3 keys for Milwaukee Bucks on back-to-back against Toronto Raptors
After a very brief trip home, the Milwaukee Bucks are right back on the road for the second night of a back-to-back against the Toronto Raptors. The Bucks won their eighth straight game in a tight one against the Hornets last night.
This will be the Bucks’ first game north of the border in Toronto since February 25th, 2020, only a few weeks before the league shut down as the Raptors played their home games in Tampa Bay last season. The Bucks have gone 6-4 against the Raptors over the last three seasons (not including the loss in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2019) but have won their last three meetings in Toronto, with their last loss coming on January 1st, 2018 when DeMar DeRozan scored 52 points against the Jason Kidd-led Bucks. So, a lot has changed.
The Raptors have struggled mightily as of late, losing 10 of their last 13 games, and are on a three-game losing streak where they haven’t cracked the 100-point mark in all three games. However, despite sitting at 9-13, the Raptors have a lot of talented young players, and head coach Nick Nurse is one of the best in the league and knows the Bucks well.
The Milwaukee Bucks will need to find the open shooters against the Toronto Raptors
After a few years of being known for their stifling defenses and varied defensive schemes, the Raptors have taken a step back at that end this season, ranking 24th in defensive rating at 110.0 and 29th in their last 10 games (115.8).
This can be attributed to two main factors: they give up a ton of corner 3s and are getting killed on shots at the rim, despite not allowing many shots in that area. They have given up the third-most corner 3s per game at 11.4 and teams are shooting a respectable 37.7 on those shots, per NBA.com/stats. Conventional wisdom suggests that giving up a lot of corner 3s is not ideal for a good defense and that’s part of the reason why the Raptors have struggled at that end.
The issue is that, due to a lack of size, they are also getting eaten alive at the rim when they allow shots there. They’ve done a good job preventing shots at the rim (10th lowest at 23.7 attempts per game) but opponents are shooting 67.4 percent at the rim when they get there.
The Raptors have traditionally made life difficult for Giannis Antetokounmpo, by throwing hard double teams at him and forcing the ball out of his hands as much as possible. The good news for the Bucks is that he has a bunch of quality shooters to kick the ball out to.
Grayson Allen, Bobby Portis, and Pat Connaughton are all shooting over 40 percent from 3 this season and should get plenty of open looks from the corners when they look to pressure Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton. The key will be to find them and then knock the shots down.