The Milwaukee Bucks dominated the Toronto Raptors, 125-103, in Game 2 to take a 2-0 series lead of the Eastern Conference finals.
The Bucks took a 64-39 lead entering halftime and never thought back as Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 30 points and snatched 17 bounce back to oblige five assists. Milwaukee had six players score in double figures, including three off of the bench.
Milwaukee drove wire-to-wire in this success as they’ll hope to take a 3-0 lead in Game 3 as the series movements to Toronto on Sunday night.
Here are three takeaways from Game 2.
The Milwaukee Bucks dominated the Toronto Raptors, 125-103, in Game 2 to take a 2-0 series lead of the Eastern Conference finals.
The Bucks took a 64-39 lead entering halftime and never thought back as Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 30 and got 17 bounce back to oblige five assists. Milwaukee had six players score in double figures, including three off of the bench.
Milwaukee drove wire-to-wire in this success as they’ll hope to take a 3-0 lead in Game 3 as the series movements to Toronto on Sunday night.
Here are three takeaways from Game 2.
The bench and the Bucks’ role players are the motivation behind why they hold a 2-0 series lead – and why they could eventually win this series.
Raptors have real matchup issue with Gasol
In the same class as Marc Gasol was in the postseason series against the Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid, he’s been completely futile in this series up until now. No one on the Bucks posts up as their big men – Nikola Mirotic and Brook Lopez – shoot 3-pointers and Giannis basically wills his way to the hoop.
Gasol doesn’t have the snappiness to stay aware of Giannis and he can’t finish off on Mirotic or Lopez. While Lopez didn’t have ahuge effort tonight, Mirotic did with his 15 points and six sheets on 5-of-10 shooting.
Raptors head mentor Nick Nurse seems to have perceived this and abandoned Gasol – he didn’t play at all in the last 18 minutes of the game.
Gasol’s last detail line resembled this – two points on 1-of-9 shooting, five loads up and a – 14 or more/short appraising in only 19 minutes of playing time.
It’s one thing to be powerless protectively – yet when you’re frail disagreeably in this series, that implies you don’t have anything to contribute, which implies you should be on the bench.
Kawhi gets zero help from supporting cast
The real issue entering this series was whether Kawhi Leonard would get help from Toronto’s seat in the meeting finals. While he got a wonderful exertion from Kyle Lowry as he scored 30 points in Game 1, he got no such assistance in Game 2.
While the Bucks’ seat trio of Ilyasova, George Hill and Malcolm Brogdon came join the fun, the Raptors’ job players did not. Leonard scored 31 points on an effective 10-of-18 from the field and an ideal 10-of-10 from the philanthropy stripe. In the mean time, Lowry’s playoff battles proceeded as he went 4-of-13 from the field and 2-of-9 from past the circular segment. In addition to the fact that he was awful from the field, he contributed only four helps as the Bucks murdered the Raptors with their ball development, scoring 27 team aids correlation with Toronto’s 19 for the game.
I previously referenced how awful Gasol was in this game. Presently enable me to make reference to that Pascal Siakam kept on being a non-factor as he scored only eight points on 4-of-9 from the field on a diversion most exceedingly awful – 21 or more/short rating. The Raptors’ four starters outside of Kawhi joined for only 33 on 11-of-37 from the field (29.7 percent) and 4-of-17 from 3-point range (23.5 percent).
For the good of comparison, the Bucks’ seat trio of Ilyasova, Hill and Brogdon scored 44 points on 17-of-29 from the field (58.6 percent) and 6-of-14 from past the curve (42.8 percent).
When one team’s bench trio outscores and outplays four of your five starters, that’s a recipe for disaster.