Lakers & Bucks Respond After Dropping Game One

It was a historic start for the NBA Playoffs in more ways than one. Despite the fact that this year is unprecedented by default with the bubble situation, the games have actually been interesting as well. On Tuesday, history was made when the eighth-seeded Portland Trail Blazers and Orlando Magic won game one against the top seed Lakers and Bucks on the same day. It is very rare to see an eight seed beat a one seed in a series and usually only happens due to injury or a lockout season where the difference between seeds in terms of the record is smaller. But after Tuesday’s games buzz that it could happen again for both teams. Unfortunately, for both eight seeds, the Lakers and Bucks came out in game two and dominated their competition.

Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks cruised to a 111-96 win on Thursday after being down double digits for the majority of game one. While the Bucs effort was noticeably improved the Magic also cooled off from three, hitting a much worse percentage of shots from deep than they did in game one. While the Lakers were the horrid shooting team on Tuesday against the red-hot Blazers, they turned it around on Thursday with a 111-88 thrashing.

While the Magic win seemed a little fluky while it was happening, the Blazers were a more of a live dog after getting back starters Jusif Nurkic and Zach Collins from injury during the layoff – they went 7-1 in the seeding games and won a play-in game against the Memphis Grizzlies to earn their way into the playoffs. It will be a tough road for the Blazers, especially now that team star Damian Lillard dislocated a finger in game two, but he was adamant that he would not miss a game. “Oh, I’m playing,” he said. “[The staff] had to put it back for me, and at that point, I thought it was broken. I was just frustrated because I had to go back and get it looked at. I was just frustrated. It was just bad timing. I handle the ball a lot, so just knowing there’s going to be some discomfort, I don’t know how that’s going to feel or how that’s going to go. It’s frustrating. That’s all it was.”