CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The rules are written differently for champions.
Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff says the trophy provides a boost. Teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, who won the NBA title in 2021, can find gears that non-champions can’t. And even when they fall short, as the Bucks did during a 114-102 loss to Cleveland on Saturday, they know it won’t last.
Just ask Jrue Holiday, who became the final piece to Milwaukee’s championship puzzle two-plus years ago. The Bucks rank 21st in offense through 46 games. They’re 10-11 in their last 21 games after a 19-6 start. And forward Khris Middleton, their closer and co-longest-tenured player (Giannis Antetokounmpo), has only played seven games this season (neither Middleton nor Antetokounmpo played Saturday).
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Standing in the visitors’ postgame locker room, shrugged off those concerns like someone who’s shrugged off bigger ones before.
“I don’t know that we’re worried about the losing,” Holiday told cleveland.com. “I feel like mentally we can always regroup, gather ourselves.
“We have a lot of vets, a lot of guys who have been through worse. Grand scheme of things, we’re number two or three in the East. We’re where we want to be.”
Through the champion’s singular lens, Holiday has a point. Milwaukee stands just one game behind the second-seeded 76ers despite injuries to Holiday, Middleton and Antetokounmpo this season. It fears no Eastern contender. Its one-track title mission is still operational.
But zoom out wider. Look ahead. Holiday will be 33 this year. Brook Lopez turns 35 in nine weeks. Middleton, 31, has a player option on his contact after this season. He’ll want – and based on past performance, deserves – a large payday. But if his knee injury persists or causes him to underperform when he returns, will Milwaukee offer it? Would doing so be smart?
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Those answers depend largely on Milwaukee’s upcoming playoff run, about which the team still feels optimistic. Why wouldn’t they? They’ve won the trophy. And coach Mike Budenholzer told reporters that he believes in a sustained confidence that follows teams who do so.
The Bucks fell behind 2-0 in two series during their title run. They’ve cleared steeper obstacles.
“... But it’s not a magic pill,” Budenholzer said, “and it’s not going to save us. There’s a lot of the same things we’ve got to do, and (the title run) feels like a long time ago, to be honest with you.”
That’s because two years is a long time in NBA years. It’s the difference between James Harden the Rocket and James Harden the 76er. And the difference between the Warriors losing in the NBA Play-In Tournament and defending a fourth championship under Steve Kerr. And the difference between a Cavs team that won 22 games and one which Budenholzer said, jokingly but not jokingly, that he doesn’t want to see again in the playoffs.
He’s saying that now. Think three or five years ahead. Which situation would you prefer as a coach?
The roster oozing with young star power that simply needs to unlock the intangibles necessary to win big for a decade? Or the roster limping through the season while assuring themselves that everything will work out because it did before?
That’s a harsh interpretation (for effect) of the 2022-23 Bucks, who are contenders with a bullet assuming health for their big gun(s). And again, Milwaukee only views these questions through that prism. One at a time, left over right – the champion’s walk.
But here’s another characteristic of champions: We rarely see their decline coming, often because we believe in their bravado. The Bucks will never be a bad team as long as they employ Antetokounmpo, the NBA’s best, most loyal and, possibly, most likeable player. But as the core around him ages, it’s fair to wonder how long Lopez and Holiday can sustain elite positional defense against players five and 10 years younger, how long Middleton can be counted on as a fourth-quarter killer (if they retain him) and how many runs this version of the champs have left.
The Bucks can – and should, and have earned the right to – play it cool as long as they want. But at what point does championship confidence become counterproductive?
“I don’t know,” Holiday said. “Maybe people say I’m too calm. I don’t really see the point in worrying. Some things you can’t control, but there are things that you can. So go out there and do them.”
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