The Milwaukee Bucks initiated a strike shortly before Game 5 with the decision coming shortly before they were scheduled to enter the floor for lay-up lines. Some of the Bucks even did their typical shooting on the floor in the 45-90 minute period before the game.
The Bucks, however, did not anticipate their protest leading to a possible outright cancelation of the playoffs.
"My understanding is they didn't go into this thinking we want to be the thread that pulls on the season," said Malika Andrews. "They went into this thinking 'We want to play basketball but we also want to effect change here.'"
Adrian Wojnarowski responded that the Bucks "are not one of the teams grappling with the question of whether they want to continue to play."
"The Bucks want to play," said Wojnarowski. "I think their thought was this would be a one-game protest. They would be up 3-2 in the series. I don't think they were going to give the Magic another game and force a Game 7. I think they'd give them a game and it would be 3-2, which didn't happen anyway.
"But what the result was was a domino effect, now that put other teams in position to make the same decision. They did. They didn't play."