NBA Finals: Milwaukee Bucks vs. Phoenix Suns Game 5 Preview, Odds, Prediction

The tensions are high before Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the Phoenix Suns and the Milwaukee Bucks. The result is 2-2, and one little mistake could decide the winner of not just one match, but the entire series. Now the Suns are a little bit afraid of those mistakes. Not theirs, but the referees’. They experienced a few of them in Game 4, and we need to be honest to say that the Bucks had some help from the officials when leveling the result in the series. We are not going into whether were they deliberate or no, nor we will.

Preview

Milwaukee Bucks (+135) won two in a row and are feeling quite a swing here, following these victories. Maybe they didn’t play as confidently as some would demand from them, but they sure boosted the morale.

Following Giannis‘ back-to-back 40+ point games, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday had their respective roles in Game 4. Holiday was slowing down Chris Paul, eventually making the biggest defense of the game and Giannis’ block on Ayton once he stole the ball from Paul, which resulted in two easy buckets on the other end.

About Middleton, he was the man with the game on the line. Giannis was left aside in the key moments because Middleton took everything in his hands and started hurting the rivals from all sorts of positions. That is why he eventually racked up 40 points, delivering all the crucial ones. We don’t want to neglect Giannis’ contribution, 26 points, and 14 boards, but somehow, these two guys were more important on Wednesday night.

Phoenix Suns (-155) had unreal Devin Booker, who ended the night with 42 points, but was for sure able to reach 50 if it weren’t for the five fouls that forced him to sit out a major share of the final period. Some of those fouls were too easily called, while on the other hand. PJ Tucker’s defense on Booker seemed much harder, but somehow, the Bucks’ defensive specialist was left on the court. That bothered Suns a lot, as well as some other things over the past two games.

But as said, we aren’t going to go into that. What we noticed is that Chris Paul struggled to provide for the first time in the playoffs, and his 10 points and five turnovers are the best possible evidence for that claim. Apparently, Holiday found some sort of a formula to keep CP3 restrained in these two matches, and we’ll see if that works in Phoenix as well.

Such a scenario affected Deandre Ayton the most, as he scored just 6 points and wasn’t involved in the offense that much.

Prediction

The Suns are fueled with the desire to get even after two matches in which the refs and the Bucks defeated them. They should have won Game 4 because they were a better team, and that is why we back up Phoenix to win tonight’s event. The spread is -4 on them, and we would recommend going with it because the odds are pretty good compared with the risk.

Pick: Phoenix Wins