Big Challenge Will Be Maintaining Interest

Did you hear it? As insistent and insipid as a bedside alarm?

Did you hear it? The buzz-buzz-buzz that filled the Staples Center for most of three quarters Tuesday night?

It was initially unfamiliar after such a long sleep, but it soon was painfully recognizable?

Did you hear it?

The Lakers did.

Finally, the sound of competition.

Expectedly, in the form of the Milwaukee Bucks.

Absolutely, a team with a chance to win more than one game against them next June.

This column was supposed to be about how the Bucks fulfilled those expectations Tuesday and gave the locals their first real scare of the season.

Until the Lakers calmly reached over and hit the snooze button.

A Kobe Bryant dunk for their first lead.

A Kobe Bryant three-pointer with Michael Redd hanging from his nose for a three-point lead at the end of the third period.

A Kobe Bryant fourth quarter in which he refused to give away the ball, or the game, with 13 points.

A 104-85 victory that happened as quick as a Bryant wink.

A 19-point margin fashioned in 12 minutes.

And now, the brutal truth.

If this is the best the Eastern Conference can offer, then the Lakers’ biggest problem this spring will be stifling a yawn.

If this is the best anyone else in the NBA can offer this year, then our local cops can start reserving their spots along Figueroa.

“We didn’t have enough confidence to win the game,” said George Karl, the Milwaukee coach. “When it went the wrong way, it went the wrong way fast.”

Wait a second.

The Bucks are team that has the manpower to wrap a zone around Shaquille O’Neal like a nasty flu--O’Neal scored only 19 points with nine rebounds and three turnovers.

They are a team that can shoot well enough to stun the Lakers, shooting nearly 50% in the first half while taking a 15-point lead at one time.

They are a team that beat the Lakers twice last season.

They are also a team that, a couple of hours earlier, was unafraid to beat its chest.

“This team, we’ve been around, and we’re all warriors,” Ray Allen said before the game. “I know last year in the Finals, we would have won more than one game. That’s why everybody wants to see tonight. We are the wild card out there.”

And yet according to its coach, this team ultimately does not have the confidence to beat the Lakers?

This wild card is a joker?

Is there hope for anyone else?

Not if the entire Laker team plays like it did Tuesday, no.

This was about more than Bryant’s emergence as a zone-buster with 33 points.

This was about Samaki Walker hustling for a team-leading 11 rebounds, and Derek Fisher coming up with three big steals, and Devean George continuing his emergence with nine rebounds and a constant presence around the ball.

Don’t believe us, listen to Karl.

“Second half, I don’t think we did anything to win a game on the road,” said the coach. “They were outhustling us on the rebounds. I mean, it’s different if all the rebounds were power rebounds.

“They were just getting running rebounds and hustle rebounds from George to Fisher to [Rick] Fox to [Robert] Horry to whoever came in the game, they ran down rebounds on us.”

The Lakers are now in a position to run down history.

They are a league-leading 13-1, which may make it a bit early to start talking about surpassing the league-record 72 wins by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.

But then, counting the end of last season, the Lakers have won 36 of their last 38 games.

At 36-2, one could imagine an eventual 78-4 record, no?

Beforehand, the Buck coach was imagining something entirely different.

“I’m excited about this game, it feels like a playoff game,” Karl said. “It feels like two teams who want to find out about each other.”

They certainly did that.

They learned, first, about new faces.

Anthony Mason, the Buck new free agent forward, gives the them the toughness to lean on O’Neal inside. He had 11 rebounds and admirably fought through the middle.

Yet the Lakers countered with Walker, their new free agent forward, who actually showed glimpses of the toughness to match Mason.

They also learned about old faces with new looks.

Tim Thomas, the Bucks’ 6-foot-10 reserve forward, was positively Horry-like from the field, hitting seven of nine shots and proving to be a problem that needs addressing.

Yet the Lakers countered with George, who was a quicker-than-Fox foil to the Bucks’ fastbreak.

“We’re gonna throw something out there tonight,” Karl was saying before the game.

So they did, with quickness and shooting that momentarily startled the two-time defending champions.

Until the Lakers promptly threw it back.

Next?

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.