Milwaukee Bucks: What clinching home-court means for the playoffs
3. Mark their place in the history books
It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and only compare the Milwaukee Bucks to the other teams in this year’s field. They have clinched the best record in the league from among the other 2018-19 competition. Yet when we zoom out, it is clear this team is great on a historic level as well.
It is true that this is the first Bucks team to post the best record in the league since 1974. Yet it’s also the first Bucks team to even lead a conference in wins since 1974. Even when the Bucks had very strong teams in the 1980s, they always found themselves behind the Celtics and 76ers.
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This is also the Bucks’ first division title since 2000-01, which is easy to point to as the last Bucks team with any chance at the NBA Finals. That George Karl-led team made it to the Eastern Conference Finals, becoming the last Milwaukee team to win a playoff series.
This year’s team paces not only its franchise history, but is impressive when compared with the entire league as well. Milwaukee is the seventh team in NBA history to tally 45 wins of 10 points or more; the previous six teams to reach that threshold won the title.
SRS, or simple rating system, is a means of evaluating a team’s point differential adjusted for opponent. The Bucks currently rank 20th in that stat in NBA history, and every team ahead of them on that list was a true title contender.
This is not the Atlanta Hawks of a few years back or even the Toronto Raptors, teams that racked up wins in a weaker Eastern Conference but were never true title contenders. The 2018-19 Milwaukee Bucks are for real, and have the historical numbers to back that up.