As the time wound down, and it was clear the Hawks were going to tie the Eastern Conference finals by winning Game 4 on Tuesday, fans at State Farm Arena bellowed out the chant: “Hawks in six.”
On Thursday in Milwaukee, a similar chant rang through Fiserv Forum. It held the same weight as the one heard in Atlanta, had the same rhythm and only one word was changed.
“Bucks in six,” the more than 16,000 fans on hand yelled out with more than five minutes remaining in a Game 5 that the Bucks led the whole way.
Despite entering this series with a 5-2 postseason road record, the Hawks now have lost two consecutive in Milwaukee and must win at home Saturday to keep their season alive.
“Basically, it is a must-win game for us. That’s what it comes down to,” Hawks interim coach Nate McMillan said after the 123-112 loss. “That’s what this game means if you drop it, as we did tonight, and it’s a must-win for us. It’s a one-game season for us. So we know what we have to do. We’ve got to get back home and get ourselves ready to take care of business at home.”
Each team played Game 5 without its star (Trae Young for the Hawks and Giannis Antetokounmpo for the Bucks), but the Bucks’ supporting cast was more physical, and the Hawks got put in an early hole that they couldn’t climb out of.
Fortunately for the Hawks, the punch of Brook Lopez’s 33-point night and the Milwaukee faithful’s cries didn’t kill their confidence.
The fire the Bucks came out with after losing by 22 two nights before was expected, Hawks guard Bogdan Bogdanovic said.
“We know they’re great players and they’re elite players,” he said. “They also have other guys around Giannis. They knew they had to step up. Now it’s our turn.”
With the Hawks once down by 20 in the first half, Bogdanovic and John Collins were able to make shots and get stops on defense in the second quarter to cut it to a nine-point halftime deficit.
“No one in the locker room lost their confidence, even tonight after a bad start, even after the game,” Bogdanovic said. “It’s a different series obviously. We want to keep believing.”
Since McMillan took over in March, the Hawks’ rally cry has been to believe. It’s what helped them build one of the best records in the final two months of the regular season, have success in Madison Square Garden and pull off comebacks against the Sixers.
Though they’re in a spot that they haven’t been in this postseason, the preparation largely will stay the same McMillan said.
“We dropped this game,” he said. “We weren’t good. We’ll look at video of the things that they did, the things that we didn’t do and errors we need to improve on, and get ourselves ready for the game. It’s win or go home for us.”
The Hawks are aware of the situation they find themselves in and will have to win at State Farm Arena for the fifth time this postseason.
“We are excited to play at home,” Bogdanovic said. “It’s not going to be hopefully the last game playing in front of our home crowd.”
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