It is crunch time for teams hoping to eke out a spot in this year’s playoffs, and in the Eastern Conference, the reality for the three teams fighting for the last two spots—the Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks and New York Knicks—figures to be dates with the Miami Heat or Chicago Bulls, who will quickly dispatch whichever first-round foe is placed in their paths. Players, of course, aren’t looking at it that way.
“Of course you want to get in there and see what you can do,” Sixers point guard Jrue Holiday said. “There have been upsets before, No. 1 seeds that lose, like the Spurs last year. So you just need to get in and believe that you have a chance.”
Fans might be more skeptical—when San Antonio and, before them, the 2006-07 Dallas Mavericks, lost as No. 1 seeds, they fell to No. 8 seeds that presented especially tough matchups (the Memphis Grizzlies and Golden State Warriors, respectively). There aren’t many tough matchups for the Bulls and Heat here. The Bucks are 2-1 against Miami, and the Knicks beat Chicago on Sunday, but Milwaukee is 0-4 against the Bulls, New York is 0-2 against the Heat, and the Sixers are 1-6 against the teams combined.
Chicago and Miami probably won’t need many games to get to the second round, and because of that, some fans might prefer to see their teams miss the playoffs and get into the draft lottery. (Well, not Knicks fans, since New York owes its pick to the Rockets unless it lands in the top five.)
But, as the Bucks prepare to play the Knicks in Milwaukee Wednesday night, for each of these teams, there is more at stake than getting steamrolled by their first-round foe.
Bucks. What’s at stake: GM John Hammond
This is the fourth season for the combination of Hammond and coach Scott Skiles. Though there have been some misses for Hammond (where is Joe Alexander these days?), he hasn’t done a bad job—Brandon Jennings has been a high point, Mike Dunleavy was an underrated addition, and the value of the trade for Monta Ellis and Ekpe Udoh will take some time to determine. Besides, the bulk of their tenures has been overshadowed by injuries to their two highest-paid players, Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut, and Hammond did well to maneuver the franchise into payroll flexibility.
Still, next year is the last on the contracts of Hammond and Skiles, and they have results-oriented jobs. They’ve gotten the Bucks to the playoffs just once—in 2010, their second year in charge. An appearance in the postseason, even a brief one, will be a welcome turn of events.
Knicks. What’s at stake: Franchise reputation
A playoff berth is something the organization needs to maintain a sense of progress. Fans in New York were asked to exercise patience as coach Mike D’Antoni and president Donnie Walsh dismantled the team and gave the organization a crack at the 2010 crop of free agents. Now, Walsh is gone and D’Antoni has been fired, and in their wake is a mismatched group built around Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler.
But despite enduring one of the most exhausting and volatile seasons in team history (and that’s saying something), the Knicks have a chance to salvage some positive feeling and show that firing D’Antoni was the right move. They made the playoffs last year for just the second time since 2001, and they were also swept out of the first round for the second time since 2001. Getting into the postseason and actually coming up with a win sounds like small potatoes, but it will count as progress for this team.
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