MILWAUKEE -- Outside of the BMO Harris Bradley Center in Milwaukee, there is something of its rare structural enormity forming next to it. Towering steel beams without concrete or walls, this future arena for the Bucks summons easy metaphors for the endless skinny limbs of its starting lineup, which with its average age of 23.2 years also barely yet exists in the NBA. Prospective Eastern Conference kings of tomorrow, the Bucks seem to have arrived to contention earlier than their modern accommodations, though, with their Game 3, 104-77 trouncing of the Toronto Raptors to take a 2-1 first-round series lead standing as a signature performance and inspiring a hubbub that had their old home bursting at the seams.

The most frightening aspect of this dominating showing, for the Raptors and for the rest of the league, was that All-NBA 22-year-old Giannis Antetokounmpo, a 6’11” wing who happens to play point guard, didn’t need to explode for the Bucks to pin their opponent to the mat early. On their way to a 20-point first quarter lead, every time Antetokounmpo collected the ball and brought it up the court and accelerated even a little bit, the attention of the arena came quickly to feverish anticipation of one of his two-step dunks that start somewhere near halfcourt. Instead, he corralled his offense and felt out the gravity he has on defensive schemes before leveraging it toward a series of vanilla-but-unstoppable decisions, often to deferring to Khris Middleton, who led all scorers with 20 points.

“He’s just gotten started,” Jason Kidd said of Antetokounmpo pre-game. “He’s just starting his journey, and we should all sign up. He won’t disappoint, and he’s going to get better.”

Kidd, a game changing point guard himself, explains how making the unusually large and ambulant young star run the offense has also accelerated his understanding of defensive assignments. Bucks rookie Thon Maker, a 7’1” 20-year-old from the Sudan who has lived just about everywhere else, too, on his way to America, has similarly learned how to shut down offenses at an advanced clip.

“We’re not trying to give him a lot,” Kidd says of Maker, “but he keeps raising the bar, so we keep giving him more.”

Together, Antetokounmpo and Maker are likely the NBA’s largest defensive pair to ever be so comfortable switching and guarding at every position. The Raptors, along with the slew of teams in the wake of the Bucks’ 18-6 finish to the season since injecting Maker into the starting lineup, are feeling this. “There’s no ceiling for him,” Antetokounmpo says of his new teammate post-game. The center has also undertaken an apprenticeship with his idol Kevin Garnett this season, who notes Maker’s “refreshing” hunger and potential for greatness.

This rout of the Raptors, albeit just one game, is laden with signs that the Bucks are on to something that signals the evolution of the game—like Maker dunking on Serge Ibaka early, or Antetokounmpo putting an exclamation point on the blowout in the third quarter by blocking a Dwight Powell shot with the tip of his elbow. Milwaukee’s talent is still largely raw, but never has a team been this young, long, mobile, and versatile. A slight lilt of excitement enters the voice of the relentlessly monotone, unflappable Kidd when he talks about this squad, but mostly he is the unsatisfied, war-torn person the Bucks need to motivate growth at the helm. “We’ve been young all year,” he says when regaled by reporters with questions about his roster’s age. “I see no reason to change anything.”

The Bucks are far from finished with Toronto, who have a penchant for digging themselves into playoff holes and then fighting their way to long, bloody series. But a blueprint for conference domination has begun to form at the same time that LeBron James’ ability to play at maximum capacity has started to shrink to smaller streaks with each season. By the time the pillars next to the team’s current arena are caked together with panels—a development teased in pre-game jumbotron segments, featuring excited men in hard hats narrating the process—the Bucks will be contending for Finals appearances. The question, for now, is if they can’t come to disrupt the league’s landscape sooner than expected. A fight is ahead with the Raptors, but they have the high ground in it, and if they survive, LeBron’s Cleveland Cavaliers are next. Regardless of how harsh an imprint they’re ultimately able to make on this postseason, watching Milwaukee right now means seeing what speed the future moves at in basketball.