MILWAUKEE – When Sam Presti beat the trade deadline to acquire Ronnie Brewer, he had a vision of another wing defender the Oklahoma City Thunder could use in critical moments on Manu Ginobili or Kobe Bryant, and, ultimately, LeBron James. Brewer has come to the Thunder with a Tom Thibodeau pedigree and the reputation as a rigid defender, so much so that Luol Deng said late last season that Brewer was one of the best perimeter stoppers in the NBA.

There’s been a clear belief out of Scott Brooks about matching opponents’ physicality, and people around the Thunder believe that the physical play has heightened this season when they face Eastern Conference teams. They had a game last Wednesday, when the Chicago Bulls finally snapped the Miami Heat’s historic winning streak and laid out a blueprint centering on rugged defense and clean, hard fouls – but Thunder players still caught part of the fourth quarter in the locker room.

Yes, no one’s going to stop James right now, and Brewer would be conceding a couple inches and around 30 pounds. Even so, Brewer has shown in their past matchups that he has the lateral quickness, strong base and fortitude to stay with James.

Which begs the question: Could Brewer ultimately be the Thunder’s answer to defend LeBron in a possible Finals rematch?

“Hopefully,” Brewer told RealGM. “It’s not going to be ticky tack fouls. You don’t want guys running through the lane without being touched. If it was easy to score, everybody would be doing it and everybody would be very successful. … The Bulls didn’t make it easy for the Heat and it really showed.”

It was evident across the league, too. James left the game irked about the fierceness with which the Bulls played and how they punished him inside. Within the Thunder locker room, the hits were seen as playoff fouls, physicality that will be delivered both ways.

“That’s how Thibs plays,” Brewer said. “No matter who is out there on the court, he’s still going to get his guys to play hard, physical, night in and night out. I wasn’t shocked that that’s how they played because that’s how you play playoff-caliber basketball.”

Brewer has felt welcomed by his new teammates and already has tremendous respect for the fan base. As Brewer said, “Whatever this team is doing before I got here this year, it’s obviously working. They went to the Finals last year; 50-plus wins again this year.” Yet last season, they lacked a second defender who accepted sacrificing his offense to solely focus on losing energy, losing battles within a game guarding James.

Of course, Brewer has been a total non-factor on offense since the Thunder acquired him. He still works the baseline magnificently, but he appears hesitant to shoot jumpers and has attempted just seven shots in 52 minutes over nine games with the Thunder.

Thabo Sefolosha has made strides in his three-point shot, hitting a slightly lower percent than his 43.7 percent mark a season ago on twice as many attempts per game. In last year’s Finals, he spent most of the crucial defensive series guarding LeBron, but James refused – and still refuses – to settle and freight trained past Sefolosha or James Harden.

As the Thunder’s leader, Kevin Durant has taken the challenge to defend James at times in games, and yet it doesn’t have staying power because of the way James can post up and put him into foul trouble. The Thunder can’t afford to have Durant saddled with foul issues and they need Serge Ibaka blocking and altering shots at the rim – not chasing James around the perimeter.

“For a player like myself and Thabo, you just have to slow players down,” Brewer said. “That’s all you can try to do. Guys in this league are so talented that some nights it’s luck, where they’re not making shots and you just have to do different things.”

James is about to enter this postseason to cap off a season for his generation, continuing to maintain durability and refusal to be forced out of his comfort zones. No one is stopping him now, and some scouts believe these Thunder would have to run, run and run to outscore the Heat. Brooks insists they can play either style – with toughness or up-tempo pace – but he understands the East’s physicality.

“We know the East is a physical conference overall,” Brooks said. “We can play physical and have success or we can run the ball and try to score every 10 seconds. We can go either way.”

These games now allow the Thunder to sharpen for the playoffs, and they grasped a level of certainty from that Bulls victory over the Heat. This postseason will have all these brilliant wing scorers coming for Sefolosha and Brewer: James Harden and Ginobili and perhaps Bryant.

And the most potent of them all looms in the East, and Presti and the Thunder had to have traded for Brewer with this in mind. If they play LeBron and his Heat again, rest assured, Brewer comes from the Thibodeau system and comes with experience guarding James.