The No. 3 Toronto Raptors face the No. 6 Milwaukee Bucks in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. This is the first ever playoff series between the two teams. Game 1 hosts are returning to try to advance past last year’s success when they reached the East finals, while the Bucks missed the playoffs last year.
Milwaukee Bucks at Toronto Raptors
LINE: Toronto -7.5 (-103); moneyline -337
Total: 193 (-103o, -102u)
Milwaukee Bucks believe in themselves
Saturday evening was one of the better Milwaukee’s young team performances on the road, beating one of the top teams in the conference. They played up to their strengths, making the game physical and showing much a better body language and overall activity than their more experienced hosts.
It was not easy and the Bucks needed to work for it, but deserved the win without any doubt. Start of the game saw teams trading blow before the Bucks went of the game’s first run after Monroe entered the game late in the first. The lead wouldn’t last though as the Bucks couldn’t find a working combination for the second unit and found themselves trailing at the half. They got back into a tie quickly after halftime, and the game was even at 68 with 3 and a half minutes to go in third. Over the next seven minutes, the Bucks have built a 14-point lead, thanks to playing great interior defense and Middleton waking up. They cruised to the win afterwards, as the Raptors couldn’t buy a shot.
Coach Kidd got all three ingredients he had hoped for. Giannis Antetokounmpo played great, attacking the rim relentlessly, throwing one dunk after another. He scored 28 points on 13-of-18 shooting. The Bucks were also able to get defensive rebounds and push the ball for easy points in transition and took great care of the ball while in half court sets. Milwaukee committed just five turnovers the entire game. Finally, the Bucks played great interior defense and frustrated Raptors guards by impacting their drives either by good rim protection or by reading their passing lanes.
It was a team effort on offense, as Brogdon and Snell combined for 7 threes, Monroe finished with 14 points and 15 rebounds and Dellavedova added 11 points of the bench. Even the starting center Thon Maker left his mark on the game contesting and blocking shots in his limited playing time. Defensively, they’ve held the Raptors to 27-of-75 shooting. They couldn’t hold them away from the charity stripe though, so foul trouble could play a role in this series.
Place: Air Canada Center, Toronto, Ontario
Date/Time: Tuesday April 18th, 2017. 7:00 PM ET
TV Coverage: NBATV
Raptors bad habits cost them a game
The Toronto Raptors losing Game 1 at home to Milwaukee Bucks was pretty bad, but was not surprising in the hindsight. It also continues an unpleasant streak of dropping 11th consecutive playoff series openers, giving up home court advantage over and over. It was also a déjà vu of the previous season’s playoff performances that can be equally attributed to the poor shooting backcourt as well as clueless coaching staff.
It had much less to do with whom they were playing against than their own unwillingness to adapt. Most of this game was the Raptors running their usual stuff against a defense seemingly tailored to take exactly that away. In recent weeks, the usual stuff most comprised of letting DeRozan shoot contested shots after one-on-one basketball and going to the rim in hopes of getting fouled. Lowry was more bad than good since returning from injury and had a rough game. Coach Casey can’t find a way to utilize Valanciunas, expectedly marginalizing him against the centerless but not classically undersized Bucks.
The Raptors only trailed by five points through three quarters on Saturday, but there were no comebacks from a Toronto team that has made a habit of playing from behind this season. In fact, it’s a miracle that they kept it that close on a night where they were completely outworked by the other team. In the end, the Raptors trailed by 19 in the final quarter, sending their dejected fans towards exits early, which was a fair result considering the level of play both sides have put in.
Toronto shot 7-of-35 in the second half, following up a 3-of-18 showing in the third by going 4-of-17 in the fourth. Worst of all, they kept taking the bad shots and couldn’t create anything against the mobile Bucks defense. Lowry was the worst with 2-of-11 from the field, (also missed his single free throw attempt), and 0-of-6 from distance. He made several poor decisions, passing up opportunities to score at the rim in favor of awkward backward passes that led to offense stagnating or turnovers.
The Toronto Raptors shot poorly from the perimeter as a team (5-of-23), so there was no incentive to throw such passes too. On times he and DeRozan did try to finish at the rim, they got blocked or heavily contested, giving an impression of forcing things up.
The defense wasn’t great either, but aside from giving up 28 points in transition that got the Bucks going, it was bad either. They should be a team to dominate the rebounding and they failed to keep the Bucks from one and done. They should also be more patient on the defense as they usually managed to stall the Bucks initial actions, only to break down later in the shot clock.
To add to the trouble, Serge Ibaka rolled an ankle. He is expected to play in the Game 2 though.
Milwaukee Bucks at Toronto Raptors Game 2 Trends & Prediction
Milwaukee could match the expectations, going 37-46 against the spread, especially underperforming on the road with the 18-24 record. They also went 41-40-2 against the over/under, but couldn’t reach the projected total points line in the last 6 contests. Their change of character and offensive limitations have been well advertised before, but the improved defense has really pushed the lines down.
Toronto Raptors fared well against the spread with a solid 45-37-1 ATS record this season. On the total points market, the Raptors sport a 44-39 record. The first game under was uncharacteristic for them, as they finished the regular season with a 26-15 O/U record. They had problems scoring in the past playoffs and have a tendency to be stubborn with what they do, so don’t expect that they are going to change the way how they play their game, but they should hit their shots much better.
The books are trying to reflect the fact that the Raptors are going to be more desperate this time, so the spread is set to 7.5 points. This is quite an increase, especially as it seems that there isn’t this much of a difference between the teams. Of course, you should never overreact to one game, so skipping the spread bet is the only possible solution. However, the total has dropped 7 points comparing to the first game and that is a clear overreaction by the books, which is why I do expect the Raptors to pull it together and bounce back with a win though. The first game already had value on the over side, and it’s a can’t miss situation now.
My Pick: Toronto Raptors -7 (-120)
Total: Over 193 points (-103)
