The Milwaukee Bucks walked out of Fiserv Forum on Wednesday with a brutal loss against the Chicago Bulls, who just never stopped fighting.
The bigger news came after the game when head coach Mike Budeholzer announced a huge update on Khris Middleton:
#Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer on Khris Middleton: "What I was just told on exam was an MCL sprain. We'll get an MRI tomorrow."
— Jim Owczarski (@JimOwczarski) April 21, 2022
Recovery time for an MCL sprain can take weeks. Without Middleton, who is the team’s second-leading scorer, the Bucks hardly stand a chance against the likes of Boston, Miami, and Brooklyn.
Last year, it was Middleton who kept the team afloat when Giannis was not on the floor and Middleton who helped to open up space for Antetokounmpo to work on the inside. In short, his importance to the Bucks cannot be understated.
“I think he was a key force in them [Milwaukee] being able to go over the hump,” Day told Basketball News, via Essentially Sports. “Because when they took Giannis out of the game, and also Jrue was struggling at the time, he just took over. There were two or three games where he just took over. A third quarter he scored like 24 points. Whenever you have two teams that’s really close, you have to have somebody or couple of people who have burst out games; and I think he’s done that.”
Heading back to Chicago, the Bucks will have to develop a “next man up” mentality if they want to take care of business.
Without Middleton, against a young and talented team on their home turf, the defending champs are going to be especially vulnerable and they might not survive to Round 2.
And as, arguably, the favorite to win the title this year, an early exit could bring postseason results nobody saw coming.
We will just have to wait and see for ourselves how things play out…
