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Alijah Martin scored a career-high 27 points and RJ Barrett added 27 as the short-handed Toronto Raptors defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 121-107 in an NBA Cup game Friday night at Fiserv Forum, outscoring their hosts by 23 after the break.
Six of seven from the arc
Twenty-seven points was more than Martin had scored in his entire season until Friday: 23 points across seven games before this one.
Toronto's first lead of the game arrived on Martin's three-pointer that made it 71-69 with 5:41 left in the third quarter.
Martin is a 2025 second-round pick out of Florida who had entered Friday having made 6 of 27 three-point attempts across his career to that point.
Jamal Shead set a career high with 16 assists alongside 10 points and a plus-23, and Collin Murray-Boyles added 19 points, seven rebounds and four steals.
Poeltl did the unglamorous version of the same job: 19 points on nine of 14, 11 rebounds with six offensive, three steals and a block.
Herro's 23 and 10, Turner's silent night
Tyler Herro finished with 23 points and 10 assists but was 1 of 5 from three until the attempt that put Milwaukee back in front 22 seconds after Martin's three had given Toronto their first lead.
Milwaukee's 79-73 was the last time it led. A nine-point answer followed, closed by Graves' three-point play, and the Bucks never finished a sequence in front again.
The Bucks are 1-8, the slowest start in the franchise's history since the 1993-94 team that lost 10 of its first 11 games and went on to finish 20-62.
Rookie Brayden Burries set career highs with 21 points and 11 rebounds, five of them offensive, and Myles Turner scored no points in 24 minutes on 0 of 7 from the floor.
Toronto's defence produced 12 steals and 27 points off Milwaukee's 21 turnovers, and the Raptors converted 24 of 31 free throws in the game.
The group table and the standings behind it
Toronto moved to 1-1 in NBA Cup group play and 5-4 overall; Milwaukee fell to 0-1 in the Cup and 1-8 in the league, part of an East Group A that also holds Detroit, Orlando and Brooklyn.
The Raptors were playing without a seven-time all-NBA selection in Leonard, a two-time All-Star in Barnes and their starting guard Quickley, with Leonard missing a seventh consecutive game.
Toronto's rotation absorbed the absences by giving 31 minutes to Martin and 16 to Graves, and the team still shot 47 per cent from the floor.
RJ Barrett carried the other half of the scoring with 27 points on nine of 21 and nine of 11 from the line, plus seven rebounds and five assists in 37 minutes.
Monday brings Memphis to Toronto; Sunday brings Boston to Milwaukee, where the record book has started to look relevant.
Editor's take: Toronto won this with 12 steals and a second half of 70 points while missing three of its best players. The ceiling argument writes itself.
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