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Where 2 underdog rosters fought it out to see who came out on top
The NBA playoffs happen every year, and every year there is one champion. Teams spend millions of dollars and countless hours trying to achieve this because beating all other teams in the most prestigious league in basketball makes you the best of the best. To win the playoffs, teams have to play 82 games (in the regular season) and place amongst the top 8 teams of your conference, either eastern or western. After this, the team needs to win at least 16 games in order to be crowned the champions (the playoffs use the best of 7 game method to eliminate teams). Only after this grueling process of playing at least 98 games can a team call itself the NBA champions.
In the 2021 edition of the playoffs, we saw many changes, with no audiences and many restrictions. Players had to overcome even more hurdles than usual, in and out of the court. This gave an opportunity for some teams that may not have the strongest playoff history to shine. That being the Phoenix Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks. The Sun’s last appearance in the NBA finals was in the 1993 playoffs against the Chicago Bulls, and they have yet to win a championship. While the Bucks last appearance was in the 1974 playoffs following their playoff win in 1971. Needless to say, both these teams have not had great records in the playoffs, but in this latest season the players from this team put their blood, sweat and tears on the court and gave it their all for the championship.
In this 2021 season, the Bucks came out on top, beating the Suns 4-2. The first thing to note is that the Suns held a 2-0 lead in the beginning of the series but once Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks star player returned from an injury from the conference final (the game that decided the teams in the championship final) the Bucks started to click and began winning, and after that, they didn't stop winning until the title was theirs. Of course, it wasn't easy, with games being as close as 109-103. Both teams fought incredibly hard and either team could have taken home the title.
The Bucks did win, and with amazing statistics not only from Giannis, but also from players like Jrue Holiday, Chris Middleton, Bobby portis, and Brook Lopez who helped the Bucks achieve this title, of course, though these players were mostly shadowed by Giannis also known as ‘the Greek freak” who put up amazing statistics best emphasized by hoopshype.com who stated that he averaged “35.2 points, 13.2 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.8 blocks in the Finals this year while shooting 61.8 percent from the floor, making him the first player ever to post a 35/10/5 stat line in the playoffs with plus-60 percent shooting from the floor.” This alone is reason enough for the MVP award he received, but not only did he put up these numbers, he scored an astounding 50 points in the final game of the series with 14 rebounds 5 blocks and 2 assists, cementing him easily as finals MVP. Securing the championship was a big deal to Milwaukee as fans hadn’t seen a win like this in 50 years, which made the victory even sweeter for Giannis and the team. Just the look on his face goes to show how much this meant to him and all of Milwaukee.
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