Milwaukee Bucks continue to prove the doubters wrong

After a convincing series win over the Boston Celtics, the Milwaukee Bucks continue to prove the doubters wrong.

From the start of the NBA season through today, for the most part the Milwaukee Bucks have been the most dominant team in the NBA.

They were the only team to reach the 60 win mark and have home court advantage throughout the playoffs. They rank third in the entire NBA offensively and have the number one defense, which makes them the only team left to rank in the top five in both categories. And on the season, the Milwaukee Bucks have 52 victories by ten points or more.

Yet even amongst the sheer domination that they have displayed, the Milwaukee Bucks are still getting the Rodney Dangerfield treatment from the national media, they just don’t get no respect.

Now, I understand that as a member of the national media it’s impossible to expect them to be experts in all areas and of every team, but to write this Bucks team off so casually because “they don’t have a true number two” in their opinion or because “they haven’t been in this position since 2001” is a bit disrespectful. And it would appear that prior to the playoffs, most hadn’t even watched one Bucks game this season.

For fun I’ve kept some of the receipts from those “hot takes”, so while we await Milwaukee’s opponent in the Eastern Conference Finals, let’s take a look back.

"”The Bucks have to learn to close out games, they’re not at that stage yet.” – Bill Plaschke"

Most assume that we have to see a progression from teams before they are “ready” to win an NBA title. In year one they may lose in the first round of the playoffs, then in year two they’ll make it to the conference finals, and finally in year three they are ready to win it all. But recently we saw the Golden State Warriors lose in the first round of the 2013-2014 playoffs only to go on and win the championship the following season.

Of course experience helps, but more importantly is being the better team which the Milwaukee Bucks have shown all season long, including an 8-1 playoff record where seven of their eight wins have been by double digits.

After a stinker in game one from the Milwaukee Bucks, we had a few media members call this series over.

"”The Bucks are done. The Celtics just have the mindset: we’re the Celtics and you’re not. I think the Bucks stop here.” – Skip Bayless"

And who could forget Paul Pierce’s post game comments:

"”As a team I don’t know where Milwaukee goes from here…I think it’s over.”"

Really I don’t have much to say about either comment except that they were huge overreactions and another failure to look back at the season that Milwaukee had put together as proof of how good they really are.

"”Congratulations Milwaukee on replacing the Toronto Raptors as the team that takes the regular season really, really seriously.” – Colin Cowherd"

Yea, how foolish of the Bucks to try to win games and secure home court advantage throughout the playoffs!

What a ludicrous statement, to boil the Bucks success down to being regular season try-hards is absurd.

Then proceeding Milwaukee’s game two victory, Cowherd had this to say:

"”I’m going to bet that Kyrie Irving does not have another stinker like last night, over Khris Middleton having three more games like last night.”"

Well, Kyrie would follow up that performance with 8-22 in game three, 7-22 in game four, and 6-21 in game five. Even after each of these games, it’s been more about the Celtics short comings, rather than Milwaukee being the reason for their struggles and I imagine the talk today will be similar.

Milwaukee has made a statement in this last series against Boston, but the haters will still exist, and that’s alright. The Bucks are in the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2001 and this team isn’t done yet.