With Malcolm Brogdon and Eric Bledsoe out, coach Budenholzer went with the biggest starting lineup I have ever seen: Middleton Antetokounmpo Mirotic Ilyasova Lopez. Who needs traditional guards when you can just play a bunch of huge dudes and stop the opposing team from ever scoring? Because that’s how the start of this game went: everything that the Jazz tried to do was stymied by the Bucks’ length, to the point where the home fans were booing only a few minutes into the game.
I’d boo as well if I watched a goofy-looking dude named Brook Lopez block 6 shots in the first 6 minutes. He was dominating the paint during that stretch in a way that I haven’t seen from a Bucks player since Larry Sanders (who will receive a check from the Bucks for 1.8 million dollars this year and the next three after that to fund his line of boutique skateboard decks).
Eventually, the Jazz took Rudy Gobert, who probably had the worst game of his life, out, and Lopez only blocked one more shot (don’t believe the lies of the commentators when they say he had 8). In the end, the Bucks lost because they foolishly thought they could ever take Giannis out of the game in the fourth quarter. Fools!