Bucks vs. Raptors: Taking care of business

Bucks get over the hump and beat a team below .500

The Milwaukee Bucks have now won six of their last seven games after sweeping the season series against the Toronto Raptors, 130-112. The highest-scoring duo in the league Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard were at it again, combining for 61 points and going 21/28 from the free-throw line. RJ Barrett racked up a double-double for the Raptors, scoring 21 points on 7/16 shooting while dishing out 10 assists.

Read our full summary of the game here and catch a six-minute audio recap on the Bucks+ podcast Bucks In Six Minutes below:

What Did We Learn?

The Milwaukee Bucks have turned the corner on their first-quarter starts. For large stretches of this season, the Bucks haven’t been able to always get the gas going from the jump. Yet in the three games since their loss to the New York Knicks, they’ve been able to turn it on. They started up 34-16 against the Magic, 47-26 against the Kings, and 37-22 last night against the Raptors.

“What’s been great is our defense. Today was the first time that I thought after the mid-second quarter, I thought we went into our trade basket mode,” head coach Doc Rivers said. “We set the tone early, we had command of the game and that was nice.”

The score against the Raptors could have been much worse for Toronto because, in the first four minutes and 10 seconds of the game, the Bucks held a 14-3 advantage. Lillard said that from their last few games, they have been battle-tested to play a physical game and take charge of games from the get-go.

“A team that plays a physical game like they do, the foul rate is high, I think you just got to play a physical game. You really can’t be looking to count on that (getting foul calls),” Lillard said. “I think we’ve had a couple of games like that, where we played Orlando twice and they’re a really physical team. New York is a physical team, we played Toronto before that. It’s been a lot of physical games (and) I think we’ve become immune to the physicality and we just keep going downhill.”

Despite this recent development, I still have concerns about their competition level in these three games. I know the Kings had won six in a row, but before that, they were a total mess. The Toronto Raptors are in a full rebuild and the Magic are without six rotational players at this point in the year. If they want to make me believe in what they are doing, I need to see it against better teams. I am glad to see that Giannis is acknowledging the need for them to remain humble and keep doing what they are doing.

“We have 10 (to) 12 games before the All-Star break, we have to take it game-by-game. We have Philly coming in (Sunday and) we have to take care of business, I feel like the team has been taking care of business,” Anteteokounmpo said “We had this bad game against the Knicks, but in the games previous to that and the games after that we’ve been taking care of business, so I’m very happy with where the team stands right now but we cannot let our foot off the gas.”

Three Ryan Rollins Things

With Andre Jackson Jr out, instead of opting for the improving AJ Green or the veteran Gary Trent Jr., Doc Rivers opted for the two-way player Ryan Rollins to pair next to Damian Lillard in the starting lineup. Ignoring the quality of the opponent slightly, the move paid off quite well, with the Detroit native putting in some work on both ends of the court, showing he can make winning plays. Here are the three best plays from Ryan Rollins on the night.

Rollins set the tone early by hitting the glass.

As mentioned in the previous section, the Milwaukee Bucks have turned a corner on their first-quarter starts. Obviously, that mostly starts with Dame and Giannis, but a key early cog was the former Toledo Rocket. After Giannis went 1-for-2 from the line on the Bucks’ first possession of the game, the Bucks got a stop and came the other way. Rollins grabs not only one but two offensive boards (one off his own miss), which led to another trip to the free throw line for Giannis. It was part of a 14-3 run for the Bucks to begin the first quarter.

Running the floor leads to some sweet results.

As long as Giannis is on the Bucks, you know that he will always run in transition. The true measure of how much the Bucks have changed in terms of their pace is having other guys be willing to run the floor. This isn’t to call out guys like Brook Lopez, Khris Middleton or Bobby Portis, but having younger, faster guys can generate easy baskets. Rollins shows this off to perfection in the third quarter. After another Bucks stop, Dame drives to the middle before finding Rollins trailing behind Giannis and he gets one of the easiest layups over Scottie Barnes. He glides by and drops in the finger roll lay-in, forcing a timeout from the Raptors with the Bucks up 19.

Could he be another shot-creator off the bench?

This isn’t to say that Rollins is a world-beating bench-scoring option. I don’t think any comparisons to Jamal Crawford will be due anytime soon. Yet, there is some untapped potential in the way he can handle himself in the halfcourt. Rollins runs a strong pick-and-roll with Giannis. The screen forces Gradey Dick to trail behind while Barnes stays in front in a semi-drop coverage, with Olynyk rotating to cover Giannis. Rollins takes advantage of Barnes sagging into the paint and drives in with a floater. A trade needs to happen soon so the Bucks can convert Rollins into a full contract so he can get regular minutes because he’s nearly at his halfway threshold of games allowed for a two-way player at 50 games (he’s played in 24 counting last night).

Bonus Bucks Bits

• The sports world and the city of Milwaukee lost an icon on Thursday when “Mr. Baseball” Bob Uecker passed away. The Bucks held a moment of silence before the game and played a video tribute during the middle of the first quarter, which included a sing-along to the 7th-inning stretch.

• It was a milestone night for one AJ Green. The three-point sniper buried his 200th career three-pointer on this one from the corner in the first quarter.

• The Giannis and Dame connection just keeps getting better game-by-game. During the big first-quarter run by the Bucks, Dame threw one of the best lob passes to Giannis I’ve ever seen between the two superstars. I asked Giannis about that play and what it means for their playing relationship at this point a year and a half in:

“We’re getting comfortable with one another, our two-man game is becoming better and better. We understand one another, our tendencies, our spots,” Antetokounmpo said. “As I said earlier in the season each game our combination and the way we play with one another and the way we lead our team we’re gonna get deadlier and deadlier, which it has.”

• Giannis Antetokounmpo led the Bucks with 35 points and 12 rebounds in tonight’s game. Antetokounmpo has now tallied a double-double in a season-best 12 consecutive games, marking the second-longest active streak in the NBA this season and the third-longest streak of his career. He has scored 30+ points in 22 games this season (2nd in NBA), including a league-high 20 30-point double-doubles.
• With 26 points, eight assists, and zero turnovers tonight, Damian Lillard has now tallied six games with 25+ points/5+ assists/0 turnovers with the Bucks, tying Sidney Moncrief for the second-most in franchise history. Lillard’s 34 career 25/5/0 games are already the most in NBA history, and he now trails Antetokounmpo (10) for the most such games in franchise history.

Up Next

The Bucks will stay in Milwaukee for their fourth straight game as they host the Philadelphia 76ers at Fiserv Forum. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:00 PM CST and you can catch it on FanDuel Sports Wisconsin or stream it on our Playback and YouTube channels.

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