With Game 4 in the books and the series tied up it is anyones to take. It is now a best of three series between the Suns and the Bucks for the NBA Finals. In game 1 and 2 everything seemed to be going the Sun’s way. In game three the Bucks dominated from end to end. In game four we had a very entertaining game with the Bucks pulling away at the end leading to the series tied. The biggest questions heading into these last four games are if the Bucks could score at the high level the Suns were. The other star players for the Bucks just have not been what they were in Game’s 1 and 2. Their improvement was so important for them to get in this series and they have proved their worth in front of the home crowd.
In Game 3 Giannis’ performance led the Bucks to the victory with Middleton and Holiday also having some decent performances in the game as well. The series has had a bunch of runs from game to game. The Bucks controlled the runs with many of them going their way during stretches of the game. The big performance from Giannis was a huge contributor to help the Bucks stay in control. He also showed the entire NBA how badly he wants this championship. He showed how long he has been waiting for this moment and channeled it into the huge Game 3 performance. It was hard for anyone to criticize Giannis and his performance is worthy of a round of applause from the Deer District.
The Suns had little to be upset about in Game 3 with no one playing as well as they should anyway. Devin Booker was the worst on the team shooting 3-14 from the field. It was quite terrible for the Suns in a game that they definitely could have just come back and won. Yet no one could get a shot down when they really needed a bucket. A lot of the blame would have to be placed on Devin Booker with 10 points not being enough for a player of his caliber. It was one of those games for the Suns where there were a lot of question marks on the team’s performance. Props to Giannis, but once again from the Suns point of view what happened. How could they suddenly not shut down one of the biggest stars in our league. A complete meltdown and we expected a much better performance in game 4.
Unfortunately for Phoenix it would not go their way in Game 4 either. The game would be pretty tight till the Bucks got away from the Suns in a dominating fourth quarter. The loss made me question the Suns fatigue in this game. They were just slowing down and the Bucks were staying in pace. It was like they couldn’t reach the finish line in the last 100 meters of the race. It doesn’t make any sense because of how well conditioned this team should be and the fact that the Bucks got less rest than they got too. I’m shocked that this is what we got from a team that played so well in late game situations throughout the playoffs. Just a great game with a good ending which was fortunate for all the NBA fans that had been waiting for an entertaining Finals.
The Bucks showed up once again. All the talk about Middleton being the number one in Milwaukee had been shut down in the first few games of these playoffs. Now the Middleton talk is hyped up again after an awesome performance in game 4 of these playoffs. To be honest I don’t think he is the number one for the Bucks and never will be as long as Giannis is on the team. He may have nights like these but that will never take anything from Giannis also having a good performance. Like what happened last night. Giannis still had a good game despite Middleton playing fantastically well. Game 4 was the Bucks once again wanting more than than the Suns wanted it. They kicked up another gear and the Suns could not even stay at the pace they were. Credit to Phoenix for continuing to fight until the end. The Bucks are going to win this series if they can continue to keep this up. Although I think the Suns will be kicking it into another gear as we head into the back half of this series. My original pick was Suns in 5. I’m just going to raise it to Suns in 6.
Top Picture by NBAE