'Bucks in 6'? Those chants during Milwaukee's playoff run date to a time when they definitely didn't win in six

Chants of "Bucks in 6" echoed through the Bucks' 2021 playoff run, only growing during the Finals — which the Bucks did indeed win in six.

It's a familiar refrain for those who have followed the team closely in recent years, notably through the omnipresent #BucksIn6 hashtag on social media.

The sentiment dates to a brash proclamation by Bucks guard Brandon Jennings back in 2013.

Jennings, who averaged 17.5 points per game for the Bucks that year, was attending the Wisconsin Sports Awards when he was asked about his confidence level going into the team's first-round playoff series with the Miami Heat. The Bucks were the eighth seed and Miami, led by LeBron James, was the top seed in the East.

"I'm real confident," Jennings said. "I'm sure everybody is writing us off but but I see us winning the series in six."

They didn't. The Heat won, 4-0, en route to an NBA championship. The Heat wound up toppling San Antonio in seven games in the finals.

ARCHIVE: Brandon Jennings at Wisconsin Sports Awards: Bucks over Miami in six

Jennings was traded to Detroit in the offseason (in a deal that brought current Bucks star Khris Middleton, no less), and though the quote was naturally written off as brash and ridiculous from a national perspective, local Bucks fans embraced it, even after Jennings departed.

The Bucks selected Jennings with the 10th overall pick in the 2009 draft, and his 55-point game as a rookie created an immediate aura of intrigue, though he ultimately couldn't sustain his early success.

He came back to the Bucks in 2018 as a reserve, and the Bucks' official Twitter account posted a brief video of Jennings looking back at that quote in 2013.

Jennings was back again in 2021 during the run to the championship, a good-luck charm for the Bucks fan base who wound up with a spot in the Bucks victory parade.

Before their historic Finals victory and the Eastern Conference finals before it, the Bucks hadn't won a playoff series in exactly six games in Jennings' lifetime. In fact, the only occurrence in franchise history came in 1984, when Milwaukee won the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Nets.

More: 'Remarkable season and historic win': Gov. Evers declares July 22 'Bucks in Six' Day

A first version of this story ran in Feb. 2019 and was updated May 13, 2022

JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Bucks in 6": Origin story of Brandon Jennings chant that came true