yannis was asked about it, he provided a response speech that went viral.
"You get a promotion every year? No, right? So is a year in which you don't get a promotion a year in which you fail at work?", Yanis answered one of the reporters who asked him the question.
"I don't think we failed, I think we took a few more steps on the road to success. There are always steps on the road to success. Michael Jordan played for 15 years, he won 6 championships, were the 9 years he didn't win a championship a failure? So why do you ask? me this question? In sports there are no failures, there are bad days and good days, there are times when you succeed and there are times when you don't, sometimes it's your turn and sometimes it's someone else's turn. That's exactly what's beautiful about sports, you don't always win. This year we didn't do that And another team will come and take a championship, and we will try to come into the next season stronger, try to build good habits, try to play better, try not to have 10 consecutive days of bad basketball in the playoffs, and hope we win the championship. We have already won one championship, we can win more championships In the future, nothing dramatic happened"
"That's how it is in sports, so why are you asking me these questions?".
Yannis (Photo: GettyImages, Stacy Revere)
"I wish I had kept him longer."
Giannis is shocked, Butler and Miami celebrate (Photo: GettyImages, Stacy Revere)
The same question was also addressed to Mike Budenholzer, who received harsh criticism for his game management and the decisions he made in the last minutes.
"The Ringer" reporter Kevin O'Connor wrote that "Budenholzer did a terrible coaching job - he didn't use his timeout in the last period of overtime, didn't leave Brock Lopez on the court in the last period of legal time to protect the ring, he made so many mistakes Tactics, it's unforgivable."
"There are huge expectations from this team. We have an amazing squad, and the owner did everything to strengthen it as much as possible. We tried. We finished the regular season in first place, but all that matters is the playoffs, so of course we are disappointed," Budenholzer explained.
"I wouldn't use the word failure, we don't use it. We are frustrated, we are disappointed, we are in pain. But we believe in this team. I believe in this team."
Giannis declined to directly criticize his coach at the end, but admitted he would have liked to guard Jimmy Butler more during the series.
In most of the minutes, Butler's team was Jaro Holiday, a fine defensive player these days, but he too had trouble stopping Butler's zone.
"Yes, I would like to keep more of Jimmy, but out of respect for the coach, you have to accept his decisions," Giannis said.
"Our best guard was entrusted to him. I had conversations with Jaro, and he knew that whenever he got a little tired, I would take Butler. But Jaro is so competitive, he plays so hard, and he wanted to take that challenge on himself. At the end of the day, I would have preferred and wanted to keep Butler longer in this series."
A unique character in the landscape of the NBA.
Butler (Photo: GettyImages, Stacy Revere)
"Sometimes a psychopath needs psychopaths."
Butler celebrates in front of Jaro Holiday (Photo: GettyImages, Stacy Revere)
But Butler was unstoppable, and the feeling was that it didn't matter who was attached to him in defense, at the right and important moment he would find a way to score.
He finished the game with 42 points, becoming the first Heat player ever to score 40 or more points in two consecutive playoff games, after scoring a career-high 56 points in the previous game.
By the way, with the 98 points he scored in these two games, Butler became the seventh player in NBA history to score 95 or more in two playoff games.
The previous ones were Michael Jordan, Jerry West, Algin Baylor, Rick Barry, Wilt Chamberlain and Kevin Durant.
He finished the series with tremendous averages of 37.6 points, 6 rebounds, 59.7% from the field and 44.3% from three.
"I don't know where my killing instinct comes from. In the moments of truth, I always remember why I do what I do, which is for my children, for my family. I know that if I'm in a competitive enough mode, if I approach each move with the right attitude, then everything will be OK," explained Butler, who scored 6 field baskets in the last quarter compared to only 3 (!) of Milwaukee as a whole.
"Jimmy just amazes me every time. He is competitive on a world level, on a unique level, on a level I have never met in my life," explains his coach Erik Spoelstra.
"A lot of players in this league just play the game. He deserves to win every game. He just speaks a different language. He's desperate, crazy, sometimes psychotic when it comes to wanting to win games, and he'll make everybody on the court feel it. That's why Jimmy is Miami Heat, and Miami Heat is Jimmy. As a club we take the same approach, and apparently sometimes a psychopath needs psychopaths...".
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Miami Heat
Jimmy Butler
Milwaukee Bucks