When leaders meet up

By Guillaume Mahot

The Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers, running and dominating their respective conferences, were meeting last night in Wisconsin for their first confrontation in this NBA regular season 2019/2020. The leader of the Western Conference was defeated by the leader of the Eastern Conference at Fiserv Forum. The teammates of Greek Nigerian power forward Giannis Antetokounmpo won 111 points to 104. They were already leading 65-46 at halftime.

Without their point guard Eric Bledsoe, the Bucks, who replaced him by Donte DiVincenzo in the starting lineup, could rely on five players at more than ten points to make the difference. If the Greek Freak was true to form with 34 points and 11 rebounds, the good surprise came from the bench with Gorge Jess Hill who added up 21 points. Khris Middleton (15 points), Brook Lopez (10 points) and Wesley Matthews (13 points) completed the task.

The difference was made in the steals, where Milwaukee had 14 ones while the Lakers were stealing only 4 balls. In the meantime, Los Angeles suffered 18 turnovers (13 for Milwaukee). These cartridges were well used by the Bucks although they were less handy on free throws (71.9% vs 78.3% for LA).

The 78 points brought by the trio Davis-James-Green were not enough for the Angelinos, who were also undermined by their teammates and their lack of scoring. If Kentavious Caldwell-Pope did the job with 18 points, players like JaVale McGee (4 points), Rajon Rondo (2 points) and Dwight Howard (2 points) had difficulties to support the roster.

The Lakers are still leading the debates in the West before the Clippers who lost at home against Houston (117-122) last night as well. In the East, the Bucks are quite comfortable with this new victory and seven successes more than Boston, ranking second (the C’s played only 25 games whereas the Bucks had 29 though).

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