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So it is official: the Phoenix Suns will meet the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2021 NBA Finals. This means that we see some brand new names and faces and uniforms in the Finals this year, which is to say, this is not the same old, same old. We had the Golden State Warriors qualify for the NBA Finals five years in a row, and meeting the Cleveland Cavaliers for four straight years. Then last year, we had the Los Angeles Lakers winning yet another NBA title.
If you are anything like me, all of that is enough to make you break out in a big yawn. Hell, I did not even tune in to see a single game of last year’s NBA Finals. Why bother? What’s the point? I’ve seen the Lakers win the championship plenty of times before, and was not interested in seeing them take another one.
This year, however, was very different. Now, only one of the “Final Four” in the NBA playoffs this year had won an NBA title before, and that team is the Milwaukee Bucks. The only other team to have even reached the NBA Finals before in their franchise history is the Phoenix Suns. Phoenix made it to the 1993 NBA Finals, ultimately losing to the Chicago Bulls. For Milwaukee, it has been far longer, since about the time that Charlemagne ruled over Western Europe. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but I had not yet been born the last time that Milwaukee had qualified for the NBA Finals. Yes, it's been a while in both cases. The other two teams, the Los Angeles Clippers and the Atlanta Hawks, had never won an NBA Finals, although the Hawks won the NBA title in 1958. Not sure how that works, although I assume that there were no NBA Finals series back then. Realistically, only Milwaukee and Phoenix had ever qualified for the NBA Finals.
As it turns out, those proved to be the two teams that will now meet in this year's NBA Finals.
The Suns will enjoy home court advantage. They will host the first two games in the series, and if it goes to seven games, they will host four games, including the decisive Game 7. Hopefully for them, they will enjoy more of an advantage than the 1993 Suns did, as the Bulls won every Finals game in Phoenix during that series.
So, who will win?
Obviously, I cannot say with any degree of certainty. However, I will predict that Milwaukee pulls out the victory, assuming that they remain healthy. If their biggest star, Giannis Antetokounmpo, plays, then they will clearly have a better chance. Then again, it seemed that the rest of the Bucks stepped up in his absence during the Eastern Conference Finals.
Still, I believe that the Bucks will win, although I believe it will be a tough series. And yes, the Suns will win some home games this time around. But the Bucks have been closer in recent years, and feel like a team on the verge of a truly great achievement.
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