The View from 🍺

It was, quite possibly (and still depending on the final outcome of this series), the worst loss in franchise history.

I don’t know exactly how to take that which is from a 🍺 fanzine.

Same guy. The tweet is sensible. We beat them in the Bubble playoffs. But whatever 🍺 Mitchell was drinking must have REALLY had a kick to it to morph four minutes later into potentially “the worst loss in FRANCHISE history.”

Change is needed. [bold in original] Take that however you will, but it’s obvious that something needs to change. There is no way that the team with the top seed in the conference and the best record in the entire league should be completely and utterly pantsed in the first round against an opponent that struggled to stay above 0.500. …

Absolutely true.

Injuries happen, bad luck exists, questionable officiating can sway things, but by and large the draw of a best-of-seven series is that talent wins out. The Bucks are the most talented team in the series...right?

Right?

That’s the flip side of that McPaper guy’s coin. He said, “If that’s the effort it took for Miami to win Game 4, the “Bucks” can win the series.” Mitchell is channeling the doubt that now exists in the Deer Kingdom. “We can’t beat these guys no matter what we do. Even when we play really well AND have Giannis back AND they lose Tyler Herro AND Victor Oladipo, Jimmy Butler turns into Michael Jordan and we lose again.”

From this point, there are two ways that this series can go. On the one hand, Milwaukee might simply not have the answers needed to solve the questions posed by the Miami Heat. We’ve seen that before, in the 2020 playoffs in the Bubble, when Jimmy Butler and the Heat beat the Bucks 4-1. That story is well-known around these parts, and the odds are very much pointing towards that outcome as the most likely.

That Bubble series SPOOKS the Deer.  Now, the next time we played them they fucking 🧹 us. That didn’t allay their fears, assuage their doubts. 2020 “is well-known around these parts.” And in 305 parts as well! Did you know that after the “Heat” won Game 1 this year, Jimmy posted a deer-in-the-headlights pic on Instagram? You heard of speakeasies? Milwaukee is a spookeasy. I wish I could feel Mitchell’s fear more than I do but I don’t feel for a moment that 4-1 “Heat” is the “MOST LIKELY” outcome.

On the other hand, the series can also go the way of the 2021 playoffs, also in the semifinal round, where the Bucks were outclassed enough times to sow serious doubt and faced elimination against an opponent that had no reason to fear them. These Heat are not those Nets…

I don’t even fucking remember that “Nets” series but I take it Milwaukee won. The “Nets” had no reason to fear the Deer, I take it. Well, Mitchell is correct that the “Heat” do NOT fear them. I would!, if I were the “Heat”, but the “Heat” clearly do not. Have their number is what the “Heat” think for reasons known only to them.

Mitchell finishes the paragraph above,

… and however disastrous a first round exit might be, the fact of the matter is that the Bucks can’t afford to think about how much else might be in front of them. No, the only thing that matters from this point on is what’s right in front of their face, one game, one quarter, one possession at a time.

Obviously referring to the “Bucks”. But read this, the very next:

Maybe they’ll falter. They’ll probably falter, there has not been any indication that the team can actually get its act together in time. …

Is he talking about the “Heat”? He COULD be talking about the “Heat” but,

But there’s still a chance, and if this team takes any pride whatsoever in what they do, they’ll seize that chance and give it all they’ve got.

He’a talking about the “Bucks”. Right? But the 58-win team not being able to “get its act together in time”??? Me thinks Mitchell oughtta forswear the Stout for the Lite but the big takeaway from this piece is DOUBT: “Maybe they’ll falter. They’ll probably falter…” The “Bucks” have it, the “Heat” don’t.