PG: Nurse and Starters all star caliber choke job

[RaptorHusky]

Lowry 41 minutes fred 37 minutes... both under performed... ⁰

Yeah, 'Saint Nick' underperformed as well. But there is a positive thing (from RGM point of view). 100 pages GT, not seen since long ago, no?

[Scott Hall]

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[AbbieCat2008]

Not sure if the Raptors can win the Bucks this season without Kawhi.

Our guys just can't score under pressure. Ibaka? Kyle? Siakam? Fred?

Last year Kawhi took on double and even triple D team so the rest of the guys would have open shots. Remember the many daggers from Fred???

Gasol and/or Powell might have made a difference, but not sure if it's enough to win. Tonight was Buck's back-to-back and we made the Wizards look like the playoff team. (yikes)

[cbosh4mvp]

I was at the game and I’ll tell you;

We were playing amazing that first 22 minutes. The last 2 minutes of the first half screwed us. Not to mention, Nurse was masterful for a large chunk of this game, guys just didn’t hit open shots. There were a few shots that if the raptors had made, the place was ready to explode and give the raptors that needed momentum, adrenaline.

All in all, I truly think the bucks have a similar problem to us - when the going gets tough, who’s gonna get you that bucket? Not Giannis and not Middleton. Definitely not Lopez or Bledsoe.

The difference is that the Raptors have the championship DNA and they can breakthrough that barrier.

Lakers and Clippers however, will beat both the bucks and raptors IMO. Injury will have to play a role in the raptors hopes for a championship once again this year.

Lebron and Kawhi can hit that shot. They can get that tough bucket that we badly needed in the third today. So can PG and arguably AD.

[baller16]

Can Thomas finally get a permanent role with the 2nd lineup already?

His defensive woes are not even that bad and his shooting ability is to good to be rotting on the bench. He put up a quick 9 pts within minutes today and even more yesterday. Like once he gets into rhythm he turns into Klay 2.0

[Par36]

Meh.
Missing 2 of the 7 man squad.

[AbbieCat2008]

Can Thomas finally get a permanent role with the 2nd lineup already?

His defensive woes are not even that bad and his shooting ability is to good to be rotting on the bench. He put up a quick 9 pts within minutes today and even more yesterday. Like once he gets into rhythm he turns into Klay 2.0

If you look at the Raptors records against elite teams above .500, the team has really struggled to score.

Defense is critical, but the goal of the NBA games is to score MORE THAN your opponent. Playing defense is to slow down the other team's from scoring too much (but you can only do so much). It doesn't help when your own team can't score either.

I agree. Play more of Thomas. He can spread the floor with his reputation.

Let's permanently take McCaw out of rotation when he returns (please), and share some of Kyle and Fred's minutes to Thomas. Kyle played 41 minutes with dismal shooting.. no legs.. too tired.

[WeThe2019Champs]

Looks like FVV got his shoulder banged up during the 2nd quarter. You can see him look uncomfortable.

[Scott Hall]

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[steamed hams]

Panac

[Randle McMurphy]

I will say it makes a difference when Bledsoe is actually a good productive NBA player for the Bucks instead of choking completely like he always does in the playoffs. But that's another reason these games don't matter at all right now.

There is no way Bledsoe turns things around in the playoffs, kind of like how Lowry never turned things around. Wait a minute...

Oh, I'm sure there's a chance that Bledsoe could. But I wouldn't be banking on it. That guy completely wilted last season about as badly as anybody can and he's not half the overall player Lowry is.

[ItsDanger]

Giannis and Middleton hit some tough shots. A few makes from our starters and it's a different game. This without Gasol and Norm. Few too many open looks from corner 3's. They don't scare me in the playoffs. Comes down to our half court offense.

[-AirCanada-]

Ibaka is awful can't wait until he's gone

gotta be on a HOF list of worst posts ever right?

[-AirCanada-]

Objectively the Bucks are a much better team: 8 games ahead of us, have beaten us twice easily, and just beat us after a B2B OT game on the road. Giannis didn't have a great game and they still won comfortably. Fortunately at the end of the day this game doesn't mean anything since we aren't catching the Bucks and we can count on them to also beat our rivals.

At this point I just want us to finish 2nd and enter the playoffs healthy. I'll worry about the Bucks if the time comes in May but we shouldn't put any stock to our previous 2 and remaining 2 regular season games against them. Unlike last year, we can't catch them for 1st place, and even if we go 0-2 vs them in April we can still finish 2nd.

By my math, even if we go a mediocre 14-10 the rest of the way we should still be good for 2nd.

"easily" haha

[-AirCanada-]

Who's worse?

Insufferable sad sacks that are constantly negative in the game threads or Milwaukee Bucks fans? Genuine question. Think it's a close call but I gotta go with Team Negative. At the end of the day, we know we'll be able to deal with the Bucks and they'll run away. If an NBA title didn't stop Team Negative, nothing will.

the sad sacks are by far the worst

bucks fans are just like any other fan of a team on the internet, the self loathing I only see from this board

how you could watch this game today and come away negatively from it, I dunno. That was a great loss to the best team in the league that we could very capably beat in a 7 game series when healthy.

[VancouverRaps]

Bucks are legit man, Raps shut down Giannis and they still won. Obviously Gasol and Buck Killer Powell would've made a difference but man I think the Bucks are the one team in the East that makes us miss Kawhi the most. In a game like this he would've bullied his way into the paint and scored, and the Lopez bros would've been in shambles. Raps tried to make the Bucks pay for leaving shooters open but if you're just shooting jump shots all game then you're playing right into their hands, that's exactly what they want you to do.

Definitely some positive in this game, the massive one being that the Raps contained Giannis, and without Gasol. I think Gasol is a smart enough to expose the Bucks strategy of leaving opposing centers open in space. Gasol is a smoother shooter than Serge from 3, plus he's just a smarter player and superior playmaker. I really think the Raps will have to run the offense more through him to get better looks because the Bucks do an excellent job of guarding Lowry and FVV.

Side note: I hate how flustered Jack gets calling these games whenever the Raps are losing, you can tell he's in shambles, he always ends up calling out the fans too lol. I love Jack, but I prefer Leo in these games because of how preachy and panicky Jack gets.

[Sidthekid87]

Serge Fred Kyle and Pascal were all **** horrible. So I mean, that probably won't happen often. I'm just really worried about when the playoffs actually come and this team has to play half court offence, there's legitimately 1 guy on the roster who can actually penetrate the paint with a dribble, and he's hurt right now.

[Oakville_Raptor]

I'm actually confident the Raptors with a fully healthy roster can take down the Bucks...win one of the first two games in the series and we're headed back to the finals imo.

[LJKO]

Meh.
Missing 2 of the 7 man squad.

And the 2 most important one, My friend rubbing it in that we can't beat the bucks and Norm+Gasol wont make a difference

[B-Ball Freak]

The starters did not play well at all, very disappointing performance, oh well...on to the next.