Raptors with a convincing win over Bucks

Walter’s 3 at the ended of the shot clock demoralized the Bucks as it built a double-digit lead. This was after Myles Turner hit a 3 and Porter had a nice crossover and pull-up jumper on Walter. But Walter was great defensively, as he often is, pestering Kevin Porter Jr. on a possession where the Raptors forced a shot clock violation. Shead pressured Ryan Rollins, and Walter came to dig. Shead’s pestering and the Raptors’ pressure forced Rollins to huck up a shot under duress.

What Shead did to Rollins, he also did to Cam Thomas. After pressuring Thomas in the backcourt and continuing to apply pressure in the half-court, Shead forced the latter to throw a bad pass to Turner way out in the perimeter. The defensive force field pushing the Bucks further and further up the court was visceral. CMB was pressuring Turner right where the fiserv logo was, and this allowed BI to score.  

BI stole the ball, drew the shooting foul in transition, and hit both free throws. On the previous offensive possession, BI forced a Bucks timeout. He hit a 3 after Poeltl kept the play alive by snagging an offensive board. The Raptors built a 14-point lead into the 16-point one. 

The parts kept contributing to the sum. When KPJ completed an and-one, Shead nullified it with a triple. When Dick got blown by twice by KPJ leading to two easy buckets, BI’s play screamed, ‘I got you.’ He had a dunk and hit a 3. They made six 3s in the third.

And when Dick didn’t get called for a foul nor a goaltending call on a lay-up attempt, and then lost a jump ball, CMB drew a flagrant-one foul from Bobby Portis and and hit a free throw. He then grabbed a big offensive board, much like Poeltl’s earlier, and scored.

After a 32-22 third quarter performance, the Raptors maintained their lead into the final 12 minutes and closed out a convincing win.