In what seems to have become an unfortunate tradition so far this season, the Bucks were unable to put together four strong quarters of basketball against a tough Toronto Raptors team, resulting in a third consecutive loss against the team from north of the border.
All but one Raptors starter registered double-digit points, as the Bucks resorted back to a failure of doing some of the most elementary assets of the game of basketball. However, let’s overlook those and dive somewhat deeper into the assessment.
There was a lack of shooting from main contributors of the offense. Greg Monroe and Khris Middleton contributed a 19 point and 20 point game respectively, although that was not enough to hold of the surge of Toronto. If Milwaukee wants to be victorious night in and night out, they are going to need solid help from the duo of Parker and Antetokounmpo, and that aid did not come last night. Giannis only attempted five field goals and hit two of them, resulting in four points. On the other hand, Parker took 12 shots and shot an abysmal 16.6 percent. In times in which the Bucks are getting blown out on such a consistent basis, there has to be some good that arises from those disasters. One of those silver linings could be Jabari and Giannis taking jump shots left and right. They are going to have to figure it out sooner rather than later if they are going to develop into the superstar talent that is needed to propel a team to championship caliber and they might as well do it when there’s not a lot of pressure on them down twenty.
photo: NBA.com
The Bucks still did not have an answer for DeMar DeRozan. In his first game against the Bucks this season, he scored 15 points. In his second game, he scored 27. That number regressed a little bit in Game 3, but not by much, as the shooting guard contributed with 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting. If you’re tallying at home, that total number of points scored is 64 points. Maybe it’s just an inability of Khris Middleton to defend DeRozan, but he has not found a pebble in his track against Milwaukee yet this season. Thankfully, the Bucks won’t have to play him or the Raptors until March.
Kyle Lowry held Michael Carter-Williams in check yet again. In a span of games in which MCW has shown that he might not be the scoring drought that some have him pegged as, it didn’t reign supreme last night. For the third consecutive time this season, Lowry put the clamps on any offensive showcase the Bucks’ point guard may have had, limiting him to 4-of-13 shooting and only eight points. Compile up the prior two meetings against Toronto and you see that Lowry has limited Carter-Williams to a combined total of 8-of-30 shooting and only 22 points. Yeah, that’s not the exact numbers you want to see from a starting point guard if you want your team to win. Hopefully Carter-Williams can regain his composure in the Bucks next game against Dallas.
In the end, the shooting wasn’t there for Milwaukee last night. It says a lot when Johnny O’Bryant is the leading scorer after the first quarter. That really set the tone scoring wise for the rest of the game. Cross your fingers that the Bucks will be able to rebound as they set out on the beginning of a four-game road trip.