Bucks vs. Raptors Preview: Milwaukee looks to claim 2-0 series lead

Antetokounmpo would still have an impact on the game – 24 points, 15 boards and seven assists - but gone for the most part were the soul-crushing one-step dunks that littered the first game and sucked the life out of the Raptors.

Behind a deluge of 3’s (14-29, 48.3 percent) the Toronto Raptors got a much-needed victory on Tuesday night.

Kyle Lowry scored 22 points, including the clinching basket with less than 10 seconds to play, and the Toronto Raptors beat the Milwaukee Bucks 106-100 Tuesday night, evening their first-round playoff series at 1-1. “Coach put me back in the fourth quarter and there was just one job – to finish the game”.

DeRozan was also asked about his back-court mate Kyle Lowry, who had just four points on Saturday. He’s a competitor, he’s a fighter.

This was a big bounce-back game for Lowry, who was bad in Game 1, shooting 2-of-11 from the field and 0-of-6 from downtown.

Game 3 is Thursday at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. The forward had nine assists against Toronto in Game 1 but was held to 10 points on 4-of-15 shooting in 40 minutes.

He was much better in Game 2, going 6 for 12, including 2 of 5 from long range.

Casey compared it to his days as an assistant in Dallas, where Josh Howard was one of the Mavericks’ best first-quarter players and Dirk Nowitzki was a notoriously slow starter.

In an attempt to answer those questions, we considered the misfortune of creating good looks and just missing the shots, the problems of Mirza Teletovic and Spencer Hawes minutes, and the adjustments made by the Raptors to right the ship. Brogdon can’t be expected to outplay Lowry the way he did in Game 1, but he can’t become a non-factor either as he was in Game 2. This was supposed to be a break out year for the young Bucks, right until their top guy Middleton suffered an offseason knee injury that cost him several months. “You got four arms on you, but I gotta be more aggressive”. My teammates want me to be more aggressive, so I’m (going to) have to force some more shots. On the other possession, the Celtics weren’t even able to get a shot off, and the Bulls’ forced a shot-clock turnover. “It would have been easy to let go of the rope”. Gobert is just so important for the Jazz team and if he misses more than a few games it is tough to see them not getting simply outplayed by the Clippers.

“It’s big for us, but now we have to focus on Game 2”, Antetokounmpo said. “I don’t even think about who they’re going to put on me”.

The Raptors opened the third quarter with an 18-3 run capped by a Lowry jumper that gave them a 13-point lead.

Valanciunas had no offensive rebounds in Game 1, so it is not as if they would be sacrificing a lot by tightening the reins on Valanciunas from that perspective. “You’ve got to kick out, you’ve got to make shots against those guys, their length is their strength”. They ended the quarter on a six-point run, going into the fourth down one.

Milwaukee battled back, and a layup by Antetokounmpo cut it to 98-97 with 2:46 remaining, leading to a Raptors timeout.

DeRozan made a pull-up jumper to give Toronto a two-point lead with 1:43 left. The Bucks head back to Toronto tonight with a 1-0 series lead to face the Raptors in Game 2. “He covered the rim last night pretty well in the second half, he runs the floor really well and he’s really good in that scheme”. But these are the Raptors, and they’ve made a habit of turning first round series into a debacle.

But they also knew that the Raptors had a sequence of shocking defensive breakdowns late in the game that left Brogdon and Matthew Dellavedova with open three-point attempts that failed. At the end of third quarter, the Milwaukee Bucks scored 83 and the Toronto Raptors scored 84.

Serge Ibaka: 16 points (including 4-7 from deep), seven rebounds, six assists and two massive blocks.