Game 2 takeaways: Bucks demolish Raptors to take 2-0 series lead

After rallying to beat Toronto in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, the Milwaukee Bucks put a wire-to-wire beatdown on the Raptors in Game 2, moving within two wins of The Finals.

Here are some takeaways from Milwaukee's 125-103 victory:

The Bucks are who we thought they were

The Raptors shot themselves in the foot plenty on Friday, but at a certain point, you have to accept that the Bucks may just be an unstoppable juggernaut, and they've been proving it to us all year.

Led by MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks started the season 7-0, finished as the NBA's only 60-win team, outscored opponents by a whopping 8.9 points per game, and boasted both the league's No. 1 defense and No. 4 offense.

After dismantling their opposition from October to April in a way only champions have before, Milwaukee has now opened the playoffs 10-1 in similarly dominant fashion:

The Bucks are a buzzsaw in every sense of the word. A quality opponent like the Raptors will always feel they're too good to not control their own destiny. And sure, Toronto can make some adjustments to approach Game 3 with a better effort, but every team that participated in this season will eventually come to accept the Bucks were simply the better team.

You may not have believed it in October. You may not have been convinced by April, or even by the beginning of the conference finals, but there's no excuse for ignoring it any longer.

The Raptors weren't smart in Game 2

Given Milwaukee's excellence, the Raptors will need to play sound, flawless basketball to steal a road game in this series. On Friday, they were neither sharp nor wise.

They dribbled into traffic and were too late locating the best option on offense, and when they did make the right pass, it often ended in a brick.

On the defensive end, the mistakes were plentiful. Of note, the Raptors closed out on Milwaukee's bounty of 3-point shooters at half-speed, but they also made puzzling decisions in how they guarded the Bucks' potent offense.

All-Defensive team candidate Danny Green found himself in no-man's land; Serge Ibaka left Antetokounmpo unguarded under the basket on multiple occasions in order to unnecessarily double-team Eric Bledsoe. At other times, Toronto's big men sagged back on switches against the Bucks' perimeter players, treating deadly shooters the way they do the non-shooting Greek Freak.

For a team with as many high-IQ veterans as the Raptors boast, there's simply no excuse for the type of defensive execution that was on display in Game 2.

Khris Middleton's a two-way stud

As a unit, the Bucks are a swarming, menacing beast of a defensive team. Antetokounmpo's length and Brook Lopez's underrated rim protection make getting into the paint feel impossible for opponents, while a solid stable of perimeter defenders like Middleton, Bledsoe, and Malcolm Brogdon do a great job forcing opposing guards into the type of low-efficiency shots the Raptors settled for on Friday.

Middleton, especially, deserves praise for his defensive work on Kawhi Leonard.

Leonard has a considerable size and strength advantage on his Bucks counterpart, yet Middleton has done a phenomenal job of taking his space away and forcing him into help defenders, generally wreaking havoc on every Raptors possession that runs through Leonard.

Kawhi finished with an efficient 31 points on 10-of-18 shooting, but those numbers don't accurately portray how little separation from Middleton he was able to create throughout the game.

Given the way the Raptors' supporting cast has shot the ball during the postseason, and how much tunnel vision Leonard can play with at times on offense, Middleton's rare ability to make the former Finals MVP exert himself just to get a contested shot off bodes well for the Bucks.

Quote of the game

"I'm going to Toronto for Game 3." - Leonard, when asked where he and the Raptors go from here.

The Raptors are a combined 37-11 at home between the regular season and playoffs, but the Bucks were also the league's best road team this year (27-14), and haven't lost a game away from home during the postseason (4-0).

What to watch for: Rotation questions for Toronto

Of Toronto's seven most used lineups through two games, the only combination that owns a positive net rating is the quintet of Leonard, Green, Ibaka, Kyle Lowry, and Marc Gasol.

The Raptors found success playing Gasol and Ibaka together against Philadelphia's size, but Milwaukee's size is a different animal, as they usually field lineups where everyone except Antetokounmpo is a 3-point threat. That makes the decision to have both bigs on the court a lot tougher.

Additionally, while that one specific lineup has fared well in an extremely small sample size (four minutes), the Gasol-Ibaka duo has actually been outscored by five points in 12 minutes together against the Bucks.

Norman Powell had a strong game off the bench on Friday, but he also played more than 24 minutes. How much more playing time can Nick Nurse really give him against the best team in the NBA?

Fred VanVleet's effort is commendable, but the undersized guard may simply be physically incapable of making an impact, much like he proved against the Sixers.

Has Ibaka really played well enough in two games to justify starting him over Gasol? He already logged 27 minutes in Game 2 compared to only 19 for Gasol, who took responsibility for the Raptors' Game 2 effort after a disastrous individual outing.

Is Jodie Meeks really the answer after a surprising eight minutes of action on Friday?

The only experiment that comes to mind Nurse hasn't tried yet is going small with Siakam at center and starting Powell in place of Gasol or Ibaka. But then, who guards Lopez? And how does a smaller Raptors team fare on the defensive glass when they're already giving up too many offensive rebounds?

No matter how you slice it, the Raptors just don't have enough guys playing well to compete with a Bucks team that presents so many challenges on both ends of the court.