It remains the nagging concern for the Toronto Raptors.
Not defence or effort or the stuff that head coach Dwane Casey wanted to talk about Friday night – “vacation’s over,” he repeated twice, after one of those games in which he felt moved to talk about being out-played, out-thought, out-everythinged.
I mean, those things all matter. But let’s be honest: they’re there on most nights. No, the aspect of the Raptors 122-119 overtime loss to the Milwaukee Bucks that ought to be most disconcerting was the three-point shooting by the Raptors bench.
The ‘Bench Mob’ has been one of the stories of the season for the 41-17 Raptors, especially with the emergence of Fred VanVleet as a three-point threat in the past 10 games. But Friday night, it was the Bucks bench that won the day: 42 points to the Raptors’ 41 and a blistering 8 of 15 from three-point range, compared to 2-for-13 by the Raptors. Both of those Raptors threes were made by C.J. Miles, who played 22 minutes on a night when OG Anunoby was run out of the game. Unfortunately, Miles missed another five and was responsible for two of the 11 missed threes by the Raptors in the fourth quarter and overtime.
“It was both ways,” Casey said tersely when asked about the three-point shooting. “They were 13-for-26 and they are not necessarily a great three-point shooting team. It was part of the game plan to protect the paint. Again, we had some open looks …”
That they did. It was a Jonas Valanciunas dunk as time expired that forced overtime in a game with 13 lead changes, four of them in the fourth quarter. Valanaciunas was clearly fouled on the play, but there was no and-one. The same thing in OT, when another Valanciunas dunk cut the Bucks lead to one at 118-117. Valanciunas was hit in the face by John Henson as he went up. No call, leading DeMar DeRozan to suggest it might be worth looking at the NBA’s two minute report this morning.
DeRozan finished with 33 points and had eight rebounds in 41 minutes. The Raptors had five double-digit scorers but it wasn’t enough to prevent the end of a season-high, seven-game winning streak. Pascal Siakam led the Bench Mob with 17 points and seven boards, in the first game after the All-Star break for both teams.
The Bucks, led by 26 points by Giannis Antetokounmpo and 21 points from Khris Middleton and Eric Bledsoe, have won 10 of their last 13, posted their highest-scoring quarter of the season (42 in the second, when they went 6-for-6 from beyond the arc) and are a much tougher defensive unit under head coach Joe Prunty than they were under Jason Kidd. Key to the win was the manner in which the Bucks fought the Raptors to a draw when Prunty sat Antetokounmpo for five minutes in the third quarter. Antetokounmpo had four points in OT; veteran Jason Terry stuck the dagger with a fade-away, three-pointer that tied the game at 115-115 in OT after the Raptors reeled off five points to start the extra time.
This Bucks teams can be a handful, especially if Jabari Parker stays healthy. So: should the Raptors pencil in the Bucks as another team you “wouldn’t want to face in the playoffs?” You know, along with the Miami Heat … Cleveland Cavaliers … now the Washington Wizards. Boston Celtics. Yeesh! “It’s a big mental one, knowing if we get matched up with them in the playoffs, we can come in here and win a game,” said Khris Middleton.
“That win was a testament to our character,” said Prunty, whose club out-rebounded the Raptors 51-37, including 13-5 on the offensive glass. “Keep fighting; keep grinding; stay in the moment. We don’t want to be down five but there’s time to go out and make plays and we have to do it on both ends, now.”
Added Antetokounmpo: “That’s growth. We showed growth as a team tonight. They came back, we battled all the way through the fourth quarter, we had the lead, they made a tough play down the stretch to tie the game … we were able to play, play hard, play together, trust one another and make plays.”
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Was beating the team that beat them in the playoffs last season and had won 15 of 17 regular-season games a big deal for the Bucks?
“It feels a lot better because we haven’t beaten them in awhile,” said Antetokounmpo. “It feels a lot better. The win feels a lot better, to be honest with you.”
Miles’ off-night – it was compounded when he lost the ball driving the lane in the fourth quarter three minutes after choking off both treys – was a further reminder that for all the diligence and grit and surprising flair from the Raptors second unit, it is imperative that somebody emerge from that unit to be the guy who can make it all pay off with a bucket. DeMarre Carroll, after all, is not that distant a memory. VanVleet deserves all the accolades for the way he’s stepped up … but it was Miles who was brought in here to do that heavy lifting. Nights like Friday’s won’t dissuade those around the league who thought the Raptors needed to add another shooter at the trade deadline.
“Again, we had some good looks,” Casey said. “If you aren’t in the right mindset or toughness, or down and ready to shot – being shot ready – those shots aren’t going to fall.”
Vacation is, indeed, over. Back to the grind.
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