Tag: Toronto Raptors

Rigidity of doctrine, no matter where it crops up, is a killer. It’s how once-prosperous businesses fail, it’s how politics stagnates into nations and empires in decline, and it’s how armies lose wars before the first shot is fired. For Milwaukee Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer, his rigidity of doctrine in terms of his offense and his commitment to minutes and rotations got him completely outcoached by Nick Nurse (!) as the Toronto Raptors beat Milwaukee 100-94 in Game 6 and won the series four games to two after dropping the first two games on the road in Milwaukee and looking …

Earlier in the Eastern Conference Finals, when the Milwaukee Bucks won the first two games and nearly ended up going up 3-0 on the road in Toronto, Fred VanVleet was so utterly awful that Raptors fans were ready to throw him off the CN Tower and openly questioned coach Nick Nurse on social media about his usage of the embattled guard. Well…fast forward to Game 5, where the Raptors, after winning Game 3 in overtime and taking Game 4 easily at home, traveled to Milwaukee and busted this series wide open, going up 3-2 with a 105-99 win that sends …

After a 120-102 Toronto win in a game that the Milwaukee Bucks did not play particularly poorly in, and after the Eastern Conference Finals got evened at two games apiece, and after we all collectively realized that the Bucks don’t have nearly the kind of playoff experience you need to show out and dominate at this level quite yet—not to say they’re going to lose the series, only that they look like they’re “a year away”—we have got ourselves a series. Granted, it’s a series where the home team has so far won all four games, but when the Raptors …

I risk sounding like yet another angry NBA casual when I complain about the officiating, but even in double overtime, 60 fouls, Kyle Lowry, Norman Powell, and Giannis Antetokounmpo all watching Game of Thrones on their tablets while their teammates play a basketball game that completely screwed up the East Coast’s HBO viewing (even the second most-popular sports league in America knew better than to try and mess with the biggest TV finale since Seinfeld)… …well, let’s just say Scott Foster should never, ever be allowed to officiate a playoff game again, because the only thing more puzzling than the …

The Milwaukee Bucks played like absolute garbage in Game 1 and beat the Toronto Raptors anyway. The Bucks played more like the team that won 60 games in the regular season in Game 2 and stomped the Raptors 125-103. People sometimes forget that this Bucks team was tops in the entire league in Defensive Rating in the regular season, and with the exception of Kawhi Leonard, who had 31 points on 10-of-18 shooting, the Raptors could not solve the Bucks’ defense. Raptors not named Kawhi shot 27-of-69 (39.1 percent) and the squad shot just 42.5 percent overall. Milwaukee, during the …

How about Kyle Lowry in Game 1 of the Bucks-Raptors Eastern Conference Finals? The veteran put the team on his back and scored all of Toronto’s field goals in the fourth quarter of an ultimately futile but valiantly fought 108-100 loss. Yep, all of Toronto’s field goals. All five of them. The Raptors were up seven heading into the fourth, but Milwaukee outscored them 32-17 in the final frame, Lowry shooting 5-of-7 and his teammates shooting 0-of-15. Pascal Siakam did, however, hit a sweet buzzer beater to end the third quarter and at the very least put a nice final …