Bucks open ’18 with familiar foe
TORONTO - The Milwaukee Bucks didn’t end 2017 at home, but they did spend the year’s final day in a familiar place.
Coming off a pair of notable wins, the Bucks set up shop for practice at the Air Canada Centre on Sunday ahead of their 6:30 p.m. New Year’s Day matchup against the Toronto Raptors. The Bucks are no strangers to the Raptors or the Air Canada Centre, including its third-floor practice court, considering the two teams met eight times during 2017 with half the matchups being played north of the border.
Milwaukee and Toronto battled in the first round of the playoffs in the spring, with the Raptors claiming the series, 4-2. Still, the Bucks point to that series — including a victory in Toronto to kick off the postseason — as a positive experience that can help them going forward as they face a Raptors squad with many familiar faces and a 13-1 home record heading into Monday’s game.
“It definitely helps us,” Bucks guardforward Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “I was talking with (Sterling) Brown about it and he was like, ‘You guys lost the series,’ but I told him we won the first game (in Toronto), we lost the second one, but at the end of the day, we learned from it. I think we’re more mature as a team, we’re playing better and hopefully tomorrow we can get a win against these guys because we really want it.”
While the Raptors have made some changes to add to their depth, including leaning more on their young talent and adding C.J. Miles in the off-season, their top four scorers remain the same as last season. That core group of DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry, Serge Ibaka and Jonas Valanciunas has shouldered the bulk of the load, as usual, led by their star-laden backcourt.
“We’ve played them a lot here, so just understanding they’re a little bit different — you add someone like C.J. Miles and it definitely helps them with the threes,” Bucks coach Jason Kidd said. “But DeRozan and Lowry are the engines and you’ve got to pay attention to those guys.”
DeRozan remains Toronto’s go-to scorer, ranking 13th in the NBA with 24.1 points per game. One of the league’s top mid-range scorers and drivers, DeRozan has added a long-range component to his game.
A career 28.1% three-point shooter on just 1.4 attempts per game over his first eight seasons, DeRozan has changed his approach for 2018. He’s putting up an average of 3 three-pointers per game, putting him on pace for his most three-point attempts in a season, and is making 33.0% of them.
“He’s added that three-ball to his game where you can’t just dare him to shoot it,” Bucks wing Khris Middleton said. “Last year he wasn’t shooting it at all, this year he’s shooting it some. But he’s still a great scorer from inside that three-point line, I mean, the mid-range, the drives to the basket, free throws. He’s still a great scorer without that three, it’s just another dimension he added to his game this summer.”
Controlling DeRozan — something the Bucks did in the playoffs, holding him without a field goal in Game 3 — will be a key to Monday’s game, but the Raptors have plenty more options. Toronto can go 10 or 11 players deep, with nine players logging minutes in 30 or more games.
Rookie OG Anunoby returned from an ACL injury earlier than expected and has performed well while playing in all of Toronto’s 34 games. Miles has been a spark off the bench, averaging 10 points per game to lead the second unit, and guard Delon Wright and Norman Powell have continued performing their roles well.
The Bucks, who rank last in the NBA in bench points (23.6 per game), know the challenges the Raptors pose despite not having faced Toronto this season. As the calendar flips to 2018, the Bucks hope the experience they gained against the Raptors in 2017 — as well as their back-to-back memorable wins against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder to end the year — will provide a boost.
“It’s going to be a tough one,” center John Henson said. “If we can come here and get this one it would be a great win for us.”