Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Bucks collapse with a chance to take control of a series.

‘Someone once told me, time is a flat circle. Everything we’ve ever done, or will do, we’re gonna do over and over and over again.’ Add a few more ‘overs’ in there as it relates the Bucks and this pretty much nails it. Sidenote: True Detective Season 1 is one of the best single seasons of television of all time.

But that quote does ring true. Bucks have a chance to win a huge playoff game, play basically perfect for 2.5 quarters, and then implode on themselves like a dying star. I saw a LOT of Bucks fans sharing this on Twitter last night:

Time. Is. A. Flat. Circle.

Look there are a ton of things you could point to last night, but this boiled down to two things:

1. This was the Kevin Durant Game. The knock on Durant for most of his career is that he hasn’t carried a team by himself in the playoffs. He had to join the Warriors superteam after he couldn’t get past them with the Thunder. He formed a superteam in Brooklyn after that. Now James Harden did rise from the dead last night and played 46 minutes, but he was a shell of himself. In fact you could almost make the case that he was a detriment for the Nets. So this was all Durant. He played all 48 minutes, and put up 49 points, 17 rebounds, 10 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks. This will be a legacy game for him. One that people point to once his HOF career is over. And I’m honestly not real sure what the Bucks could have done about that. There are certainly a few possessions, especially where Brook ended up on him 1-on-1 that you would have liked to see better defense. But for the most part, they made his life difficult. He just hit insane shots. When it was 106-105, and he got the ball with 2 seconds on the shot clock, and nailed a 28-foot 3-pointer while falling away to his right side, there’s nothing you can do about that. If you want to be frustrated about an element of our defense last night, get frustrated about Jeff Green going off for 27 points on 7/8 shooting from beyond the arc. But Durant is one of the greatest offensive players of all time, and when he’s cooking like that, there’s nothing you can do.
2. EXCEPT: Try to match him bucket for bucket. The Bucks certainly weren’t flawless in the first half, if you watched the TNT halftime report Kenny/Chuck/Shaq pointed out several plays where the Bucks refused to take advantage of matchups, but for the most part they shared the ball and got to the rim. They had a 74-57 lead with 6:50 left in the 3rd quarter, and then inexplicably stopped passing the ball. Almost every possession was isolation. Dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, try a fadeaway perimeter jumper. To have that happen for a few minutes, fine. But literally from that moment until the end of the game, the Bucks offense was hot trash. And Bud either failed to recognize it, or had no way to get his team to play team basketball again. Horrible execution. Horrible coaching.

Now there were other things about last night that you could call into question. For instance: Why would Elijah Bryant see meaningful minutes in a game and Bobby Portis didn’t play a single second? Why does Giannis continue to take 15 seconds at the free throw line when his routine has him 15 of 34 in the playoffs? Why are Jrue and Giannis settling for jump shots when James Harden is defending them and he’s playing on one leg? Why can’t this team come up clutch ONE time?? When they were down 109-107, Khris found Giannis for what should have been a game tying dunk, but he fumbles the ball in a critical moment. Can’t have it. But at the end of the day, this was Durant playing out of his mind, and the Bucks puckering on the offensive end for almost 18 minutes.

So, we head back to Milwaukee for Game 6. Which I expect the Bucks to win. But I’m not sure how you beat Brooklyn and Durant on the road in Game 7. This was your chance. You needed ONE road win. And you had a 17 point lead with 18 minutes left. They’re never going to be in a better position than that. And they choked it away.

PS: I don’t know about the first part of this statement anymore, but Chuck was on the money with the second part of his halftime assessment: