In three days, the Bucks and Pacers tip off their postseason runs looking very different than they did the last time they faced on January 3rd. Indiana has a shiny new power forward in Pascal Siakam who seems to fit in pretty well. Milwaukee has a shiny new... well, maybe not shiny, but a new head coach nevertheless. Though many of the other main characters remain the same, there’s enough change here to suspect that the regular season outcomes—wherein the Pacers won four of five matchups, one of them somewhat convincingly—might go differently this time around.
I’m not suggesting we throw the Adrian Griffin-era losses out the window completely, but we should treat this Bucks team as distinct from the one before January 29th, when Doc Rivers coached his first game.