Bucks blow big lead but Grayson Allen hits game-winner in OT to beat Raptors

The Milwaukee Bucks won two games in a row for the first time since Dec. 17-19 with a 104-101 overtime victory over the Toronto Raptors at Scotiabank Arena in Canada on Wednesday. The Bucks are now 25-13 while the Raptors fell to 16-22 in losing for the fourth time in five games.

“It was just a very wild game,” Brook Lopez said, via Bally Sports. “It was interesting to play, you know, a little fun, a little frustrating at times. It could’ve been better but I’m sure it was a great watch.”

Bucks nearly let win get away

The Bucks had one in hand Wednesday night.

Then, the Raptors almost took it from them.

One of the more badly played opening halves of basketball led to one of the more improbably captivating final minutes of the season – and the Bucks were on the bad end of it.

BOX SCORE: Bucks 104, Raptors 101 (OT)

But, in the end, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Grayson Allen combined for the game-winning three-pointer in the final seconds of overtime to help the Bucks pull out a victory.

“Feels good,” Antetokounmpo told reporters postgame. “Obviously your body’s tired and it’s more mental than physical and just being able to go out there and get the job done back-to-back, it always feel good.”

After recovering from a horrific shooting first half and overall sluggish game, the Bucks built a 21-point lead with 3 minutes, 50 seconds left in regulation. Then, with 3:22 left and his team up 90-69, Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer subbed out all of his starters.

Toronto guard Fred VanVleet then hit back-to-back three-pointers to make it 90-75 and Budenholzer sent his starters back into the game. The run was on – keyed by a full court press – and the Raptors chipped away at the lead.

“Couple of turnovers trying to inbound the ball against the press,” Budenholzer said. “It felt like if we got the ball in we were able to get it across halfcourt and then we had a couple turnovers in the halfcourt that you just can’t have that we’ve got to work on and improve.”

Story continues

They were still down 11 points with just 43 seconds left when Scottie Barnes made it 97-88. Then, the Bucks couldn’t get the ball in. The turnover led to a Gary Trent Jr. three-point attempt – which he sank despite getting hit below the belt by Allen. Trent Jr. made the free throw (97-92) and then Barnes sunk another layup on the extra possession to make it 97-94.

Toronto’s Pascal Siakam pushed Bobby Portis out of bounds in front of the Bucks bench to force a turnover, and then Trent Jr. hit a step-back three over Brook Lopez with 1.5 seconds left to send the game to overtime.

“Definitely after, hindsight, thinking about it I would do it differently – I wouldn’t take the guys out,” Budenholzer said. “But, up 20, on a back-to-back, you hope that you can finish that out. But a 6-0 run in a matter of 15, 20 seconds, that probably gave them the life to take it all the way down. So, it’s unfortunate and we’d like to be better, including myself.”

But with the game tied at 101 with 30 seconds left, Antetokounmpo brought the ball up without a timeout and drove hard into the lane, swinging the ball to Allen before falling out of bounds.

“He was wide open,” Antetokounmpo said. “I drove the ball, I saw VanVleet coming in from the corner and I was able to deliver the ball to Grayson and he caught it clean and I knew we had a chance when he caught it clean and shot the ball.”

Added Allen: “Falling down, like three people on him, so it was a pretty amazing pass to make that accurately. It was right in the shooting pocket so it made it an easy shot for me.”

Antetokounmpo watched the winning shot fall through the net from the floor, and pumped his fist.

“The last pass to Grayson is just – the fact he gets to the paint, the fact he gets to the rim and then it felt like it was a dart to Grayson, hit him right in his shooting pocket, just big time play, big time pass and Grayson was able to knock it down,” Budenholzer said.

VanVleet missed a 30-footer with 3.2 seconds left to finally end the Raptors’ threat.

“We made it a lot harder than it needed to be, but a lot of credit to them,” Allen said postgame, via Bally Sports. “A lot of teams, when you’re up 20 with three minutes to go, they just kind of give up. They were pressing, active defensively, they hit some big threes. Gary Trent hit some huge shots, so a lot of credit to hem. We tried to stay focused and really just focus on getting stops because we weren’t able to do that the last two minutes of regulation. So in overtime, that was important.”

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s historic march continues

There aren’t too many teams that can routinely slow down the Bucks’ MVP candidate, but over the course of his career the Raptors have done just that. In 27 career games against the Raptors, Antetokounmpo has averaged just 19.5 points per game on 52.6% shooting. Of every opponent, only Miami (18.2) has limited Antetokounmpo more.

Antetokounmpo had come into the game averaging 40.4 points per game over his last seven, so it seemed like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object and it was Antetokounmpo who buckled (relatively speaking).

The Bucks’ star scored just eight first half points on 3 of 7 shooting. He also got to the free throw line just twice (2-for-4). He also had five turnovers in the first half.

Antetokounmpo, of course, didn’t wilt from the challenge.

He matched his first half point and free throw total in the opening minutes of the third quarter and had 16 points to go with his 17 rebounds after three. He scored Milwaukee’s first seven points of the fourth quarter and assisted on the next five to help the Bucks build a 21-point lead.

Though, like his teammates, he struggled with Toronto’s pressure down the stretch (he had season-high 12 turnovers), Antetokounmpo finished with his 31st career regular season triple-double with 30 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists.

And although his three-game streak of scoring at least 40 points came to end, his first career 30-20-10 triple-double is only the seventh of its kind in the last 40 years. He is also the first player to score 200 or more points, have 80 or more rebounds and 30 or more assists over a five-game period since Abdul-Jabbar in 1972.

The final assist came on a nifty no-looker around Scottie Barnes to Allen in the corner for what proved to be the game-winner with 11.6 seconds left in overtime.

“I think Giannis, on a back-to-back, he used a lot of – lot of – energy both last night, tonight,” Budenholzer said. “They’re very physical. For him to find a way to get us over the top was huge.”

Pat Connaughton stabilizes Bucks starting lineup

It took a bit for Pat Connaughton to get on the floor after preseason ankle and calf injuries, and since then he’s had his ups and downs with his shot (52% three-point shooting Dec. 17-25 and then 20.8% Dec. 28-Jan. 3) but the 29-year-old has given the Bucks some stability in the starting lineup since he opened Christmas Day in Boston with the first unit.

By starting against the Raptors, the Bucks have deployed the same starters in five of their last six games (the lone exception being Bobby Portis for Antetokounmpo on Jan. 1).

It is the longest stretch of such continuity among the openers since the same five took the court from Nov. 21-30.

“I do think there’s a stability that he’s provided us,” Budenholzer said before the game. “(An) availability, and stability, which the starting group really hasn’t had. I think we kind of leaned into that when we first put him into it (on Dec. 25) and it’s kind of played out that way. He’s another guy that can attack and get to the basket, another guy that can make threes, defensively understands everything we’re doing at a high level, just gives us a good, kind of stable, place to start the game from.”

There was perhaps no better example of that than in Toronto, where Connaughton was one of the few players to have any semblance of an offensive game in the early going. He was 4 for 7 from behind the three-point line for 12 first half points and it was an important performance, as the Bucks made just 10 additional shots and scored 27 additional points.

Connaughton has now reached double figures in scoring in four of his six starts.

Five numbers

0 Shots made and points scored by the Raptors in the first 7 minutes of the game. Toronto missed its first 15 shots (including 6 three-pointers). But, it was only down 7-0 because the Bucks were just 3 for 15.

28-7 Run by the Raptors to end regulation and erase a 21-point deficit in the final minutes to force overtime.

“Ugly start, like nobody could score on either team, ugly finish to the game with a bunch of fouls and turnovers and a lot of credit to them defensively,” Allen told reporters postgame. “They stayed up and picked up full the last three minutes and they got a lot of turnovers and they hit some big shots, so a lot of credit to them for doing that. It was a unique game for sure.”

4-0 Bucks’ record on the back end of back-to-backs this season.

9-9 Bucks’ road record after the win, snapping a four-game losing streak away from Fiserv Forum.

1/27/2021 The last time the Bucks beat the Raptors, a 115-108 victory in Canada.

More:The top single-game scoring performances in Bucks history

A Twitter List by journalsentinel

Play of the game is MarJon Beauchamp’s two-handed slam

Milwaukee and Toronto had a terrible first quarter shooting (combined 7-for-47) and it felt like there was a lack of energy for the Bucks as they were playing their second game in less than 24 hours, but rookie MarJon Beauchamp provided a lift in the early part of the second quarter with a massive two-handed dunk after a pump fake by the three-point line.

Video of the game is Serge Ibaka’s tribute video

According to TSN reporter Josh Lewenberg, Toronto produced a tribute video to the Milwaukee Bucks center when he returned to Canada while as a member of the Los Angeles Clippers on Dec. 31, 2021. But, there were no fans in the building. The Raptors aired it again on Wednesday and the fan favorite received a nice reception. Ibaka played for Toronto from 2016-20 and helped them win a title in 2019.

Bucks injury report

Who do the Bucks play next?

Milwaukee heads back to Fiserv Forum to host the Charlotte Hornets at 7 p.m. at Fiserv Forum. The Bucks beat the Hornets in Charlotte on Dec. 3 in a game that didn’t feature the star players for either team. Star point guard LaMelo Ball is back for the Hornets, however, and he pairs with Terry Rozier to form a high-scoring backcourt. But Charlotte is one of the worst teams in the Eastern Conference, decimated by injury and off-court issues.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bucks blow big lead but Grayson Allen hits game-winner in OT