The Canadian Press
Lori Ewing
MILWAUKEE–Kyle Lowry’s seething silence said everything.
While DeMar DeRozan answered questions about one of the Raptors’ worst losses in franchise history, Toronto’s all-star point guard leaned back in the chair beside him–his lips pursed, his eyes narrowed in an angry glare.
The Raptors thoroughly were routed by an upstart Milwaukee Bucks team 104-77 last night, and in the moments after the ugly loss, Lowry’s body language mirrored his team’s shock and rage.
“We got our ass bust,” Lowry finally said when asked to sum up the Raptors’ woeful performance.
Lowry scored 13 points to top Toronto while DeRozan went without a field goal in the playoffs for the first time in his career, managing just eight points on 0-for-8 shooting.
Delon Wright had 13 points off the bench while Jonas Valanciunas had 11 points and seven rebounds.
All the pre-game talk was about matching the Bucks’ intensity but the Raptors did exactly the opposite–digging themselves a first-half hole the size of Wisconsin.
Now the Bucks take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-seven playoff series into Game 4 tomorrow in Milwaukee.
If the Raptors’ confidence took a wallop with the loss, Lowry wasn’t saying so.
“I still think we can win the series,” he remarked. “It ain’t over.
“It just sucks right now. It’s a terrible night right now,” he noted. “It’s a terrible feeling the way we just got our ass beat. Terrible feeling.
“So we’d better pick it up,” Lowry warned. “If not, it’s going to be a terrible feeling again.
“But our confidence has not changed,” he added. “We’ll be fine.
“We’ve got to come out there and do what we gotta do Saturday.”
Khris Middleton scored 20 points while Giannis Antetokounmpo added 19 points to lead the Bucks, who are making their first playoff appearance in two seasons.
Introduced to the theme music of “Barney,” it was all downhill from that point for Toronto.
Milwaukee’s motto is “Fear the Deer” and the hard-charging Bucks, with a young starting lineup that includes two rookies and a 22-year-old star in Antetokounmpo, had the Raptors running scared from the opening tip-off.
They looked completely out of sorts, unable to make a shot or a pass–DeRozan uncharacteristically fired a pass to nobody that was caught by a fan.
Asked for an answer, coach Dwane Casey replied: “There’s none.”
“It starts with us, myself as a coach as far as having them ready to play in a hostile environment,” Casey noted.
“They ambushed us, and there’s no aspect of our game that we executed whatsoever.”
The Raptors, who are notoriously slow starters anyway, managed just 12 points in the opening quarter–the second-lowest in franchise playoff history (they managed just nine points versus Detroit back in 2002).
The massacre stretched into the second, and when Middleton scored on a free throw late in the first half, it put the Bucks up by a whopping 32 points.
Wright drained a three-pointer two seconds before the break, and the Raptors trudged into halftime down 57-30–just four points shy of their biggest halftime deficit in playoff history (31 points last year in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference final against Cleveland).
“They kicked our ass. They kicked our ass. Period,” reiterated P.J. Tucker.
“They came out and played harder, more aggressive, did everything they wanted to do.”
But Tucker scoffed when asked about the team’s morale.
“It’s professional basketball. This is your livelihood,” he stressed. “Nobody should have to go out and hype you up. This is what you do.
“If you don’t have morale to fight in the NBA playoffs, then this ain’t the job for you.”
There would be no miracle comeback for the team that led the league in comeback victories this season.
They went into the fourth quarter down 78-48 before a pair of Valanciunas free throws with 7:45 to play pulled them to within 23 points.
But it already was game over. Casey emptied his bench with five minutes to play.
DeRozan said the Raptors need to turn their anger into motivation.
“Use everything that happened tonight [Thursday], that’s going to come with the next 24 hours, use it as motivation,” he noted.
“And as competitors, be back ready for Saturday.”
The Raptors shot just 33.8 percent on the night while allowing the Bucks to shoot 52 percent.
Toronto went just 6-for-22 from three-point range.
The Raptors dropped a shocking 97-83 loss to the Bucks in the series-opener, but replied with a 106-100 victory in Game 2.
Following tomorrow’s game, the series shifts back to Toronto for Game 5 on Monday.
Elsewhere in the NBA playoffs, Cleveland beat Indiana 119-111 to lead their series while Memphis downed San Antonio 105-94 to grab a 2-1 lead.
