Before the Toronto Raptors took the floor to host the Milwaukee Bucks, head coach Darko Rajakovic had a warm embrace courtside with Damian Lillard, the superstar Milwaukee acquired this year to pair with Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The NBA is a small community. Rajakovic and Lillard have been crossing paths in the Western Conference for nearly a decade before each of them made the move East for the first time in their careers. It’s always nice to see a familiar face.
There was a brief window where the first-year head coach could have had the future hall-of-famer in his lineup with Toronto. The Raptors had discussions with the Portland Trail Blazers and were — per sources — willing to offer virtually all their available draft equity and matching salaries to make the move. The plan was to add Lillard to their existing core. The deal didn’t happen in part because the Raptors wouldn’t include one of their younger starters: Scottie Barnes or O.G. Anunoby.
The parties moved on and Lillard arrived in Toronto as a member of the Bucks, among a shortlist of pre-season favourites to compete for an NBA title.
Through four games the Raptors have looked mostly like a team headed for the draft lottery, though there have been some promising play defensively and some flashes of the type of offence Rajakovic wants them to play. There just hasn’t been anything close to the consistency a competitive team needs, especially offensively.
Heading into Wednesday’s game, Toronto was fourth in the NBA in defensive rating and last in offensive efficiency.
But despite entering the game on a three-game losing streak and with a challenging road trip looming, it was the Raptors who looked like the team with championship hopes for long stretches. The Bucks, building around their new superstar and their foundational one, looked somewhere between disinterested and not good enough. They looked a little old and slow, too.
The 130-111 blowout win for Toronto is exactly the kind of proof of concept Rajakovic has surely been looking for as his team has sputtered offensively. That wasn’t an issue against the defensively porous Bucks, who might has some issues in that area as they fell to 2-2 on the season.
Toronto improved to 2-3 and recorded a season-high for points, assists (35) and field-goal percentage (51.9) while connecting on 15 of 38 three-point attempts. Pascal Siakam, who has looked lost at times in the early going, played like an all-star as he finished with 26 points and seven assists, while Barnes added 21 points and five assists.
Anunoby had 16 points while going 7-of-7 from the floor, but was more importantly the primary defender on Antetokounmpo, who looked ordinary on his way to 16 points and four rebounds. Raptors point guard Dennis Schroder got the best of Lillard, as the German star finished with 24 points and 11 assists to 15 and 6 from Lillard.
It will be hard for the Raptors to play at a higher level, frankly, and is the boost of confidence they likely needed as they set off on a four-game road trip that starts on Thursday night in Philadelphia with stops to follow in San Antonio, Dallas and Boston.
The Raptors’ start could have been better, which is saying something considering they led 31-18 after the first quarter. The Raptors were moving the ball and trying to find each other on cuts — just what their coach wanted. But passing can be an adventure sometimes, and the Raptors showed why as they turned it over six times before the game was five minutes old and eight times in the quarter.
But when the passes found their targets, the results were impressive. The Raptors racked up 10 first-quarter assists on 12 made field goals and softened their own mistakes by forcing the Bucks into seven turnovers. Toronto hit its first four triples, one of its unassisted buckets coming when Barnes skipped into a step-back three over Antetokounmpo, the two-time MVP. He and the Raptors were feeling it.
The Bucks didn’t look particularly interested in competing and there didn’t seem to be much chemistry between Antetokounmpo and Lillard – which should be seamless on paper given Lillard’s ability to spread the floor with his shooting and Antetokounmpo’s ability to eviscerate defences in space.
“You’ve got to pick your poison, depending on the situations,” said Rajakovic before the game. “Giannis is amazing in open court, in transition, in [isolations]and post-ups. And now adding a deep-range shooter like Lillard makes life harder. But I think that we have a good game plan. I believe our guys are ready and they want to go out there and compete and our guys take a lot of pride in what we do. So I expect a good game.”
It was the first game back in Toronto for Bucks head coach Adrian Griffin, as assistant to former Raptors head coach Nick Nurse dating back to 2018-19. It’s a dream opportunity for a first-year head coach, but not an easy one given the level of expectations.
“It’s great to be back,” said Griffin. “A lot of fond memories here. We were a tight-knit family as far as the entire organization … we won a championship here, just special times. You know, it’s a little awkward being in the visiting locker room, I got to see a couple of players when I walked in and you know, you miss some guys. You build strong bonds with them over the years. But tonight, we got to beat (them).”
Griffin and his team were facing an uphill battle by halftime as the Raptors’ momentum continued to build. The ball movement remained, but the turnovers were cleaned up and the Raptors led 66-44 to start the third quarter.
The Raptors match up well with the Bucks’ stars. Anunoby is one of the few defenders who has the physical ability to match up with Antetokounmpo’s rare combination of speed, size and strength. Meanwhile, Schroder has the agility to match Lillard, and the feistiness to get under the star guard’s skin, as was evident when they were slapping each other’s arms away as they jostled for position on a free throw. Stars at that level aren’t guarded 1-on-1, but it helps to have two primary defenders who can at least hold their own.
Lillard finished the first half with just 10 points and six of those came at the free-throw line as he benefited from a couple of 50-50 whistles.
Meanwhile, Schroder was gaining access to the paint at will and moving the ball smartly when the defence collapsed. He finished the first half with nine assists (against just one turnover) as the Raptors; four other starters all had 12 points or more. The Raptors’ lead peaked at 27.
Still it couldn’t be this easy, could it? With just under four minutes left in the third quarter, it was looking pretty easy as the Raptors led by 22. But as has often been the case this season, trouble started when Rajakovic went to his bench. The Bucks went on a 9-0 run as soon as he went to a Barnes-plus-bench lineup. But a huge possession from Otto Porter Jr. — limited to just eight games last season due to injury and seeing his first action this year — followed. He secured an offensive rebound in a battle with Antetokounmpo, got the ball the ball to Barnes and freed him up with a screen as Barnes hit a three to close the quarter and maintain some of the momentum as Toronto headed into the fourth leading 95-79.
With the starters back in, the Raptors picked up where they had left off. Siakam capped his best game of the season with a pair of threes and a dunk to start the fourth while Schroder hit a jumper and a corner three in front of the Raptors bench as part of a 23-12 run that extended Toronto’s lead with just over seven minutes to play.
The Bucks relented at that point, and Rajakovic’s Raptors — at least for one night — looked like a team that can compete in the East every bit as convincingly as Dame Lillard and the Bucks, which may say as much about Milwaukee so far this season as it does about the Raptors.
