{"id":625983,"date":"2026-02-26T12:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T12:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625983\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T12:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T12:53:14","slug":"bucks-are-trending-toward-nbas-scariest-play-in-team-with-giannis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625983\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucks are trending toward NBA’s scariest play-in team with Giannis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bucks are trending toward NBA’s scariest play-in team with Giannis<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Milwaukee Bucks<\/a> are still waiting for Giannis Antetokounmpo to return from injury.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Except they’re not waiting passively. Instead, they find themselves on an immense roll that could shake up the Eastern Conference playoff picture.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee has now won 8 of its last 10 games after narrowly defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Even more notable, four of those eight wins have been over playoff teams.<\/p>\n

The Bucks have raised their record to 26-31, which is 11th in the East.<\/p>\n

The Hornets<\/a> are 28-31, and the Hawks<\/a> are 29-31. Milwaukee is certainly in striking distance.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Lakers have a very specific LeBron, Luka, Reaves problem<\/a><\/p>\n

The 7-10 seeds go to the play-in tournament, which for most teams isn’t ideal, but it could be exactly the right recipe for the Bucks.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Because the Bucks have the ultimate trump card. At some point, their superstar leader Giannis is expected to return.<\/p>\n

So picture a scenario where this Milwaukee team stays hot, and then it gets to add Antetokounmpo, like he’s the ultimate trade acquisition late in the season.<\/p>\n

Is there anyone that’ll want to play a Bucks team that has discovered its identity and added Giannis to the mix? Heck no.<\/p>\n

The Bucks chose not to trade Antetokounmpo before the deadline likely more because of the offers available to them than because of any kind of playoff dreams.<\/p>\n

Now, though, they really can reach the playoffs, and if they can just get into the dance with a healthy Giannis, they can make noise.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Dylan Harper ties Kobe Bryant’s all-time NBA record<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bucks are trending toward NBA’s scariest play-in team with Giannis originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3775],"tags":[7,103,193,226,123,677,685,1536,300,516,508,102,121,3871,6,30248,3024,361],"class_list":["post-625983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-milwaukee-bucks","tag-basketball","tag-bucks","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-dylan-harper","tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","tag-hawks","tag-hornets","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-lakers","tag-lebron","tag-luka","tag-milwaukee","tag-milwaukee-bucks","tag-milwaukeebucks","tag-nba","tag-playoff-teams","tag-reaves","tag-the-bucks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116137033942534886","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}