Jimmy Butler, Heat stuns the Bucks in OT to knock out #1 seed Milwaukee

Yet that’s exactly what the Heat did Wednesday night, scoring 42 points from Jimmy Butler to defeat the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks — who entered the postseason as the favorite to lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the second time in three. Years – 128-126 in overtime at the Fiserv Forum in Game 5 of this first-round series, knocking Giannis Antetokounmpo and his teammates out of the postseason in the process. Miami advances to face the New York Knicks in the conference semifinals, which begins Sunday.

In many ways, Game 5 was a repeat of the game the teams played in Miami 48 hours earlier – including the Heat hitting a ridiculous comeback to stun the Bucks. While Miami controlled more in this game than in Game 4, the Bucks controlled large portions of it and took a 22-6 lead in the fourth quarter.

But after Milwaukee didn’t score for more than three minutes to start the fourth and didn’t score a field goal for nearly five minutes, Miami slowly got back into the game—in large part because Milwaukee’s offense couldn’t start in the final period.

The Bucks finally got a chance to down when Jrue Holiday hit the 3rd corner with just over 7 minutes left – but didn’t get a second until Wesley Matthews hit a hat-trick about four minutes later. Meanwhile, Miami, behind another great effort from Butler, continued to lead Milwaukee until Butler’s layup and 1 with 2:34 remaining made it 111-108 Milwaukee.

After Antetokounmpo missed a short runner at the other end, Butler stopped the 3-pointer to tie the game with 2:11 to go, with Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo taking turns hitting buckets at both ends on the ensuing possessions to keep the score even.

Then, after Antetokounmpo and Butler missed the clean look to put their teams ahead, Kevin Love got caught and Khris Middleton created connection for a foul, sending Love to the bench with his sixth foul and giving Milwaukee a 115-113 lead after Middleton made two consecutive free throws.

Butler then got a clean look from 3-point range—from roughly the same spot he came up from with roughly the same amount of time on the clock in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics last season—to give Miami the lead. But, like that shot last season, he lost it.

However, the game is not over. After Holiday hit a pair of free throws to give Milwaukee a four-point lead, Gabe Vincent hit a 3-pointer to cut Milwaukee’s lead by one—then an inbound fumble turned into a jump ball on center court with 6 seconds left. After a challenge he determined that Kyle Lowry had made no mistake on the play.

After Brook Lopez hit the jump ball, Antetokounmo nearly threw it wide, only for Middleton to save it to Holiday, who was fouled with 2.1 seconds left. But Holiday went 1-for-2 from the foul line, giving Miami the ball for a 2-down with a chance, once again, to tie or win the game.

This time, Butler caught a lob pass from Vincent and somehow put the ball in the basket with 0.5 seconds left, sending the game into overtime.

In the extra session, Milwaukee’s offense continued to stall. Antetokounmpo went 3-for-9 from the foul line in the fourth quarter and overtime, and the Bucks didn’t score a field goal in overtime until Antetokounmpo’s throw with 59 seconds left pulled Milwaukee back within 2.

But after the Bucks had a chance to either tie or win the game in the dying moments after Vincent missed a jumper, Milwaukee failed to get a shot – while both had timeouts left but didn’t use it – and the Heat celebrated it at Milwaukee’s home stadium, sending the Bucks into the home.

The Bucks have been the favorite to win the NBA title in sports entering the playoffs. Milwaukee was about 120,000 favorite to defeat Miami in the opening round series.

Losing Milwaukee to this Series is an upset on a scale that few others in NBA history can approach. The Seattle SuperSonics were huge favorites when the Denver Nuggets beat them in 1995, but that was a five-game series. The Bulls were big favorites in the first round of the 2012 playoffs against the Philadelphia 76ers, but that series changed irrevocably when Derrick Rose tore his ACL in the final minutes of Game 1.

The best comparison is the 2007 Dallas Mavericks, who lost in six games to the Wee Believe version of the Golden State Warriors. But even Golden State won the season series with Dallas and matched well with the Mavs’ 67 wins.

In the end, though, this series’ exact placement on such a list doesn’t matter. What it does do, however, is that the top seed in the East – and favorite to win the title – saw their season come to an end in spectacular fashion much earlier than it was supposed to.

Information from ESPN’s David Purdum was used in this report.