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 has 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 riding 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 on Wednesday night. 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 have some issues in that area as they fell to 2-2 on the season.
It was a sharp contrast to Toronto’s loss to the lottery-bound Portland Trail Blazers Monday, but even after that Rajakovic wasn’t ready to exhale.
Was he satisfied that his club had delivered a seemingly ‘perfect’ performance, defensively and offensively, against one of the NBA’s top teams?
“Not even close. Not even close,” said Rajakovic. “The way I want our team in the future to play, and how we want to look to play, is like, we need to continue growing every single day. It’s from execution piece, from defensively, I thought it was really, really good, but offensively we have so much more we have to get better on.”
Still, it was pretty good. 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 and made five of his eight three-point looks, 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.
The win provides a much-needed boost of confidence 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.
It was good team win. All the starters were excellent, the bench mostly held their own in part thanks to some timely contributions from Otto Porter Jr., whose return to health after nearly a season away due to a toe injury could bode well. Rookie Gradey Dick continues to impress, on this occasion by showing a willingness to step in a take a charge on Antetokounmpo, a tricked out pick-up truck in sneakers.
“That takes guts,” said Rajakovic.
The Bucks? They might be having some issues under the guidance of former Raptors assistant Adrian Griffin.
“We have to get better. We have to play together, we have to be clearer on what we’re trying to get on offence, we have to be more clear on what we’re trying to accomplish defensively and who we’re going to let attack us because you’ve got to live with something, You can’t stop everything,” said Antetokounmpo. “It’s not going to be easy. We’ve got to get better defensively and offensively. We need days like this to realize that we have to get better.”
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 the 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.
The Raptors weren’t really challenge after jumping out to their quick start. They led by 27 in the second quarter and were up by 22 late in the third quarter. A 9-0 run against the Raptor bench put everyone on edge briefly, but a huge possession from 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 one of his four threes on the night 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.
But after a showing like that, the Raptors can at least dream.