MILWAUKEE — Jamais Cascio once said, “Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.” Then Gever Tulley broke it down like this, “Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work though difficult problems.”
Well playas…the Milwaukee Bucks worked through the difficult problems to take Toronto’s lunch money and sneakers down the stretch to win Game 1.
Before the start of the Eastern Conference Finals I thought that Toronto had the juice to come in and beat the Top seeded Bucks to advance to the NBA Finals. After seeing them completely blow their wad on Wednesday night as they took an “L” 108-100 now I’m not so sure.
They were in complete control of this game until the fourth quarter when everybody except Kyle Lowry took a smoke break in the parking lot. They went into the final period up 83-76 off of a three-pointer at the buzzer from darn near Chicago from Pascal Siakam.
After that shot nobody else on the Raptors roster with the exception of Lowry could hit an elephant in the butt with a base fiddle. They couldn’t hit water if they’d fallen off of a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. When a team plays as well as they played on the road for three quarters and then wets the bed down the stretch it’s a bonafide problem playa.
These are the playoffs not the regular season and in the playoffs you don’t get do-overs. It’s the best of 7 and they just let one get away. Winning Game 1 was critical because it would have allowed them to steal home court advantage and also take some of Milwaukee’s confidence away from them.
Now they’ve given them even more confidence because they got man handled for three quarters by two cats and still won the game. Kawhi put up 31 points in three quarters but was a non-factor in the fourth. Lowry finished with 30 but his homeboys left him hangin’. The only other player in double figures was Pascal Siakam with 15 points but the rest of the squad was hiding behind Uncle LeRoy’s ’68 Coupe De Ville watching this thing play out.
Toronto’s bench finished the night with 12 lousy points. In the playoffs that’s not going to cut it. On the other hand, Milwaukee had 5 players in double figures led by Brook Lopez’s 29. They picked up 22 from their bench and went to the crib.
They were getting beat the entire game and didn’t panic. Now they’ve taken a 1-0 lead with the confidence of a lion to potentially finish these cats off but it’s still a series. Up next Game 2 in Milwaukee on Friday. Stop me when I start lyin’!