Raptors start off the Emirates Cup with a dissapointing showing

Toronto fell to the hands of the Milwaukee Bucks 99-85 last night in their first game of the Emirates Cup. The Raptors have yet to pick up a win on the road this season.

The Bucks made a few lineup changes tonight as third-year pro Ryan Rollins got the first start of his career and teammate AJ Green who’s also in his third year, drew his second career start and get this. They both dropped 12 points, five rebounds and three assists in this game. Damian Lillard was out tonight so that forced their hand in one change, the other came from sophomore Andre Jackson Jr. losing his starting role.

Toronto was also forced into a lineup change out of necessity as Immanuel Quickley was diagnosed with a partially torn UCL. That meant first-year Raptor Davion Mitchell got another chance to start. Unfortunately, he was only able to score a single point but he brought his usual playmaking, dropping eight dimes.

It was a battle of the bigs early, as Bucks big man Brook Lopez was able to score Milwaukee’s first six out of eight points and Raptors big Jakob Poeltl scored Toronto’s first four points. Unfortunately for the Raptors, Poeltl had to check out after just two minutes due to accumulating two personal fouls. The two Centers were able to finish in the top three, in the scoring department for their teams at the end of the contest.

This was a typical Raptor game this season. Another poor shooting night for Toronto as they were almost 35 percent from the field, 36 percent beyond the arc and gave up 21 turnovers. They’re at least in the bottom ten in the league in all three of those categories.

A positive tonight was that the Raptors had a good defensive showing as the Bucks also struggled to score. The Bucks are only 21st when it comes to offensive rating so far but Toronto will take victories where they can. It was the first time in the young season that Toronto held their opponent under 100 points and failed to reach the mark themselves too.

In this section let’s go over three Raptors. RJ Barrett had probably his worst game as a Raptor so far as he had five turnovers, shot 3/14 from the field and was only able to record seven points. Bruno Fernando had his best game as a Raptor so far as he was two points shy of a double-double. Last but not least, Gradey Dick. After setting a career-high of 31 right at the beginning of the month against the Los Angeles Lakers at home, he topped it by one point last night. This time he did it by getting to the free throw line as he attempted 16 of Toronto’s 20 free throws, which was also a new career high as his previous mark was 8 free throws attempted against the Hornets on October 30, 2024.

Lastly, we’ll shout out the two former Raptors. Gary Trent Jr. and Delon Wright. Gary Trent Jr. was a starter to begin the year for the Bucks but lost his position to Andre Jackson Jr. who also lost that spot in this game. Trent Jr. had a quiet night as he was able to record a rebound in five minutes of playtime. Delon Wright was able to wreak havoc on the Raptors as he had a game-high five steals (tied with Ryan Rollins) in 23 minutes. The Bucks duo had 10 of 16 Milwaukee steals.

The post Raptors start off the Emirates Cup with a dissapointing showing first appeared on Raptors Republic.