The Bucks were good then — the Eastern Conference’s third-best regular-season team from 1981 to 1988 — but they shared the East with the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers, either of which represented the conference each of those seasons. “We were very good for the whole time but we just couldn’t get over that hump,” Paul Mokeski said. “We would run into Philly with Dr. J. (Julius Erving), the Celtics and Larry Bird and that group, and it was very frustrating.”