While a best-of-seven playoff series often is about counterpunching, Saturday’s opener between the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks was mostly about sparring . . . until a knockout blow by the Bucks’ Khris Middleton with five-tenths of a second remaining.
Even with their leading men off with their offense, the sixth-seeded Heat stood toe to toe with the third-seeded Bucks for almost the entire 53 minutes before falling 109-107 in overtime at Fiserv Forum.
“We expected this to be really, really hard,” Heat guard Duncan Robinson said after an afternoon when even working overtime wasn’t enough.
In a game that featured 17 lead changes and 16 ties, one when the margin was as much as four points for one possession in the fourth quarter and overtime, Middleton’s 19-footer decided it.