Can the Bucks keep their cool?

At times like this, you’d expect anger or urgency from a team that lost the series opener at home, but Antetokounmpo looked almost as if he knew the Bucks lost the game instead of the Hawks winning it, a big difference. Sure, Hawks point guard Trae Young scored 48 points and dished out 11 assists, but until the final moments of Game 1, the Bucks were in control.

There was a reason for that stoicism. The Bucks know they are the better team in this series, and it showed in Game 2 with Milwaukee defeating the Hawks, 125-91, behind Antetokounmpo’s 25 points and point guard Jrue Holiday’s 22.

Now the question is whether the Bucks, who in past postseasons crumbled under pressure but survived a seven-game series with the Brooklyn Nets in the previous round, can keep their cool as the series shifts to Atlanta.

“Obviously, I was calm,” Antetokounmpo said after Game 2, admitting he would have been “a little more nervous” if they had lost two at home. “But I trust my teammates, I trust our habits, I think we’re all on the same page, we know what we have to do and everybody knew we had to come out here and get this game, and that’s what we did from the first possession of the game.

Antetokounmpo’s calmness was matched by virtually all of his teammates and coaches. In media availability both immediately after Game 1 and before Game 2, Bucks players from Holiday to forward Khris Middleton, who shot 26% from the field in Game 1, could identify all of their deficiencies in the first outing: not pressuring Young enough, not beating Hawks big men John Collins and Clint Capela (34 combined rebounds in Game 1, including key offensive boards in the final minutes), and not capitalizing on the open 3-point shots they got.

Even head coach Mike Budenholzer, who can sometimes be a bit cantankerous in interviews (possibly the trait that most resembles the man he used to work for: the San Antonio Spurs’ Gregg Popovich) was more upbeat and optimistic than one might expect for a team down 0-1.

“It’s important for us to take every game, and while they’re incredibly important, at the end of the day, it’s a seven-game series, you’ve got to find a way to win four,” Budenholzer told reporters Thursday. “… You just have to go play basketball.”

But Budenholzer told his team between games that their success would come down to effort and execution, particularly in crunch time, which failed them in the opening game, when key Hawks offensive rebounds led to a Collins three-pointer and Capela’s go-ahead layup.

“We definitely felt like there were things we could have done better,” said Holiday, who seemed upset about the Game 1 outcome, particularly Young’s shoulder dance before converting a triple. “Obviously, going back and looking at the video, there were a lot of mistakes that could have been corrected or, like you said, were under our control, so that was something we felt was a key point of emphasis, especially for this game.”

The team listened to that call. The Bucks needed to rebound better, which is why they outrebounded the Hawks 47-34. They needed to shoot better, so the Bucks started Game 2 a perfect 3-for-3 on three-pointers on their way to 15 three-pointers on 36.6% shooting (vs. 22.2% in Game 1). They needed to defend Young more aggressively and take him out of his comfort zone, so they pressured him to shoot just 37.5% from the floor (compared to 50% in Game 1), took away his alley-oops and penetrations, clogged his passing lanes (Young committed nine turnovers) and limited him to just 15 points.

A perfect example of the Bucks’ adjustments came on the first possession of the second half, when Young, who burned center Brook Lopez with floaters in Game 1, committed a shot clock violation with the 7-footer guarding him only.

The Bucks’ composure will now be tested in Games 3 and 4 on the road. In the past, with their backs against the wall, they have wilted under the pressure of putting distance against overconfident teams. In 2019, the Bucks took a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals in Toronto before losing four straight games to the eventual champion Raptors. Last season’s bubble ended when the Bucks were cavalierly swept out of the second round by the Miami Heat. Even in this postseason, they lost Game 2 in the final round in Brooklyn by 39 points.

Even Friday night’s looser win didn’t seem like a sure thing in the opening seconds. Holiday turned the ball over on the first possession after a deflected pass attempt to Antetokounmpo on a pick-and-roll. But the Bucks kept their heads by forcing a turnover of their own on the Hawks’ first possession. The Bucks built a 10-point lead in the first quarter thanks to better shooting and attacks into the paint. But then the Hawks found their stroke as well, cutting the Bucks’ lead to just four points in the first quarter. The back-and-forth continued in the second period, with the Bucks gaining a 43-35 lead with just under nine minutes left in the half.

That’s when the Bucks took over.

Over the next nine minutes, the Bucks outscored the Hawks 34-10, including 20 straight points, building a lead as large as 41 before each coach emptied their benches for the entirety of the final quarter.

Whether after Game 1 or during the runs the Hawks continued in Game 2 to cut into their deficit, the Bucks kept their cool and finished the job, showing both their opponent and the rest of the league that this is not the same team of the recent past.

“They showed us there’s another level we have to get to,” Hawks head coach Nate McMillan said.