Raps

Yesterday at 12:48 AM

TORONTO — There was reason for optimism, which is something when you're a team that's lost 12 of their past 13 games, several of them in historically inept fashion.

The Raptors were finally whole again. All their preferred starters. All their preferred bench options. They were playing at home. And even if the Milwaukee Bucks were the favourites, these aren't the same Bucks team that have run roughshod through the Eastern Conference for much of the past seven or eight years (with exceptions like the 2019 Conference Finals. Ah, glory days.)

This version of the Bucks is struggling to stay above .500 and not waste the remaining prime of Giannis Antetokounmpo's career. They rely heavily on former Raptor Gary Trent Jr. to help with that, so you know, the plan isn't foolproof.

Milwaukee was coming into Toronto having lost four of five, dropping games to the likes of Portland, Chicago and Brooklyn — twice — in the past week as they dealt with illness, injury and the effects of age. Antetokounmpo's long-time running mate Khris Middleton was going to sit this one out, Bucks head coach Doc Rivers announced pre-game.

This was a game to be had, or at least grasped at.

Instead, the Raptors grabbed at it like someone fumbling for a light switch after a long night out: whether they found it or not, they knew they were headed straight for the couch.

How did it go, having the whole gang together for once?

"Well, we got beat by 30, so not very well," said Scottie Barnes, succinctly, and accurately.

For the first third of this season, the Raptors at least were the team that made the fourth quarter entertaining for their loyal — for now — fans. But now we're at the point when even they race up the aisles to catch an earlier train or beat traffic

Against the Bucks, the Raptors fell behind by 13 in the first quarter, were down by 19 at halftime and were playing their G League lineup midway through the fourth.

In the end, they lost 128-104, dropping their 13^th game in their past 14 starts. And as much as that's part of the territory in a rebuilding season, not showing up game after game shouldn't be.

The Bucks loss marks the sixth time in their past seven that the Raptors have been rag-dolled by the opposition, the exception being their win over the Brooklyn Nets, which prevented them from being on a 14-game losing streak as they head out on a three-game road trip where they visit New York, Cleveland and Detroit — with even the once lowly Pistons playing .500 basketball and 10 games ahead of the Raptors in the East.

Getting RJ Barrett back after missing five of the past eight games with different illnesses and joining the starting lineup with Immanuel Quickley, Scottie Barnes, Gradey Dick and Jakob Poeltl, with a full bench rotation available for support, was supposed to snap the Raptors out of their funk.

It didn't, and a big reason why — by their own admission — is the Raptors didn't try hard enough.

"I think right now, we were playing a certain way, people have been in and out of the lineup. Now everybody's back, it changes things in the group, with how we've been playing all year. So we have to figure out a way to get used to each other again," said Barrett. "But tonight wasn't about us getting used to each other. I think we just didn't play hard enough, top to bottom. We have to figure it out. Just playing hard, just being that team that we were at the beginning, fighting, we didn't have our fight tonight, so that's disappointing. You can do Xs and Os, but if you don't play hard,  you don't play with that level of compete that you need to bring to the game, it's going to be tough to win.

"It’s okay if you lose a game but you fought and you played hard and did all that you can do and gave all that you could. I don't think we did that tonight. That's the disappointing part of it."

There were some nice looking stat lines: Barnes had 21 points on 10-of-18 shooting; Barrett had 25 points, nine rebounds and five assists while shooting 11-of-18 from the floor. But it doesn't matter very much when your opponent shoots 57.3 per cent from the floor.

The Raptors had a very clear game plan: Don't let Antetokounmpo beat them. The two-time MVP is gunning for a third while leading the NBA in scoring with 32.3 points per game on 60.1 per cent shooting before the ball went up.

The Raptors stuck Barnes on him — the only player on their roster with anything close to the size and athleticism to even try to match up with the seven-foot locomotive — and to his credit, he did a good job. He picked Antetokounmpo's pocket at halfcourt and went the length of the floor for a windmill dunk in the first quarter, the game's high point from a Raptors point of view. Barnes blocked Antetokounmpo on a lay-up attempt and almost got him a second time. He picked him up high on the floor and — with the support of Poeltl playing safety behind him — turned the Bucks star into a passer.

Antetokounmpo took only eight shots and scored just 11 points, the first time he's been held below 20 points this season. So in that sense, success: the Raptors executed the first page of their game plan. They didn't even get abused by co-star Damian Lillard, who had a fairly quiet 25 points on 12 shots.

No, the Raptors were undone by their lack of second effort. Time and time again Antetokounmpo would lope into traffic, pitch the ball to an open three-point shooter — which was ostensibly the Raptors’ plan — and count the assist as his teammates made one open look after another. Antetokounmpo finished with 12 rebounds and 13 assists for his fourth triple-double. It happened six times in the first half alone. The Bucks didn't even have to make a second pass or pump fake.

"I think that Scottie did a decent job on him, guarding him one-on-one," said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic who admitted that his team didn't bring enough fight. "But our closeouts were not good. Every time we were supposed to rotate and close out to the three-point line to break the rhythm and to take away threes we did not do a good enough job of that … that’s something that we’re working on, and we’re going to continue pounding the rock with that."

Speaking of rocks: while the Bucks shot 22-of-44 from deep, the Raptors shot just 9-of-35 — and 4-of-26 in the first three quarters before garbage time commenced.

So, in sum: the Raptors aren't trying very hard, they don't defend very well, and they can't shoot. It can make for a tough night at the office.

But even as recently as two weeks ago, this was a team that could lose without having themselves and everyone else question their effort. But the rope has been slipping through their fingers and it's up to them collectively to grab on it and pull a little harder.

There are 46 games left.

Grange for three:

1. For a little while there it looked like former Raptor Gary Trent Jr.'s NBA career was heading in the wrong direction. He was a free agent in a soft market this past summer and had to settle for a one-year deal at the veteran minimum from the Bucks, the $2.09 million representing quite the pay cut for the seven-year veteran who earned $17.3 million in the last year of a $51.8 million deal he signed with the Raptors. And then he shot just 23 per cent from three during the Bucks 2-8 start.

But things have looked up since.

Trent Jr. looked comfortable on the Scotiabank Arena floor where he played the last three seasons, finishing with 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including 3-of-5 from three. Trent Jr. came to Toronto shooting 46.6 per cent from deep in his last 22 games, a big reason the Bucks have turned their season around.

2. The Raptors hadn't made it official, but when a stream of teammates and assistant coaches dropped by his locker to say their goodbyes and offer encouragement, it was clear that backup centre Bruno Fernando was indeed going to be waived.

His contract would have been guaranteed for the rest of the season if he was on the roster on Tuesday at 5 p.m. The expectation is the Raptors will leave the roster spot open — likely rotating some 10-day contract players through it to see if they can find someone that fits — until the trade deadline.

A good bet if the spot isn't otherwise filled is that two-way rookie Jamison Battle would have his deal converted later this year.

3. Liam Robbins may not be a household name for many NBA fans, but the Milwaukee Bucks rookie centre is a big name in one NBA household: that of longtime Toronto Raptors play-by-play voice Matt Devlin and his wife Erin.

Robbins is Erin's nephew, the son of her younger sister. He’s on a two-way contract with the Bucks having made the team out of training camp. It was his first time playing professionally in Toronto — he got six minutes in the fourth quarter when the game was largely decided — but the Iowa native has been hooping here since coming north to visit his relatives in the summers through high school. His agent is Mike Simonetta, who was the Devlin's neighbour in north Toronto. 

"In Iowa, we were close to Chicago and Milwaukee, so when I was growing up he would leave us tickets and my Dad would take us down to the court before the games and stuff like that," said Robbins. "I had a great love for the game of basketball and having an uncle who would help me enjoy some stuff like that was awesome, and now playing here with him announcing the game, it's really cool."