MILWAUKEE r12; With just two regular-season games left Kendell Beckwith Jersey , the Milwaukee Bucks are assured of a spot when the postseason gets underway next week.
Where the Bucks will be seeded and who theyr17;ll face in the opening round, however, is still up in the air, leaving plenty to play for Monday night when they host the Orlando Magic at the Bradley Center.
Theyr17;ll take the court Monday sitting seventh in the Eastern Conference field with Miami, which earns the sixth seed based on a tiebreaker, and a game ahead of eighth-place Washington.
Moving up would be welcomed but the Bucks would be happy to finish seventh. Not only would that allow them to avoid top-seeded Toronto as the eighth seed, a seventh-place finish sets up a first-round series against Boston, which lost point guard Kyrie Irving for the remainder of the season.
The Bucks kept pace Saturday, knocking off the Knicks 115-102 despite playing without Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was resting a sore ankle. Her17;s expected to return Monday as is point guard Malcolm Brodgdon, whor17;s missed the last two months with a torn left quadriceps tendon.
r0;I canr17;t wait, man, I canr17;t wait to have him back Kenny Stabler Jersey ,r1; point guard Eric Bledsoe said. r0;At the same, I think we did a great job of playing together since him and (Matthew Dellavedova) went down. Those are key pieces of our backcourt, him and Delly. Glad to have Malcolm back.r1;
Brogdon expects to get enough work in these final two games for him to be ready for the postseason.
r0;Absolutely,r1; Brogdon said. r0;Ir17;ll definitely be able to get back into a rhythm, but itr17;s mandatory that I play at least a game or two before I get back to the playoffs.r1;
The Magic is not heading to the postseason and comes to Milwaukee having dropped two in a row r12; including a 112-101 decision at Toronto Sunday r12; and eight of its last 11 since posting a 126-117 victory over the Bucks March 14 in Orlando.
While the Bucks sort out their postseason plans, Magic head coach Frank Vogel could be running out the string on his time with the franchise.
Her17;s 53-109 since taking over ahead of the 2016-17 season but when Jeff Weltman took over as general manager and brought in John Hammond as his assistant r12; a reversal of the roles they held with the Bucks r12; both made it clear that they would evaluate the Magicr17;s coaching situation at the end of the season.
His roster was devastated by injuries this season and Orlando will have the fifth-worst record in the league at gametime Monday.
Still, his players appreciate Vogelr17;s leadership.
r0;Coach Vogel, he wants to see everybody on this team do good, especially the young guys,r1; forward Wes Iwundu said. r0;In games like this, it starts by building good habits. He donr17;t want to see no bad habits out there on the court.r1;
Along with the playoff implications, Mondayr17;s game also marks the end of an era for the Bucks. It will be the final regular-season contest played at the Bradley Center, the Bucksr17; home since 1988.
Milwaukee will move to a new Alex Lewis Jersey , $500 million facility under construction just to the north of its current home next season.
The Minnesota Wild returned home from Winnipeg and regrouped to roar back in their first-round playoff series.
The Jets were a late arrival for Game 3 in more ways than one.
Mikael Granlund and Zach Parise had power-play goals in the first period for the spark that was missing on the road, and the Wild scored four times in the second to beat the Jets 6-2 on Sunday night.
r1;Wer17;re here to play,r1; goalie Devan Dubnyk said, r1;and wer17;re fully capable of pushing hard.r1;
The Wild will try to tie the best-of-seven series 2-2 when they host Game 4 on Tuesday night.
r1;They have been physical so wer17;ve got to push back,r1; said Jordan Greenway, who scored his first NHL goal just 20 seconds after Eric Staal sent a wrist shot past a struggling Connor Hellebuyck. Fighting pucks all night, Hellebuyck was pulled for Steve Mason at the second intermission.
Matt Dumba and Marcus Foligno bookended the furious middle frame with goals for the Wild, who won a postseason home game for only the second time in their last nine contests. Mikko Koivu and Nick Seeler each had two assists and Dubnyk made 29 saves, keeping the crowd loud all night.
Blake Wheeler and Tyler Myers scored for the Jets.
r1;Wer17;re in a series here,r1; said Hellebuyck, who made 16 saves. r1;Wer17;re going to lose one once in a while. Itr17;s how we respond to the next one.r1;
After overtaking the Wild with two third-period goals to win 3-2 in Game 1 and dominating the action in Game 2 on the way to a 4-1 victory, the Jets hit some minor turbulence. The blizzard that blanketed the Twin Cities forced their charter flight to land in Duluth on Saturday afternoon and return to Winnipeg for the night. The Jets skipped the customary morning skate and arrived Sunday about eight hours before faceoff.
Whether or not the Jets were actually affected by the weather hardly mattered, given the way the Wild greeted them after the lackluster performance in Game 2.
r1;I donr17;t know if it made us worse Noah Spence Jersey , but I can say for a fact that it certainly didnr17;t make us better,r1; Jets coach Paul Maurice said.
The only shot the Jets sent on target over the first 11-plus minutes was the one by Wheeler that went in, a wide-angle attempt on the power play and a softie if there ever was one in keeping with Dubnykr17;s uncanny tendency to let fluke goals get by him while making many more high-degree-of-difficulty stops. Dubnyk also gave up a goal on the first shot in a couple of games late in the regular season.
r1;And then he shut the door. So I wasnr17;t worried,r1; Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. r1;I thought, `OK. This is going to work.r1;r17;
The Wild snapped right back. Koivu took the initial shot that set up both goals in the first period, with Granlund waiting for the rebound on the first one . Parise freed himself from a tie-up in traffic with Jacob Trouba to move in position for the redirect of the second one .
Myers brought the decibel level down with his slap shot that cut the lead to 3-2 , but the Wild killed consecutive penalties with only about a minute between power plays soon after that to retake momentum. Then came the goals by Greenway and Staal, and the rout was on.
r1;When when that second period started, we werenr17;t able to get faster,r1; Wheeler said. r1;And thatr17;s when the game changed. They stuck with it, and we just werenr17;t able to get to our speed we needed.r1;
The second period went from bad to worse for the Jets, when Myers was checked by Foligno and caught his skate at the bottom of the boards. He needed help off the ice and into the locker room and did not return. Maurice had no update on the defensemanr17;s condition, but without elaborating he suggested the injury could have been avoided.
r1;Didnr17;t love it Jimmy Graham Jersey ,r1; Maurice said, referring to both the hit and the outcome.
There was a lot to like, at least, about the Wildr17;s performance. All four lines produced at least one goal, and the rookie defenseman Seeler had a breakout game in the back with four blocked shots and a breakaway shot that hit the post and barely stayed in front of the line.
r1;Thatr17;s playoff hockey. You need everybody,r1; Staal said. r1;You donr17;t win unless you have four lines and all your defensive core going.r1;
NOTES
The Wild set a franchise postseason record for goals in a home game. Their high was a 7-2 victory at Vancouver in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals on May 5, 2003. r30; After clinching their first-round series with a win in Game 6 at Xcel Energy Center in 2015 over St. Louis, the Wild lost both home games in a sweep by Chicago. Then they went 1-5 on their own ice in the playoffs over the last two years in series losses to Dallas and St. Louis. r30; Jets center Mathieu Perreault missed his second straight game with an upper-body injury. Defenseman Toby Enstrom and center Matt Hendricks have yet to play in the series due to a lower-body injury. r30; Wheeler had the third postseason goal of his career in 28 games.
