Los Angeles Lakers: 4 Lessons from the loss to Milwaukee Bucks

Giannis Antetokounmpo sent a limo for the Los Angeles Lakers

You actually can’t fault the Los Angeles Lakers’ game plan for the “Greek Freak” on Thursday. The plan was to let Giannis shoot. Cool. There’s not a NBA team around that wouldn’t do the same thing. Better that than getting dunked on. Plus it worked last year in the playoffs. Giannis stated that he would work on his 3-point shot. He wasn’t lying.

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Giannis Antetokounmpo shot so well from behind the arc, Shaquille O’Neal is committed to learn how to say his name right. He had a career-night dropping five 3-pointers in eight attempts. He no longer worries about missing anymore. One of his misses was an air-ball and then he knocked down a 27 footer in Alex Caruso’s face the next time down the floor.

The “Greek Freak” destroyed the Lakers tallying a stat line of 34 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists. He’s not going to knock down five shots from distance every night, but combine his jumpers with the normal stuff.

Call Adam Silver because he’s unfair. While the game plan made sense in theory, the Lakers could have gotten off the hook had Antetokounmpo missed a couple of 3-point shots. But he didn’t. Giannis got hot because of slow close outs and lack of defensive adjustments. The Lakers kept switching and if he wasn’t hitting long distance shots, he was shooting over smaller players.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is on a historical streak of his own. He has now scored 25 points or more on 50% shooting or better in 13 straight games. The only other player to accomplish this since the start of the 1976-77 season was Shaq.  He had a 13-game stretch from Jan. 7-Feb. 20, 2001.

This is not to say we need to Fed-Ex the MVP award to Giannis, but we are finding directions to the Post Office.