MILWAUKEE — With Damian Lillard sidelined because of the concussion protocol, the Milwaukee Bucks would need to find enough offense to pull out a win over the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday night.
So they did their best to get the math in their favor by attempting 56 3-pointers and leaning on defensive pressure to force one of the league’s worst offenses into turnovers to grab a 99-85 win. The victory moved them to 3-8 on the season and put them atop the East Group B standings for the NBA Cup at 1-0.
How did they do it? One play midway through the third quarter encapsulates the Bucks’ approach.
While the Raptors did not have a great individual matchup for Giannis Antetokounmpo, they were not shy about sending as much help as possible at him to force the other Bucks to try to beat them, even if it meant leaving open looks to capable shooters.
With four minutes remaining in the third, and by the time Antetokounmpo brought the ball in transition following a Raptors turnover, Bucks sharpshooter AJ Green had already fired 10 3-pointers. He had knocked down two in a row a few minutes earlier, so Antetokounmpo went to him again.
As the Raptors slowed him, Antetokounmpo dribbled to his left and flipped a dribble handoff to Green, who was running to the middle of the floor. Raptors guard Jamal Shead tailed Green around Antetokounmpo’s screen and took away any chance at a good look. After one dribble, Green stopped on a dime and flipped a pass back to Antetokounmpo. After the pass, Green ran right back to Antetokounmpo, ready for another dribble handoff back to the left wing.
By the time Green got back to Antetokounmpo, the ball was gone; Antetokounmpo had already whipped it to the other side of the floor to Ryan Rollins for a 3 from the right wing.
“He flips it, sometimes. He throws wild passes, so you always gotta be ready,” Rollins said of Antetokounmpo’s fastball. “And I was ready, so it was good.”
Rollins wasn’t lying. He was not only ready for that pass on that play, but the Bucks’ two-way point guard was also prepared for the biggest opportunity in his NBA tenure as he was asked to make his first career start with Lillard out on Tuesday night.
“I was excited,” Rollins said. “It was the opportunity of a lifetime, so I just had to take advantage of it, for sure.”
In 22 minutes, Rollins tallied 12 points, five rebounds, three assists and five steals. Rollins’ 3 on the pass from Antetokounmpo ended up being his final offensive play of the night. Rollins had injured his left shoulder on defense the play before, swiping at a pass to Raptors big man Bruno Fernando and then fighting for a loose ball to force a turnover, but the Bucks two-way guard vowed to reporters that he would be ready to play on Wednesday vs. the Detroit Pistons.
The end-to-end play was a near-perfect summation of how the Bucks pulled out a win on Tuesday.
The Bucks did not have Lillard or Khris Middleton, who missed his 11th consecutive game recovering from offseason procedures on both ankles to start the season, and top free-agent signing Gary Trent Jr. played only six minutes as he returned from back spasms. Because of this, the Bucks tried to make things as simple as possible on both ends. On defense, they tried to get their hands on as many dribbles and passes as possible to force the turnover-prone Raptors to give up the ball. On offense, they tried to get into the paint and create open looks from 3.
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They were overwhelmingly successful in each regard.
The Raptors committed 22 turnovers, tying the season-high for a Bucks opponent this season. Both Rollins and backup point guard Delon Wright came away with five steals apiece as the Bucks’ guards did their best to rack up deflections the entire night.
“I think that’s just how I play defense,” Rollins said. “I have long arms, so I just try to take advantage of that as much as possible, play in the passing lanes and just kind of knowing who the players are they’re trying to get the ball to and just stand up to them. It’s honestly just the read and the feel of the game.”
After a poor start to the season, Wright saw his playing time diminish as Doc Rivers decided to move Rollins ahead of him in the rotation. But with Lillard injured, Wright was back and responded in a major way, doing what he does best and turning defense into offense.
While the Bucks successfully did something they don’t often try on defense, they finally succeeded at something Rivers has claimed they have been trying to do on offense for much of the season: hoisting a ton of 3s.
“I think we gotta create better shots for them,” Rivers said, when asked about the team’s below-average 3-point percentage to start the season before Sunday’s game against the Celtics. “We are 24th or 26th in creating closeouts, which means we’re not doing a very good job of swinging the ball and attacking the paint and making plays for each other.
“The ball’s sticking a lot. We just got to get back to playing at a better pace. …We got two guys in the top five in 3-point shooting. And they’re not getting enough 3s up. And we’re not getting enough 3s up.”
Despite those pregame comments, the Bucks managed only 32 3-point attempts against the Celtics’ switching defense on Sunday.
On Tuesday, Milwaukee did a far better job hoisting 3s. The Bucks were 15th in 3-point rate, according to Cleaning the Glass, before Tuesday’s game. After attempting 56 3-pointers against the Raptors, the Bucks are now ninth in 3-point rate.
Some fans will be disappointed that Antetokounmpo, who averaged 21.2 field-goal attempts per game in his first nine games, took only 12 shots against Toronto. Rollins took as many shots as the two-time MVP, and Bobby Portis, Brook Lopez and Green all attempted more shots than he did. But it was clear from the start Antetokounmpo was going to do everything he could to get his teammates open looks. Antetokounmpo recorded only seven assists with the Bucks’ poor shooting performance — 40.4 percent from the field, 28.6 percent from 3 — but according to NBA.com’s tracking data, he tallied 22 potential assists against the Raptors.
Following the game, his teammates resoundingly agreed that his willingness to pass out of double teams and trust them would pay off for the Bucks in the long run.
“I think it makes us extremely hard to guard,” Green said. “We didn’t exactly shoot it great tonight, but we got a lot of great ones and that comes from him and his willingness to continue to make those passes. So we’re going to make those shots, all of us, and then hopefully he’ll have more space to get downhill and do his thing, so it kind of just works out for everybody.”
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Rivers seemed to think the Bucks’ shot profile on Tuesday could work for them moving forward.
“One of the things we’ve been harping on is getting to the paint and creating more 3s,” Rivers said. “Well, we shot 56 of them tonight, and 50 of them were great shots. We just didn’t shoot them well. But, man, if we play like that every night and get those shots, we’re gonna be fine.”
In the end, all the Bucks did was beat the Raptors, a team expected to be among the worst in the Eastern Conference. Wins, however, have not come easy this season in Milwaukee, so the Bucks need not worry about the degree of difficulty of the win or what their strength of schedule looks like on Wednesday morning. It’s a win and they need all they can get at the moment.
But there can be no rest or relaxation, because they need to do it again Wednesday against the Detroit Pistons in an attempt to build their first winning streak of the season.
(Photo of Ryan Rollins: Gary Dineen / NBAE via Getty Images)
