Bobby Portis' and the Milwaukee Bucks' run in the NBA playoffs ended much sooner than many anticipated.
Portis, who starred at Arkansas under Mike Anderson from 2013-15, was held scoreless Wednesday in the No. 1 seed Bucks' season-ending 128-126 home loss to the No. 8 Miami Heat, who won the first-round Eastern Conference series 4-1.
Milwaukee, which owned the best regular-season record in the NBA at 58-24, is the first 1 seed to lose to an 8 seed in 11 years.
In 16:47 off the bench in Game 5, Portis finished 0 of 2 from the field, 0 of 1 from three-point range and with 4 rebounds. He had scored in his previous 28 appearances in a playoff game.
Portis’ two field goal attempts came at the 9:02 mark of the second quarter and with 3:14 left in the third quarter. Perhaps the most interesting part of the forward’s night came when he got into a verbal exchange with Miami veteran forward Udonis Haslem during a second-quarter timeout.
Portis, prior to Wednesday, was seventh on the team in scoring this postseason at 12 points per game and first with 9.3 rebounds per game. His best performances came in Games 1 and 2, when he had 21 points and 8 rebounds, and a 13-point, 15-rebound double-double, respectively.
Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo missed most of Game 1 and all of Game 2 with a back injury.
Portis also had five assists and two blocks in the second game of the series. He averaged 9.6 points on 48.8% shooting and 8.2 rebounds in the series.
Caleb Martin, a 6-5 guard who played at Nevada under Eric Musselman, was an essential role player in Miami’s series win. He put up 11.2 points — 63.3% from the field, 43.8% from deep — and 5.4 rebounds in 26.6 minutes per game.
Martin’s lone bucket in Wednesday’s game came on a driving layup in the second quarter. The Heat outscored the Bucks by 54 points during his minutes in the series.
Additionally, former Razorbacks standout Moses Moody and the Golden State Warriors took a 3-2 series lead over the Sacramento Kings with a 123-116 road win Wednesday.
Moody finished with 2 points, 1 assist and 1 block in 4:29 on the floor.
The assist came in the first quarter, when forward Draymond Green added a layup. Moody’s block of Kings guard Kevin Huerter sparked a transition opportunity, which ended with Moody driving to the rim and drawing a foul on Huerter moments later.
Moody is averaging 5.5 points and 2 rebounds in 8.5 minutes per game this postseason.
Game 6 of the series is set for Friday at 7 p.m. Central on ESPN. A Warriors win would push them into the second round, where they would play the winner of the Memphis Grizzlies-Los Angeles Lakers series.