The Raptors’ road woes continued Friday night at Fiserv Forum against the host Milwaukee Bucks, who just may have found their stride following an aborted start to the season.
Given their away struggles, no one expected the Raptors to post their third straight win following home victories over Golden State and Boston, but everyone did expect a more competitive evening.
It never arrived.
Following their 130-112 loss to the Bucks, the Raptors’ road record dropped to 1-19.
By far the biggest disappointment was Scottie Barnes’ offence.
He went 1-for-11 in the opening half, once again missing too many three-pointers, including an air-ball on his sixth heave from distance, and attempting so few free throws.
He did find his teammates, but Barnes needed to also be a scorer with the Bucks scoring at will.
He picked up his fifth foul four minutes into the final period.
Barnes was a minus-14 on a night he went 4-for-16 from the field, while committing three turnovers.
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The Raptors entered the evening having played, at least by their standards, some level of competent defence in winning back-to-back games.
Whatever inroad was made quickly vanished, particularly in the opening 12 minutes when 37 points would be yielded.
The dynamic duo of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard combined to drop 23 points on the Raptors, who ended the first period by scoring 22.
Almost from the jump it seemed the Raptors were trying to climb out of a double-deficit hole, reducing their margin for error to basically zero.
Toronto gave up 72 first-half points, including a total of 40 to the Greek Freak and Dame Time, who produced half of their output from the charity stripe to underscore the disparity between the teams from the foul line.
The Giannis-Dame tandem would net a combined 61 points in the win.
Bruce Brown had a solid game, which the Raptors welcomed as they try to assess the veteran’s value as next month’s trade deadline approaches.
The game witnessed the return of rookie forward Jonathan Mogbo, an intriguing prospect who rejoined the NBA club following a stint with the Raptors 905.
A few eyebrows were raised when Mogbo emerged as the first player off the bench, usurping veterans Chris Boucher and Kelly Olynyk, who played very well in the third quarter when Toronto’s compete level dramatically improved, which spilled early into the fourth.