The NBA restart has been full of surprises since it began in late July and it continued to make new ones. The leading teams of both the Eastern and the Western Conference, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers, both lost in Game 1 of the first-round playoffs. The last time this happened was in 2003.

It may be accidental, but Bucks should be alerted

As the league's best defensive team this season, the Bucks did perform to their reputation in the bubble. Well, since they already locked the lead ranking, it's understandable to pull their punches in games that did not matter.

At least that's what most wanted to believe before the playoffs.

Then the Bucks suffered a painful loss against the Magic 122-110 on Tuesday. How did it happen?

It's no secret that Milwaukee invested more efforts in protecting the paint and were willing to allow some open 3-pointers in the areas where it was the most difficult to shoot them. That worked for two good reasons: 1. First-class shooters are still rare even in today's league; 2. Brook Lopez is able to take care of anyone under the rim.

Nikola Vucevic broke both for Orlando. The Montenegrin seven-footer went 5-8 from downtown and 3-6 in the middle-range in Tuesday's game, forcing Lopez to come out of his nest. With enough space to work in the paint, Vucevic made 7 out of 10 shots there. Having dropped 35 points, 14 rebounds and four assists, he alone made Milwaukee's defensive strategy fall through.

The whole team of Orlando sank 16 triples in the game but Milwaukee were not bad in that division as they also buried 14 shots from the same area. Giannis Antetokounmpo put down 31 points, 17 rebounds and seven assists in 34 minutes – he even made three triples. It should have been a great performance unless you watched the last quarter.

Though he was almost unstoppable in the first three quarters, Antetokounmpo went only 1-5 in Q4 to get three points, four rebounds and two assists. Every time he had the ball and tried to penetrate, his defender would fall back and be joined by another one to slow him down and keep him away from the free throw line. Orlando refused to give Antetokounmpo any chance of assaulting the rim and had no intention to test his passing ability against tapping.

Usually that's when the team's second-in-command stood out to take over – in Milwaukee's case, that should be Khris Middleton's work. Unfortunately, the two-time All-Star swingman was 4-12 in total and 2-6 in 3-pointers to get only 14 points, six rebounds and four assists. He also committed four turnovers.

This was only the first game of the series and it's hard to imagine that Magic (and Vucevic) will remain so hot in the following games. However, there were still a lot of things the Bucks could learn from Game 1 and they'd better do it when they still have time.

Damian Lillard plays like Stephen Curry

After his crazy performance in the eight games before the playoffs, many were expecting at least two 40+ or even 50+point games from Damian Lillard. He scored 34 points and made six triples to lead the Portland Trail Blazers to edge over the Lakers 100-93 in Game 1. Lillard's performance was good, but not very typical of himself.

The Lakers did not make any special arrangements for defending Lillard – that did not mean they underestimated him. The purple and gold switched from Kentavious Caldwell-Pope denying the ball, double teaming to one-one-one defense. Lillard made some "Silencer" shots, including the 3-pointer from mid-court in the end of the second quarter, but he did not keep the ball in his hands all the time in Tuesday's game. On the contrary, Lillard made full advantage of his threat via off-ball play to make the game easier for his teammates. His offense-launching, especially in the second half, mostly started with receiving the ball around screen and ended with shooting in five seconds.

That's partly how Stephen Curry played in the Golden State Warriors. Compared with Lillard's old way of "everyone spreads out and let me carry you all," this new way helped him reserve more strengths for the time that matters the most and gave his teammates a bigger motivation to work hard.

It must be pointed out that Lillard and his change of playstyle were not the biggest reason behind Lakers' loss – it was the purple and gold's terrible shooting that wasted LeBron James record night. The 35-year-old put down 23 points, 17 rebounds, 16 assists (career-high in the playoffs) while whole team sank only five triples at a 3-point rate of 15.63 percent.

The Lakers had and made full use of their front-court advantage in the game. They led in offensive rebounds 12-2 in the first half and points in the paint 50-28 for the whole game. In fact, that's how the team managed to keep the game from being long gone. 

Nonetheless, in the last quarter, the Trail Blazers put up their response, the twin tower pair of Jusuf Nurkic and Hassan Whiteside. The existence of two big men on the court simultaneously sure would hurt offense, but the Lakers' disappointing shooting made it less painful, especially when the two big guys were able to protect the rebounds and the rim better.

The Lakers are very likely to watch their 3-point shooting recover but they need to remember, this was not the 100-percent Lillard either.

Other games on Tuesday:

Miami Heat 113-101 Indiana Pacers

Oklahoma City thunder 108-123 Houston Rockets