The Lakers and Bucks may be the reigning No. 1 series in their respective conferences, but neither has so far managed to secure a party victory this season. Both had the chance to do so in a heavyweight showdown on national television, and it was defending champions Lakers, who trailed 113-106 at the top, giving their second consecutive win against Milwaukee, dating back to last season .
And just like last season’s fight, LeBron James was the star of the series with 34 points, eight assists and six rebounds. He may have brought the lead, but Kentavious Caldwell-Pope also did his part of the hard work by hitting seven of the ten three-point attempts to give the Lakers the win. The Bucks meanwhile, just like Monday in Brooklyn, came flat from behind the arc and scored only nine of their 28 3s, and despite 67 points from their star trio Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday, their role players just could not get enough of the slapgat fetch to carry the Bucks to victory.
The Lakers regained the West Conference No. 1 series with a 12-4 record. The Bucks, now 9-6, fall to No. 3 in the East. As Brooklyn comes together and Boston and Philadelphia are celebrating high tide, Milwaukee will have to figure out these issues against top teams quickly if he wants to repeat on top of the conference’s regular season mark.
The old man LeBron is finally here
There’s not exactly a blueprint for stopping LeBron, but at least defense can cling to the fact that he was largely not an elite shooter. When you sit at the bottom of the screens, your ball drops when a smaller player tries to cook, the basic methodology has largely come down to ‘well, he might miss threes, but he will not miss dunks’. Unfortunately for the NBA defense, he no longer misses tries. Through 16 games, James is now 39.6 percent from behind the arc. Were it not for the last miss, he would be 40 percent on the season.
This is a sign he only hit once in his career during the 2012-13 season with the Miami Heat. He did so at 3.3 attempts per game. He doubles it this season at 6.6. James’ newfound emphasis on the long ball is not exactly new. His volume gradually increased over the years, and he also became silent from longer distances. But it all comes together this season in a way that should terrify its opponents. Their last reasonable way to defend him is no longer viable, and if his shooting lasts, he will be able to hold off Father Time for a while longer.
The entire Lakers series is having fun
It would be one thing if LeBron were the only Laker on a hot streak. Defense can then justify the descent of everyone else. But the Laker cast shot it just as well as LeBron. The Lakers scored the 40 percent lead as a team on Thursday. Alex Caruso and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are both above 50 percent. Kyle Kuzma has hovered around 40 all season. Of the 14 players who made the speech for the Lakers this season, eight reached the league average of 35.8 percent from last season on Thursday.
It can only be randomly deviant. It can be an advantage to play without fans. But if that is the case, the rest of the league will theoretically drop just as much when they return. Last year’s Lakers were one of the NBA’s worst shooting teams. Now they are one of the best, and they have sacrificed nothing defensively or in terms of ball handling to get there. The defending champion is even better than when they won everything.
Bad luck Bucks, or bad D Bud?
The Bucks have now played four relatively healthy contenders this season. They all lost, but there was one common denominator for the losses. See how their opponents shot from behind the arc in the matches.
Celtics: 18-out-40 (45 percent)
Jazz: 25-of-53 (47.2 percent)
Nette: 15-of-31 (48.4 percent)
Lakers: 19-out-37 (51.4 percent)
The question here is how much of it is random and how much of it is poor decision making on Milwaukee’s part. The Bucks play the NBA’s most aggressive foul scheme. It is designed to protect the paint at all costs. The costs, compared to good teams, are easy three-pointers, but these numbers are extreme even under such circumstances. To a certain extent, it’s just bad luck. A team will never be expected to shoot, as the four have more than a sustained monster.
But the Bucks are naive if they do not acknowledge what they are giving up by playing this way. The Heat exposed the system’s flaws in the playoffs last season. Every good team does it now. Milwaukee tinkered with a few adjustments. They link more than ever, but still not nearly enough. If the Bucks plan to beat the Lakers or any of these teams when it counts, they need to be a little flexible defensively.
My Kingdom for a George Hill
Milwaukee’s bench shot 7-of-19 in this game. They were 5-out-14 against the Nets on Monday. This is an extremely worrying trend for a team whose beginners, historically speaking, have struggled to score in the playoffs. They were better this season (as far as the NBA is concerned as offensive efficiency to enter this game), but the lack of any form of reliable banking figures has become a major problem against good teams.
The Bucks made sensible investments in reserves after the trade in Bogdan Bogdanovic expired. DJ Augustin received $ 21 million over three years, but he made only one-third of his two-pointers. Bobby Portis returned to earth after a warm start. If this continues, the Bucks will rely too much on Giannis, Holiday and Middleton. If one of them has a knockout night, like Middleton shot 6-out-15 against the Lakers, the best teams in the NBA become offensively impossible.