We Just Watched the Best Team in the NBA Tonight… and They Might Not Even Make the Finals.

Tune in Sunday for the real test.

On a mild Friday night, Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks brought their league-best record and historic point differential to Los Angeles and turned Staples Center into a time machine.

With the exception of the injured George Hill, every key player from last year’s playoff team — Middleton, Lopez and Bledsoe — disappeared in the third quarter under the relentless defensive pressure of a Lakers team led by LeBron James.

The Bucks’ starters, along with newcomer Wesley Matthews combined to shoot 6 for 23 on their three-pointers.

And last year’s questions will bounce around the echo chambers of NBA twitter again.

“Is Middleton really good enough to be the reliable go-to guy when Giannis is off the floor?”

“Are the Bucks just a good regular season team?”

“Can Coach Budenholzer make adjustments to win a playoff series against an evenly matched opponent?”

I wrote in my predictions before the season began that the Bucks will suffer by being too cheap to resign Malcolm Brogdon.

He’s leading a less talented Indiana team to another playoff berth in the East, but just think of how good the Bucks could be in the playoffs with a small ball line-up of Brogdon, Dante DiVincenzo, Hill, Wesley Matthews and Giannis.

According to NBA.com stats, here are the player defensive ratings of those four guards (for players who have played at least 30 games), their ranking in the league, and their 3-point shooting percentage:

Matthews: 97.4 (#1), .367 3P%

DiVincenzo: 98.1 (#3), .343 3P%

Hill: 100.8 (#12), .487 3P%

Now add Brogdon from last year when he was part of the Bucks’ system and getting wide open shots because defenses had to focus on Giannis:

Brogdon (2018–2019): 102.7 (#11), .426 3P%

In tonight’s game DiVincenzo was the only player not named Giannis who shined under the bright lights of a playoff-level intensity defensive battle between the teams with the best records in their conference. The former Villanova star hit three straight 3-pointers and scored 15 points during a 12-minute run, helping the Bucks cut a 10-point deficit to 5.

Even thought Bledsoe is a wonderful defensive player, his 3-point shooting will always be suspect until he finally hits some when it counts.

Last season, Milwaukee led Toronto 2–0 in the Eastern Conference Finals and lost a double overtime game that would have effectively ended the Raptors.

Instead, they were overcome by the moment and lost four straight.

With the Bucks hitting only 27.9% of their 3-pointers, they looked ripe for the kind of loss they have suffered this season when their opponents hit 20+ 3-pointers, and…

The Lakers won by 10 in a game where they made only 18.8% of their 3-point shots.

Wait, what?

All season long, we have heard about how the Bucks are the best team in the league at defending shots near the rim.

All season long, we have heard about how the Bucks are this unstoppable force on pace to win 70+ games.

All season long, we have heard about how the Bucks have the defensive power to stop LeBron James and Anthony Davis.

And yet nothing could prepare us for the playoffs until we got a glimpse of LeBron and Davis playing at near-playoff level intensity.

During one stretch in the third quarter, the Lakers went on an 18–0 run, turning a 55–50 deficit into a 68–55 lead. Davis and LeBron scored 15 consecutive points, capped off by a Danny Green 3-pointer.

The two stars combined for 67 points, 17 rebounds, 8 assists, 3 steals and 2 blocks on 45 shots. That’s a 1.49 scoring efficiency, and only two NBA players, Giannis and Harden, lead the league in scoring will maintaining that level of efficiency.

As great as Giannis is, when LeBron AND Davis play their best game, the Lakers have two MVP-level players to match the Bucks’ MVP.

Key observations about tonight’s game:

• LeBron can still play incredible defense. With Anthony Davis in foul trouble throughout the first half, LBJ told Davis that he would guard the Bucks’ 7-foot point center. After 17 years in the league, you would think there is no way LeBron James could guard the reigning MVP and still lead the Lakers’ offense efficiently. For tonight, at least, we got a glimpse of playoff LeBron, as he slowed down the Greek Freak, forcing a couple of turnovers and some missed jump shots, while at the same time attacking the #1 defense in the league by going to the rim repeatedly.
• The Lakers beat the Bucks at their own game. Los Angeles was better than Milwaukee in points in the paint, fast break points, and rebounds. The built a defensive wall in transition and took away what Giannis does best, while the Bucks had no answer for LeBron and Davis. Giannis can only guard one of them.
• It must be depressing for a team to rest their superstar during the first few minutes of the fourth quarter and see LeBron James on the floor against the reserves. The beauty of having Anthony Davis is that the Lakers have a superstar player on the floor the entire game. While LeBron lead a blended team of starters and role players (and it should be noted that when Dwight Howard plays well, he should be a starter), Davis sits with about a minute left in the third quarter and comes back at the 8-minute mark of the fourth quarter. At the 7-minute mark, LeBron gets a two minute rest, and returns to finish the game at the 5-minute mark.
• As the Lakers go into playoff mode, Rajon Rondo is on a tight leash. For Lakers fans who have been screaming about Rondo’s terrible play since last year, every minute he’s on the floor has been the NBA equivalent of waterboarding. You know it won’t kill you, but it really feels like your team is drowning in terrible possessions where he dribbles for 20 seconds, misjudges his ability to get to the rim, resulting in blocked shots and transition baskets by the other team, and an endless stream of poor defense and an inability to block out bigger players on the defensive boards. When Rondo is on, he can still provide positive minutes while LeBron is on the bench. The only problem is this happens about five times per season. All I can say is Thank God Vogel has the freedom and/or courage not to cave into politics, so he keeps his best defender and overall glue guy, Alex Caruso, on the court to finish the games. Rondo only played for 8 minutes in this game. He has been better than last year when he had the worst On-Off rating in the league. This year, he’s again the worst on the team, but at least the team is getting blown out of the arena while he’s on the floor.
• LeBron started to do the Kobe scowl. I don’t know if this is a tribute to our fallen Laker hero, or if he channeled a special ferocity to battle against the one player who can outmatch LeBron physically. But if he plays like he did in the third quarter throughout the playoffs, the Lakers will be favorites to win another title.

These could be the reasons why they beat the Bucks in a playoff series.

The only problem is, they might not even get out of the Western Conference.

Even if the Lakers looked like the best team in the NBA against the Bucks, can they even get out of the Western Conference?

We’ll find out on Sunday night when they play the Clippers at full strength.

Here are the things to look for in a game that will probably be a preview of the Western Conference Finals:

• Can Kawhi Leonard continue to play at Michael Jordan-level dominance throughout the playoffs?
• Can the Clippers use Patrick Beverly to guard LeBron? He did in the earlier games and the Lakers couldn’t figure out what to do on offense.
• Will Paul George finally put together an elite playoff series?
• Will the Clippers’ hodgepodge of roster grabs actually make them a better team? It seems as if all of the Clippers’ signings since November have been an attempt to prevent the Lakers from plugging the holes in their lineup by signing Marcus Morris, and Reggie Jackson. They also signed the corpse of Joakim Noah, a player the Lakers almost signed in the fall instead of Dwight Howard. I have my doubts about Morris and Jackson. They are both ball stoppers on a team already overloaded with them in Leonard, George and Williams.
• Do the Lakers have enough depth to win a title? At the beginning of the season, all the experts talked about the drop off in talent after LeBron and Davis. Nobody believed that Dwight Howard would be a productive role player. McGee and Rondo had some terrible stretches last season where they gave no effort. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was horrible until garbage time. Avery Bradley was a has been tossed away by the Clippers. Kyle Kuzma was a streaky, inefficient scorer who couldn’t play defense. And Alex Caruso was a meme. Fast forward through three-quarters of the season, and the Lakers have the sixth best bench point differential in the NBA at +7.4. The Clippers are #1 and the Bucks are #5.
• Everybody needs an Alex Caruso. The Lakers need about 25 minutes a night from him. LeBron loves scrappy point guards who don’t want to dribble the ball up the floor and direct the offense, hustle like crazy, play mad defense, and supply some unexpected offense once in a while. He almost won a title with Matthew Dellavadova as a starter, but Caruso is a beast of an athlete who delights Lakers fans with his high flying dunks and his telepathic connection with LeBron James (see below). What I love about Caruso is he’s an elite defender who makes the right rotation and plays brilliant team defense, blowing up plays by being in the space where a player wants to throw a pass or drive. He has enough size to switch onto bigger players. Where KCP, Bradley and Rondo have no chance guarding a big wing, Caruso will fight for position. One time he fronted Giannis in the post. Another time he bodied up Kris Middleton and prevented him from getting up a shot near the rim. On another play, Caruso set a screen on Giannis that allowed Davis to make a layup after beating his man. Finally, Caruso boxed out Giannis when the game was in the balance, preventing him from getting an easy basket off an offensive rebound.

I wrote last summer that the Clippers had the most boxes checked in my six point check list* to predict who will win the championship.

Their biggest weakness is at center, where they have little depth and can’t contain dominant centers like Embiid, Jokic and Davis.

In the first two games between the teams, Davis was frustrated and inefficient, shooting only 42.1% from the field and averaging 24.5 points and 7.5 rebounds. The Davis we saw against the Bucks is a monster averaging 33 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.4 blocks.

This will be an incredible weekend of NBA March Madness.

Enjoy!

Here’s to better writing.

Footnotes:

*My six-point checklist worked pretty well when I introduced it the year before and predicted that Toronto meet the Warriors in the Finals. Of course, nobody could predict that Golden State would lose two of their stars to injury during the playoffs.