5 Reasons The Milwaukee Bucks Can Still Win Their Series Against Toronto Raptors

Kyle Lowry And DeMar DeRozan Are Inconsistent

DeMar DeRozan came up big in Game 4, a must-win road game for the Toronto Raptors. He dropped 33 points on 12-of-22 shooting, was a perfect 9-for-9 from the free throw line and came away with four steals in the Raptors’ most impressive two-way performance of the series.

It was Kyle Lowry’s turn in Game 5 as Toronto took back control of the series. He scored 16 points, including 6-of-6 from the line, and added 10 assists and two steals of his own.

Those 10 dimes were by far a series high, highlighting the ball movement Toronto finally discovered over their last two games.

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While the Raptors’ stars showed up in the last two games, they have demonstrated over this series and their entire playoff careers that when the bright lights of the postseason come on, their play suffers.

While some games they come out and look like All-Stars, others they come out and are completely unable to help their teams win.

DeRozan scored 33 points in Game 4, but he had just eight in Game 3, shooting 0-for-8 from the field. Lowry scored only four points on 2-of-11 shooting in Game 1.

DeRozan is averaging 5.5 points less than his season average in the postseason and Lowry 7.8 worse than his season average.

The Raptors paired franchise-record win totals in 2014 and 2015 with first-round playoff exits, upset by the creaky Brooklyn Nets in 2014 and then swept by the lower-seeded Washington Wizards in 2015.

Last season the Raptors fought through to the conference finals, but not before needing seven games to put away the seventh-seeded Indiana Pacers and another seven to drop the ailing Miami Heat.

The reality has been that DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry turn in a much lower, inconsistent performance once the playoffs begin. Last season as they struggled against the Pacers they were identified as two of the least efficient players in postseason history.

Former front office executive Ben Falk discussed how to evaluate the mental aspect of such a pronounced drop in performance. This is now normal for one of the league’s best regular-season backcourts.

The cause of such a dip in performance is a conversation worth having another day, but the bottom line is that there is no guarantee All-Star level players will turn up for Toronto over the last two games.

With long defenders filling their rotation the Bucks are best equipped to put pressure on that inconsistency, and low-efficiency games from Lowry and DeRozan open up the door for a Milwaukee comeback.