With Kyrie Irving out of the lineup and James Harden struggling to produce at his typical superstar level, the Milwaukee Bucks had the Nets on the ropes in Game 5, leading by as many as 17 points in the game and by 16 points at halftime.
A win in Game 5 would give the Bucks a 3-2 series advantage with a home game coming on Thursday. Instead of picking up a signature road victory, the Bucks allowed Kevin Durant to go off for 49 points and overturn a double-digit deficit to take control of the series. The Nets outscored the Bucks 71-49 in the second half to win 114-108.
On TNT after the game, Charles Barkley went off on the Bucks for abandoning what worked for them in Games 3 and 4 and playing dumb basketball.
"That was embarrassing for basketball. … You could tell they were gonna lose the game at halftime."
Charles Barkley didn't hold back after the Bucks blew a 17-point lead and lost Game 5 to the Nets 😬
(via @NBAonTNT)pic.twitter.com/n8hCv574uv
— The Crossover (@TheCrossover) June 16, 2021
“That was embarrassing for basketball, to lose that game…. like, you could tell they were gonna lose the game at halftime.
…. When you do dumb stuff, and it works, you keep doing dumb stuff. You sit there, when they were doing dumb stuff in Game 1 and Game 2, you were like ‘well that’s how they play, Chuck.’ So? They’re killing them in the paint, but they’re going to keep jacking up 3s just because ‘that’s how they play?’
Like Herm Edwards says, ‘you play to win the game!’ That was one of the dumbest games. Man, I am so mad right now. They’ve got a bunch of really good guys, and they played dumb, and they deserve to lose that game. Shoutout to Kevin Durant and Jeff Green, but man, the other team had something to do with it. That was awful basketball.”
The series will shift to Milwaukee for Game 6 on Thursday.
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