TORONTO – RJ Barrett and the Toronto Raptors had no excuses for their dismal effort against the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday.
The Bucks embarrassed the home team 128-104 before 17,829 at Scotiabank Arena, even though the Raptors had starters Barrett, Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickly, Jakob Poeltl and Gradey Dick on the floor together for the first time this season.
“We have to do a better job, straight up,” said Barrett, who returned from missing three games because of the flu to score a team-leading 25 points.
“Tonight wasn’t about us getting used to each other. I don’t think we played hard enough, from top to bottom. We have to figure it out. There’s no excuse for what’s happening right now. We all have to be better.”
The Raptors (8-27) have lost 13 of their last 14 outings.
Barrett’s return, coupled with Quickley’s recent comeback after he missed 30 of the team’s first 33 games, was supposed to produce a more competitive Raptors roster. But the Bucks trounced Toronto in the three-point department, nailing 22 of 44 compared to Toronto’s 9 of 35 shooting from beyond the arc.
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“They’re a good three-point shooting team,” Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic said. “As a team, they’re third best in (shooting) percentage in the whole league and they have one of the best players (Giannis Antetokounmpo) in the game in creating ISOs.
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“I think that Scottie did a decent job guarding him one-on-one. But our closeouts were not good.”
As a result, Antetokounmpo piled up a season-high 13 assists to go with 11 points and 12 rebounds for his fourth triple-double of the season and third career triple-double against the Raptors.
But Antetokounmpo, who was questionable with a sore knee, played only 28 minutes. As a result, he saw his 20-plus point streak in his 27 games this season stopped. Many of his assists were the result of Damian Lillard’s sharpshooting. He scored 25 points, including five three-pointers. Bobby Portis chipped in 20 more.
“We didn’t have our fight tonight, so that’s disappointing,” Barrett said.
Lillard’s offensive output arrived in only 26 minutes of playing time.
Barnes chipped in 21 points while centre Poeltl added 12. Quickley and Dick were good for 11 apiece.
The Bucks led 28-19 after the first quarter, 66-47 at halftime, and 99-75 after the third. Milwaukee (18-16) won for the fourth time in nine starts since claiming the NBA Cup three weeks ago.
The Raptors feted Milwaukee guard Gary Trent Jr. with a video scoreboard tribute at the beginning of the second quarter. He spent three years with the Raptors before signing with the Bucks as a free agent last summer. He scored 17 in his return.
BASELINES: Antetokounmpo needed three stitches to close a cut near the base of his right pinky on Monday night, and returned to the game. Antetokounmpo banged his finger on the rim while trying to chase down Barrett’s fast-break dunk late in the second quarter. Antetokounmpo said his finger was “kind of numb,’ but insisted he was fine.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 6, 2025.
