Milwaukee Bucks: Takeaways from 122-119 win against Toronto Raptors

Milwaukee win the battle of the benches

The Toronto Raptors entered the contest, boasting the best bench in the entire NBA. The second unit of Pascal Siakam, C.J. Miles, Jakob Poeltl, Fred VanVleet and Delon Wright is currently trending as one of the most productive benches in NBA history (via Basketball Reference). As such, many were expecting this to be one of the major deciding factors on Friday night.

It was, but not in the way most expected. The Bucks’ bench ended up outscoring the Raptors 42-41 and winning the battle for the rebounds, finishing 19-14.

The aforementioned Jason Terry was incredible, finishing with 14 points including 4-of-5 from deep, but he had ample help from Thon Maker who finished with 12 points and Jabari Parker and Sterling Brown, who finished with seven rebounds respectively. It was a great night for the Bucks’ bench as they were able to keep Milwaukee in the contest while their starters rested.

While Terry certainly shouldn’t be expected to perform like this every night, there’s no reason to suspect the rest of the bench shouldn’t be able to replicate a performance like this again.

Parker is trending upwards of late as he continues to gather momentum following his return from knee surgery. Maker has also been putting together respectable offensive games of late as his outside shot begins to fall more regularly.

Perhaps most encouraging is the rebounding of Brown. Brown entered the draft last year, after averaging 6.5 rebounds per game as a guard in his senior year of College. He certainly has not lost that side of his game since entering the NBA. In the past 19 games, Brown is averaging 4.2 rebounds per contest, while playing around 20 minutes per game. On a team so bereft of rebounding, this is a very important skill in Brown’s game which will continue to benefit the Bucks down the final stretch of the season.