Good morning. Let’s basketball.

The Milwaukee Bucks — champions just two years ago, starring the best player in the world (albeit one who is banged up from a big fall at the start of this series), hosting three of the best positional defenders in the league, No. 1 seed in the East, best record in the league — led by 16 entering the fourth quarter against the Miami Heat.

They needed to win to stave off a deeply embarrassing elimination, and they led by 16, but Jimmy Butler is involved and as the Bucks know all too well when Jimmy Butler is involved, you aren’t safe until the final whistle.

We pick up the game with Milwaukee up eight with 3 minutes remaining.

Milwaukee was up four with 10 seconds to go, and ended up in overtime. They had a timeout, but didn’t get a shot off at the buzzer. Unbelievable failure to let this game get to overtime.

Before that point, Miami had some beautiful adjustments to invert their pick-and-roll action to have Bam Adebayo handle the ball at the top, pulling Brook Lopez away from the rim. Butler is one of the few guards or wings who gives Jrue Holiday trouble, and getting them isolated down low is a win for the Heat. Erik Spoelstra remains a genius.

Once we get to overtime, the roles are reversed: Miami takes a lead and Milwaukee is trying furiously to come back, and has a chance … but … doesn’t get a shot off on the final possession. This time, they had two timeouts.

The Milwaukee Bucks’ championship quest ends with Grayson Allen dribbling out the clock of a two-point game. Brutal.

Giannis finished with 38-20 but went just 10/23 from the line and had seven turnovers. He was fairly open in his press conference about the Bucks’ lack of adjustments — this is a Milwaukee Bucks calling card, they don’t make adjustments — but this passionate answer regarding whether this season is a failure is getting the most attention.

I hear what Giannis is saying, and I feel that he has a really healthy disposition about his career and what’s important. I’m happy for him on that count, and wish more players had that peace within them. And the fact that he’s apologizing to the reporter (The Athletic’s Eric Nehm) for his passionate response during the answer is perfectly Giannis.

That said, I think the question and answer are imagining a binary switch between “failure” and “success.” Success is a spectrum. This season for the Bucks as a team and thus reflected on their megastar wasn’t pure failure. Having the best record after 82 games despite missing a core player for a lot of that is pretty good. But be honest: this is a championship hopeful that lost (bad) 4-1 (worse) in the first round (worse still) to a play-in team (worst). This isn’t losing a competitive long conference finals series, or losing in the Finals. This is falling very, very short of where you expected to land.

The Bucks had a reasonable, attainable team goal. They didn’t narrowly fall short of it in a way you can chalk up to fate. They won one of the 16 playoff wins they needed to get. One! Again, I’m glad Giannis has a healthy relationship to winning and losing. The organization can’t. They need to make adjustments to maximize their opportunity for glory while Giannis is in his prime.

The other day I said we might have one or two coach openings, but remained vague about it. I was talking about Chris Finch in Minnesota (new front office, building a weird body of work with a weird roster) and Mike Budenholzer. Championships do not bring lifetime immunity in the NBA. Ask Nick Nurse.

(Also, while we’re at it, ask Nick Nurse how he feels about the state of Wisconsin.)

Scores

Knicks 106, Cavaliers 95 (NYK wins 4-1) — I had this series dead wrong. I thought the two dynamic guards from Cleveland would get enough points to let the Cavaliers’ defense win the series. Nope. New York completely shut down the Cavaliers just about all series long and got enough offense to let that ride. Huge success.

Bomani Jones had the Cavs’ frontcourt dead to rights when he said they have two “tall” guys, not two “big” guys. Mitchell Robinson had 11 offensive rebounds in Game 5. Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen had a combined 10 defensive rebounds. When the Cavs got stops, they just couldn’t finish the possession. Robinson was the best big on the court all series, and I’m not sure it was close. Mobley and Allen will continue to develop, but that’s a bad sign, and it may have Cleveland looking at moving Allen for wing help over the next year or two.

I mean, the Knicks won 4-1 while getting basically a zero all series from Julius Randle. Sheesh!

The Knicks are hosting a second round playoff series. Holy smokes. Knicks vs. Heat in the NBA playoffs. Holy smokes! I want a Van Gundy on every broadcast.

Lakers 99, Grizzlies 116 (LAL leads 3-2) — Memphis pretty much had control throughout, except when the Lakers pulled to within one in the third. The Grizzlies felt a little shaky, there was a bit of manic energy coming through the T.V. screen. But the Grizzlies persisted.

Ja Morant really loves to fly.

I said it before the season and I still believe it, after everything: Morant and Desmond Bane can be and maybe are the best backcourt in basketball.

Heat 128, Bucks 126 in OT (MIA wins 4-1) — One note is that the experience of watching this end of this game exclusively through the score bug in the upper right corner of the Kings-Warriors game was a real weird experience. I had a sense of where the wild swings were when I went back to watch the endgame, but I was still not prepared for what I saw.

Warriors 123, Kings 116 (GSW leads 3-2) — The Warriors are just so f—king good. They are not invincible, but they feel inevitable. Does that make sense? They will have a goofy turnover here and miss a rotation there, but then you just expect them to do something amazing to make up for it, because they seemingly always sit one breath away from something amazing.

As I’ve mentioned before, these are the Kings’ first high-stakes games against Steph Curry … and what a dreadful experience! I much prefer basking in his aura of brilliance as a neutral observer.

De’Aaron Fox started the game quite effectively with his finger injury, but began holding it in the fourth quarter and turned the keys over to Malik Monk, who was brilliant but also extremely Malik Monk at all times. He had an open quick shot for a tying three that rimmed out that was probably not the right play call while in the bonus and with the defense keyed up on him, but you can’t fault a wolf for being a wolf.

Draymond Green played really well on both ends for the first time in the series. An ominous sign for Sacramento.

Keegan Murray: 10 points on 4/5 shooting in first quarter … and then not another single, solitary field goal attempt in 25 minutes for the rest of the game. A rewatch is needed to determine why, but I don’t have the stomach for a rewatch, so someone else is going to have to explain it. Needless to say, to win in San Francisco, the Kings need one or both of Murray and Kevin Huerter to do their things. The Warriors limiting Domantas Sabonis’ ability to make plays at the top is certainly a factor.

Schedule

A note of correction on yesterday’s scheduling rant: the smarter-than-me-by-a-wide-margin John Schuhmann pointed out that the NBA would have had a full Thursday slate if the Timberwolves and Clippers would have forced Game 6s. So this wasn’t about the NBA dodging the NFL, but about the bad luck of scheduling. As such, my complaint is retracted.

I do still think the NBA should find a way to avoid 4-game weeknights in the first round at all costs, even if it means the first round goes a bit longer. That Heat-Bucks game being on NBA TV is not good.

Tonight:

Celtics at Hawks, 8:30 PM ET, TNT, BOS leads 3-2

Be excellent to each other.