Less than 24 hours after a disappointing 97-83 Game 1 home loss, the Raptors
were back at their training facility preparing for Game 2. Like DeMar DeRozan
said at the podium following Saturday’s loss, although not ideal, the core of
this team has been in this situation before. For reasons DeRozan couldn’t put
his finger on — “If I had the answer than maybe we would have pulled it out
tonight” — Game 1’s have not gone in Toronto’s favor in recent history.
One Raptors player who wasn’t reflecting on previous Game 1 losses was P.J.
Tucker. After being traded to Toronto at the February trade deadline, Tucker
made his postseason debut in Saturday’s game. He wasn’t spending a lot of time
thinking about the career accomplishment, though.
“I honestly haven’t even thought about that, it hadn’t even crossed my mind,”
Tucker said. “I’ve just been so focused on trying to figure out Milwaukee and
what we need to do to win this series. I guess quickly thinking about it, I
guess it’s kind of like storybook. I went through a lot to get to where I’m at,
to be in this situation, a great situation here in Toronto and being able to
win. I feel like we have something special that we can make work. I think it’s
just kind of a storybook tale. Everybody talks about it, starting out here,
getting cut, coming back and having an effect on the team now. It’s pretty cool,
I guess.”
Tucker wasn’t here for previous postseasons with the Raptors, but he was a part
of some of Toronto’s league-leading 21 comeback victories of 10+ points this
season. Although being the best fourth quarter team in the league was a welcomed
distinction during the regular season, Tucker wondered if that history of being
able to flip a switch bit the Raptors in Game 1.
“I think we’ve come back more than any team in the NBA,” Tucker said. “I think
we get down and we’re still really relaxed and thinking we’re just going to turn
it on every single time. And we do a lot but in this league it’s hard to do that
and I imagine in the playoffs it’s even harder. So I think just our focus and
intensity, every play of every minute of every game that we play in this series
we’re going to have to give because Milwaukee is not taking plays off. They’re
playing hard every single possession, they’re pushing it, they’re being
physical, they’re setting screens, they’re doing all the little stuff. So I
think for us we’re going to have to dig our heads in the dirt and get dirty.”
Tucker’s words echoed those of head coach Dwane Casey when he was asked about
his team’s ability to control Giannis Antetokounmpo late in the first half and
then the inability to keep him under control in the second as Milwaukee made its
push.
“They did a good job,” Casey said. “They beat us. They outworked us. They
out-physicaled us, they out-screened us in every area that you could possibly
talk about and that’s what we showed the guys on film this morning. To win in
this league we have to play at another level. You can’t play on a regular season
level. You have to screen in playoff form, you have to cut in playoff form, you
have to run in playoff form, and we didn’t do that long enough. We did it in
some parts of the game, but not long enough.”
Casey didn’t blame the team’s ability to pull off those regular season comebacks
for their slow-moving, low-scoring second half, but he did point to the easy
breaks his team gave Milwaukee.
“The easy lay-ups, the transition lay-ups,” he said. “They had 28 points in
transition and whether it’s scrambling, multiple efforts, next guy rotating, we
didn’t do it. The reasons not important, but we can’t give them those type of
sweat points, easy points, not they have their swagger, now they’re flexing and
doing all the stuff that they were doing and getting their confidence level up
and now everything is going in.”
Whatever the reason, the Raptors did not match Milwaukee’s effort when the Bucks
turned up the intensity in the second half. Although the Raptors struggled
offensively, Tucker’s focus was on the defensive end of the floor as well as
cleaning up mental mistakes that led to turnovers. Toronto did a decent job
taking care of the ball, only turning it over 11 times, but the Bucks were
phenomenal at taking care of the ball, registering just five turnovers in the
game. Milwaukee outscored Toronto 19-7 on points scored off opponent
turnovers.Taking away the extra points the Bucks scored off Toronto’s mistakes
will be key in Game 2.
“With each team, each series, there’s different challenges and this challenge is
to get back on defence,” Tucker said. “When we set our halfcourt defence we’re
pretty good. If you watched the game, a lot of it, was off turnovers, off long
rebounds, off jabbing in the backcourt at the ball and they getting out and
throwing the ball ahead and just pushing.
I think for us, the main thing for us is to get back on defence.”
With Giannis Antetokounmpo scoring a playoff career-high 28 points on Toronto,
Tucker was adamant about needing to control the paint.
“We’ve got to shut the paint down,” he said. “The paint is No. 1, the paint is
gold in this series.
Holly MacKenzie – Raptors.com
