After a walk in the park for both the Miami Heat and the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, the two will meet head-on in the Eastern Conference semifinals. Will Giannis Antetokounmpo lead his team to a Game 1 win on Monday? Or will the Heat give the Bucks another series-opening loss? Check out our preview of this game below.
After brushing aside the Indiana Pacers in the first round, the Heat have all the confidence in the world as they prepare for a huge challenge in the form of the Bucks. The Heat have done well this season against Giannis Antetokounmpo and company, winning two of three meetings back in the regular season. Their last win over Milwaukee was via a 105-89 on Mar. 2 at home. Jimmy Butler shined in that game together with Bam Adebayo, with the former scoring 18 points and the latter coming up with 14 points, 13 rebounds, five assists, and three blocks. Adebayo could very well be the most important player for the Heat in the second round. Adebayo has shown in the past that he’s capable of slowing down reigning the reigning league MVP. In the aforementioned meeting between these two teams, Antetokounmpo only scored 13 points on 6-of-18 shooting from the field, and a lot of his struggles were because of Adebayo’s presence. Miami’s defense allowed just 100.8 points per game in the Pacers series.
The Heat are 4-0 against the spread in their last four games.
Aside from a series-opener loss to the Orlando Magic, the Bucks never found themselves in trouble in the first round of the playoffs. As expected, Antetokounmpo paced the Bucks, averaging 30.6 points on 59 percent shooting from the field in the series. Steamrolling the Magic was what many expected the Bucks to do. Milwaukee is still the favorite to win the series in the second round, but this is the time for Khris Middleton to show that his first-round jitters were merely an anomaly. Middleton scored just 15.0 points per game on 36.1 percent shooting from the field against Orlando. Antetokoumpo and Middleton are the Bucks’ 1-2 punch combo, and the team’s fate is largely pinned on how well those two would play. Antetokoumpo averaged 25.0 points in three games against the Heat in the regular season, while Middleton produced 23.3 in those contests. The duo combined for 66 points when the Bucks defeated the Heat in the bubble earlier this month, 130-116, to clinch the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.
The Bucks are 4-0 against the spread in their last four games.
