'We Can't Let Them Down': How Patrick Beverley Became X-Factor In Bucks Staving Off Elimination

Patrick Beverley's right hand hovered about six inches from the hardwood floor at Fiserv Forum.

Bobby Portis Jr. stood to his left — his hand just as high as Beverley's — and behind him was the Indiana Pacers' five-man lineup. As Milwaukee Bucks faithful cheered, Beverley made it clear that he was there to put on a show. A high-stakes show, but one nonetheless.

Beverley had just hit a mid-range shot over Tyrese Haliburton; He received a kick-out pass from Pat Connaughton on the right wing, drove in to the elbow before crossing over into a spin move and shot. Haliburton was anything but small, but in that moment, he was. "Too small," according to the Bucks veteran.

And Beverley's energy? Quite the opposite.

"We couldn't let the fans down," Beverley said standing at center court following his team's blowout victory over the Pacers in Game 5. He had just finished the game and still had sweat all over his face, but had one more arm-waving run in him as he left the court. At that point, the Bucks had given themselves another burst of life.

They had won.

"We've got some of the best fans in the NBA," Beverley said in a shout to a filled Fiserv Forum. "We can't let them down."

Milwaukee didn't let its fans down. That was because of Beverley — the Bucks' veteran with unlimited passion — and it certainly showed in Game 5.

Beverley had a quiet game for the Bucks all year. Between injuries — a byproduct of a mid-season trade and an aging veteran's career — but when it mattered most, he delivered. That started with his energy, which Rivers said radiated around the entire team.

"You (could) feel the energy in the film room and in the walkthrough," the Bucks coach said following his team's Game 5 victory. "I walked off the floor (prior to tipoff) and I said, ‘We’re coming tonight.’"

Rivers and the rest of the team knew what was coming. Not only would they have to overcome the red-hot Pacers in a playoff atmosphere with higher stakes, but they had to do so without Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard. That's where Beverley stepped up. And big time.

“I thought Pat Beverley was fantastic,” Rivers said. “His scoring was good, but I thought his playmaking was unbelievable tonight."

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Just one game prior to his 13-point, 12-assist electrifying performance, Beverley stood in the Bucks' locker room in front of a media scrum. He had just logged nine points on 50 percent shooting in a pedestrian performance consisting of just 21 minutes.

Sure, every point mattered without Milwaukee's two stars in, but Beverley hadn't made a big splash. Haliburton, on the other hand? He had. So, Beverley was asked about it.

"What did you see from guarding him tonight?"

Beverley — his gaze never lifting from the floor — kept his answer simple.

"Nothing," he uttered. "Check the numbers. I think he's shooting 19 percent from the 3. ... If I gave you the ball for 41 minutes, you would have 10 assists also."

Taking a shot at the best player on the team leading you 3-1 in the first round of the playoffs normally isn't advised, but Beverley has long-been known not to advise shoulds and shouldn'ts. So, he didn't.

And in Game 5, he subdued Haliburton's impact, holding him to 16 points — the Pacers' top score for the night — and tallied a double-double with assists. While the box score reflected Beverley's impact in Game 5 more than it did in the games prior, his effort hadn't changed.

And as he put it, neither did the rest of the team's.

"(We showed) elite effort," Beverley said in the locker room following Milwaukee's Game 4 loss. "I think that goes unto the coaching staff and the character of this team. Obviously, you don't want to be down 3-1. There's no suych thing as moral victories ... but (our effort) shows the character of the team."

The No. 3 seed being down two games to one made sense when the fact that it was also down two stars was taken into consideration. Add another game and it seems to not only check out, but be a death spell. Instead, Beverley took control of the game in the third quarter to keep the Bucks rolling while Indiana went cold.

Instead, he proved Rivers' pre-game confidence right.

"I told our coaches, ‘I don’t know if we’re going to win, but we’re coming to play and win tonight,’" Rivers explained following Game 5. "You (could) feel ... the preparation. How locked in (they were).

"That was not a team ... thinking this was it. That’s a team thinking they can win, and it showed.”

Milwaukee now faces another win-or-go-home scenario against the Pacers, but instead of getting the luxury of its home crowd, it'll have to brave the "Sea of Gold" that it lost in front of just a few games before. It'll still be without Antetokounmpo — though Rivers isn't worried about that.

"This team ... they're doing everything," he said. "They really are. They're playing together. They know we're down men. They know we have to do it together. No one is trying to be the hero."

Hero-ball seldom results in good team wins. Rivers knows that — he's experienced it before — but so do the rest of the Bucks. They'll know what's at stake when they tipoff at Gainbridge Fieldhouse for the final time of the season — win or lose.

Beverley is no exception to that. He's seen his share of playoff basketball and been on both ends of a team being eliminated and doing the eliminating. Now that he's with Milwaukee, he'll experience the same, though he certainly hopes it's the latter in Game 7 in front of his home crowd.

But until then, his eyes will face forward, his hand will be six inches off the floor if it means injecting energy into his teammates and most importantly, his mind will be on winning. That's what he does.

"The series is never over until it's over, alright?" Beverley said of being down 3-1, now facing a 3-2 series deficit on the road. "We've got to make it back home.

"No matter what, we've got to get back home."