Toronto Raptors vs. Milwaukee Bucks: The NBA Cup begins

If I’d told you three weeks ago that the Raptors’ worst opponent to this point of the season would be the Milwaukee Bucks, you’d either think Giannis was injured, or that I was reading fan-fiction standings. Alas, neither one is the case. Giannis Antetokounmpo is averaging 31.6 points, 12.8 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game on 60 percent shooting, and the Milwaukee Bucks are 2-8 — just half a game better than the rebuilding, last-place Toronto Raptors.

Tonight’s game is the last of a five-game road trip that took the Raptors to Denver and California. The Raptors have played competitive basketball during the trip, but have zero wins to show for it (they lost by two points to both Denver and the Clippers). In fact, they have yet to win a home game this season. Will tonight’s game — the first of this year’s NBA Cup — end differently?

Watch tonight with Raptors HQ’s Chelsea Leite, who’ll be streaming the game on Playback.

Join us on Playback!

Make sure to check out the Raptors HQ Playback stream to watch games with us! To sign up:

• Head over to playback.tv and create an account with your email address
• Connect and select your NBA League Pass login as your streaming account (sign up for League Pass here first if you don’t have it)
• Go to https://www.playback.tv/raptorshq and hit the JOIN button
• Make sure to activate push notifications so you know when we’re going live

Where to Watch:

Sportsnet, 8:00 pm EST

Lineups:

Toronto: Immanuel Quickley, Gradey Dick, RJ Barrett, Ochai Agbaji, Jakob Poeltl

Milwaukee: Damian Lillard, Andre Jackson, Taurean Prince, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez

Injuries:

Toronto: Scottie Barnes — orbital fracture (OUT), Kelly Olynyk — back (OUT), Bruce Brown — knee (OUT), Ja’Kobe Walter — shoulder (OUT), Garrett Temple — back (doubtful)

Milwaukee: Khris Middleton — ankle (OUT), Gary Trent Jr. — back (probable), Giannis Antetokounmpo — knee (probable), Andre Jackson — hip (probable)

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Gelling

The recent return of Immanuel Quickley is a huge win for the Raptors, who will benefit tremendously from his on-ball creation and presence as a shooting threat. But patience is key: After missing nearly the entire preseason, Quickley then missed over two weeks of the regular season. He’s been back for two games, and while he scored 21 in a close game against the Clippers, the offense didn’t look great down the stretch on Sunday vs. the Lakers. Notably, Gradey Dick attempted zero field goals in a fourth quarter that the Lakers won 35-21. Darko Rajakovic commented postgame that the team needed to do a better job of finding Dick on off-ball cuts. Things should improve for this lineup with more reps together.

Cup Rules

Tonight’s game kicks off the NBA’s second annual in-season tournament. So while the game will count towards regular season standings and statistics, it’ll also affect the outlook of East group B which includes the Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat and Detroit Pistons. How does this impact the actual gameplay? Well, since point differential is one of the tournament’s key tiebreakers, the whole concept of “garbage time” is basically eliminated. Teams are incentivized to play hard until the buzzer, even if the game is out of reach. 48 minutes of good honest basketball!

Moral Victories

At 2-9, the Raptors currently have the worst record in the NBA, yet they might be leading the league in moral victories. Between RJ Barrett’s run of 30-point games, Gradey Dick’s emergence as an absolute hooper, Ochai Agbaji’s impressive season and all the promising performances from other young players, there’s been some kind of positive takeaway from basically every game. But when crunch time arrives the team seems to clamp up and have a harder time executing their offense — five of their losses were winnable games within six points. While those losses are fun viewing, every now and then you’d like to see a moral victory translate into a real win... but not too many! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna watch some Cooper Flagg tape.