10 things: Raptors scrap and compete, but just can’t get over the hump against Bucks – Yahoo!
Five — Active: Lowry’s hustle was also instrumental throughout the course of the game, with many of his signature moves keeping the game tight. Lowry drew two charges, and he stopped Bobby Portis in the post despite giving up nearly 10 inches in height. The pace that Lowry set to start the game also worked in the Raptors’ advantage, and Lowry could often be seen orchestrating sequences for his teammates as if he were a coach. On one play in the second quarter, the broadcast panned to Lowry tracing a circle as he brought the ball up, and it was direction for Chris Boucher to screen while Terence Davis curled around him. Sure enough, Davis got open because the Bucks dropped back, Lowry delivered the quick pass, and it was three easy points.
Raptors’ Kyle Lowry’s 10,000 point milestone a reminder of how far he’s come
The loss to the Bucks wasn’t all that different from so many close battles the Raptors have come out on the wrong end of so often already this season.
Even down OG Anunoby (calf strain) the Raptors scrapped; moved the ball, competed defensively and got some welcome contributions from a range of sources, be it Norm Powell (23 points on 13 shots) as he shined again in a starting role or quality minutes from the likes of Yuta Watanabe, Stanley Johnson or Chris Boucher.
Lowry tried to will them over the hump with a 14-point fourth quarter on his way to a 21-point night. A Johnson three with 1:20 pulled Toronto to within four. But Johnson missed a similar shot on the next possession, the Bucks got a bucket from Jrue Holiday and Kris Middleton iced it at the line.
But overall the Bucks were bigger, stronger, deeper and had Giannis Antetokounmpo, who finished with 24 points, 18 rebounds and nine assists. As a team, the Bucks had more offensive rebounds (14-10), more points in the paint (40-26), more second-chance points (19-15) and took 26 free throws to 12 for Toronto, with the Raptors not getting to the line once in the fourth quarter — not all that shocking considering they rank 25th in free throws attempted on the season.
The Raptors falling short in those areas over-and-over again is a big reason why they are 7-11 and likely need different goals — or at least additional goals — than just gunning for an NBA title.
Lowry is adjusting.
“My joy, honestly, is watching Norm, Freddy, Pascal, OG, grow,” Lowry said. “That’s my joy — and winning basketball games. I just want to be able to continue to play at a level where I can help these guys grow and get better — but the challenge of getting us to the position where we can make the playoffs, that’s fun. It sucks when you’re losing, but you’ve got to make sure, ‘alright, we’ve got to chase them.’ We’ve got to be the hunters again. We’ve been the hunted for so long, and now we’ve got to go hunt. And I think that part is going to be pretty cool once we continue to get better.”
The Raptors almost certainly will. Scrub off their 2-8 start and they are 5-3 since. They are not an easy out and under Lowry’s watch likely never will be.
Raptors fans need to appreciate Kyle Lowry while they can – The Athletic
According to Basketball-Reference, the Raptors had played the fourth-easiest schedule heading into Wednesday’s game against Bucks, thanks to having avoided both Los Angeles teams, Utah, Denver — the top four in the West — as well as Brooklyn in the East. The game against the Bucks was their first matchup, too. Something wicked comes this way. They have the third-toughest schedule remaining based on current winning percentages.
This season, more than any other, you do not know what any given team will look like on the night you play them. The Raptors’ underlying statistics say they are better than a 7-11 team, but that is undercut by the relative quality of their opposition. It’s well and good to say some bounces could have gone the other way, but being in the position where you need a kind bounce against some opponents is a problem in and of itself.
Wednesday was not one of those nights, as the Bucks are bigger and better than the Raptors. You cannot complain too much about shooting luck when you go 40 percent on 55 looks from deep, but this is a team that repeatedly is not physical enough around the rim to get free throws, some of the easiest points to come by. Over the past two games, the Raptors have shot 32 fewer freebies than their opponents. Some of the officiating was dicey, but at some point, this is just who the Raptors are.
Without an obvious path to creating easy offence, climbing back not only into the playoff picture, but re-establishing their identity as a frisky team that isn’t quite a contender, will be tricky. Lowry has a title, so he doesn’t have to go ring chasing. Still, he might want to anyway. The Raptors find value in remaining competitive and getting more experience for their younger players, but at some point, the benefit of that will have to be viewed against the possible return in a Lowry trade. Lowry’s talents aren’t wasted on the Raptors, because the relationship is still a good one, and he puts his teammates in better positions to succeed. You wonder if he’ll continue to derive pleasure from it.
“It’s a challenge.” Lowry said. “My joy, honestly, is watching Norm (Powell), Freddy, Pascal (Siakam), OG (Anunoby), grow. That’s my joy. And winning basketball games. I just want to be able to continue to play at a level where I can help these guys grow and get better. I just am proud of those guys and the growth and the steps that they’re taking to become better basketball players, and become better men, and becoming fathers, and et cetera, et cetera. That’s where I get the pride and joy, with being with this team.
“But the challenge of getting us to the position where we can make the playoffs, that’s fun. It sucks when you’re losing, but you’ve got to make sure, ‘All right, we’ve got to chase them.’ We’ve got to be the hunters again. We’ve been the hunted for so long, and now we’ve got to go hunt. And I think that part is going to be pretty cool once we continue to get better.”
To be clear, the Raptors should not be putting Lowry on the market now.
Rapid Recap: Milwaukee Bucks 115, Toronto Raptors 108 – Brew Hoop
It was a long-range shootout at the Tampa Bay corral, as the Raptors tried to math their way to victory behind a season-high for a Bucks opponent 55 3-point attempts. The Bucks ultimately eked out the win though behind an advantage in the paint and edging out Toronto by nine points at the free throw line. Giannis narrowly missed a triple-double with 24 points, 18 rebounds and nine assists.
Milwaukee ended a deep ball-happy first period knotted up with the Raptors 33-33. They countered with a strong second quarter, providing a nine point cushion heading into halftime. As the third quarter went on, the Raptors made a late push and closed the deficit to merely one. Toronto kept it close throughout the final period, but a couple of generous passing sequences and timely buckets helped Milwaukee close it out.
If nothing else, one truth always remains…Giannis shalt posterize Aron Baynes.
Recap: The Toronto Raptors fight hard, but lose to Milwaukee Bucks, 108-105 – Raptors HQ
For most of the third quarter, the feeling was the same. Toronto couldn’t find a bucket, even when their defense was clicking, but they kept firing as Milwaukee took its largest lead of the game at 11 points. In this, the Bucks happily stood by as Aron Baynes jacked up a couple more threes on his way to a 1-for-7 night from deep. His point guard partner, VanVleet, started to find the mark however, putting in all ten of his points in the quarter. VanVleet also found Baynes a few times on a pair of sharp pick-and-roll plays that ended with clean dunks for the Aussie big man. If nothing else, it was nice to see that starting to click. It wasn’t enough though, even as an 11-0 run into the fourth quarter set the Raptors up with a chance to win.
That was the tone for the rest of the game. The Raptors’ defense played with enough force to give them a chance, but they couldn’t hit shots when they needed to. Toronto’s sped up offense was eventually just run down by Milwaukee, and the little things they’d been overcoming all game caught up with them. In the fourth, despite retaking the lead, a Donte Vincenzo dunk was followed with a steal by him, a flagrant foul called on Lowry, leading to two more free throws and a three from Bryn Forbes. Just like that, Milwaukee had retaken the lead and pumped it back up to eight points. Even after the Raptors squeezed it back down to four points within the final two minutes — thanks to a late Stanley Johnson corner three — it always felt like they were one big shot away.
Unlike Monday night’s collapse against the Pacers, Toronto’s defense looked strong in this one. They were scrambling effectively, closing out on shooters well, and generating turnovers. Sure, Giannis and Middleton had their games, as did Lopez (of course), but Toronto wasn’t often beat by the other Bucks — least of all Jrue Holiday, who had a quiet seven points. This is a small silver lining, I know, but again, it was encouraging nonetheless.
The truth is, the negatives to consider here are unfortunately vast: Siakam looked to be playing without hope and a mere 11 points, the Raptors couldn’t get to the free throw line at all with just 12 attempts, and their transition game was quiet. And perhaps most damning: they hit 22 three-pointers yet scored only 108 points in a hard-fought albeit losing effort. The math on that is just never going to work towards a win.
Kyle Lowry reaches milestone in Toronto Raptors’ loss to Milwaukee Bucks – TSN.ca
There was a time when Lowry wasn’t sure if he would score 10,000 points in his career, let alone with one team, and he certainly didn’t expect to accomplish that feat with the Raptors.
The unlikely, but mutually beneficial, nine-year relationship between the fiery point guard and the organization he’s become synonymous with has been well documented. He expected his tenure to be brief when he was traded to Toronto in 2012. He lost his starting job to in his first year with the team, and was all but officially traded to New York during his second campaign before the deal fell through. He almost left as a free agent in 2014, and then considered going elsewhere again in 2017.
Instead, Lowry became a six-time all-star with the Raptors. He matured as a player, leader, husband, father, and as a man with the Raptors. He become an Olympic gold medalist, won an NBA championship, and in the eyes of many has established himself as the greatest player in franchise history.
Maybe it was fate that has kept them together for nearly a decade, but neither player nor team would be where they are today without one another.
“I would have never expected it to be here, and I tell you guys that all the time,” said the 34-year-old, who will turn 35 in March. “But it just shows that in life things happen for a reason… You can’t pick and choose where you’re meant to be, but when you are there you take full advantage of it.”
“I think it’s amazing, honestly,” said , the Raptors’ second-longest tenured player, who’s been teammates with Lowry for six seasons. “To have a feat like that, you don’t see that too often, with players being in an organization that long and being able to do that.”
“He’s had a heck of a career,” said Nick Nurse, who has spent eight seasons in Toronto with Lowry – five as an assistant and the last three as a head coach. “This is another landmark… I think he’s made himself into a heck of a player, and I think the scoring is the part of it he’s worked on, the shooting. He’s improved his shooting going both ways. He’s improved the depth of it. He’s improved his finishing at the rim. That all adds up to him getting to a special landmark of 10,000. He’s been a hell of a player in a Raptors jersey, that’s for sure.”
Lowry has worn different hats throughout his tenure. He often took a backseat to DeRozan offensively, and he accepted his role as a table setter during the championship season in 2018-19, behind and the emerging . However, through it all, he’s become one of the best in the league at reading the game – a credit to his exceptional basketball intellect. More often than not, he knows what’s needed from him and when, and he’s able to deliver.
Raptors’ key misses spoil a milestone night for Kyle Lowry | The Star
It was a night when they could have won but didn’t.
“That team makes you, gives you certain shots that they want to give,” Kyle Lowry said after the Raptors dropped a 115-108 decision to the Bucks in Tampa, Fla. “They gave us mid-range shots. Some looks that they give up, if you make those shots, it’s great … But we missed some good open (ones).”
Those misses, which piled up at inopportune times, sent the Raptors careening to a 7-11 record one quarter of the way through the regular season.
“I think there were two or three little stretches,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “They came in three possessions in a row or four possessions in a row. We had just kind of dug ourselves out of a hole and we put ourselves right back in it.
No shot was more critical than a missed Stanley Johnson three-pointer with about a minute left and the Raptors down by four. It was a good look at a makeable shot that just didn’t go in, a microcosm of the night for Toronto.
The Bucks scored on the ensuing possession, Fred VanVleet missed a three and the Raptors’ last good chance at stealing a win was gone.
“I thought we played good defence tonight, good enough, and then we had a corner three down four that doesn’t go in and they have a top-of-the-key three that does and that was pretty much it,” Nurse said. “We could have cut it to one there and had a heck of a finish, but we miss one and they make one at the other end and that was that.”
Norm Powell had 26 points for the Raptors and Lowry had 21 that left him with 10,019 for his career with the Raptors, adding him to an elite list.
Lowry is only the third player in Raptors history to go past 10,000 points with Toronto, behind DeMar DeRozan (13,296) and Chris Bosh (10,275).
Raps locked in defensively but offence lets them down in loss to Bucks | Toronto Sun
Even then a lock-down third quarter by Toronto reduced that deficit to just one point as the Raptors held Milwaukee to 20 points in the frame.
But finding someone other than Powell to put the ball in the basket proved problematic for the Raptors.
Fred VanVleet normally a consistent source of offence went into the half without a point. His first make of the night was a banked three early in the third that had even VanVleet smiling to himself.
VanVleet wound up with 10 points, which was a huge improvement over his first half but still not what the Raptors have come to expect from Steady Freddy.
Kyle Lowry, another steady source of points in normal circumstances who was playing his second game after missing two with an infected toe, was held in check most of the night before pouring in 14 over the final five minutes to finish with 21.
Pascal Siakam, who was a last-minute decision to play after sitting out the past two games, did not have one of his better efforts and other than one nice spin move did not look himself.
Siakam played 34 minutes but finished with just 11 points.
Powell easily led the way with 26, including five of seven makes from distance but again he was the only one in scoring rhythm until Lowry got it going late.
It really was a shame, too, because the uncharacteristic poor shooting — and many of the looks the Raptors failed to knock down were open looks — wasted a very solid defensive night, the very kind of effort Nurse has been looking for from his charges.
The Toronto Raptors Can’t Seem To Finish Their Drives | FiveThirtyEight
Being unable to score directly out of drives is the makeup of bad offense, no matter how many triples you fling. Hot 3-point streaks can build leads — and to reiterate, the Raptors have held double-digit leads in six of their losses — but low-variance shots, like those taken around the rim, are required to hold leads. When the triples stop falling, the Raptors need to find a consistent source of offense, and drives have not delivered to start the season.
There are plenty of explanations for Toronto’s deplorable drives. Drivers have fumbled the ball, jumped away from contact and missed easy shots. Handles have been loose. But the problems extend beyond execution. The Raptors lost the bulk of their center rotation over the offseason, and their free-agent center additions, Aron Baynes and Alex Len, were clogging the paint on offense in the early going. As a result, those two own two of the three worst on-off offensive ratings on the team. To address those problems, the Raptors waived Len on Jan. 19 and took Baynes out of the rotation for three games earlier in the month before working him in more slowly in recent weeks. They have scored at an excellent rate in the half-court without Len or Baynes on the court.
The team’s difficulties — and also its recent upturn — have been best exemplified by the play of its reigning All-NBA Second Team member. And as Toronto has faced the causes of its attacking afflictions, Siakam’s play has improved.
Siakam was an effective driver for the majority of last season. In 2019-20, he shot a solid 44.2 percent on 10.0 drives per game. This season has been slightly better, shooting 49.1 percent on 11.5 drives per game. But Siakam’s success driving toward the rim has also correlated with whether Toronto wins or loses. His accuracy, more than anything else, has been the differentiator.
Siakam has driven much better in Toronto’s wins
Pascal Siakam’s stats on drives by game result, 2020-21 seasonDRIVES PER GAME FG ATTS FG% PASS%
In wins 12.0 3.2 62.5% 50.0%
In losses 11.2 4.1 43.2 45.5Siakam has suffered driving difficulties before. During last year’s playoffs, he drove 10.2 times per game and shot only 37.3 percent. Siakam’s inability to finish at the rim was a key factor in Toronto’s second-round loss to the Boston Celtics. The Raptors posted a defensive rating of 106.4 in that series, only slightly worse than their regular-season mark of 104.7, but they couldn’t score enough to advance to the East Conference finals.
That issue carried over to this season.
5 Lonzo Ball trades that make sense for both teams – SBNation.com
Kyle Lowry turns 35 years old in March and will be a free agent after the season. The Raptors could use a big guard to pair in the backcourt long-term with Fred VanVleet. Ball’s ability to disrupt passing lanes feels like it would be a nice fit in Nick Nurse’s defense.
Would New Orleans agree to take Norman Powell and Terence Davis in exchange for Lonzo?
