According to the precepts of a shadowy and ill-understood branch of learning called “mathematics”, I have determined that, had Dwane Casey played his normal rotation, with Norman Powell receiving 0 minutes, the Raptors would have lost to Bucks in regulation. I’m not going to go too deep into how I came to this conclusion; such things are far beyond the ken of the average, or even above-average, NBA fan. If you want a starting point to my insight, take a look at the final score of the game, and at how many points Powell scored.
But Casey did not do his normal thing. Powell got the start once again, and once again he made his presence felt. If anything, this adds more fuel to the “fire Casey” fire. Why wasn’t this guy playing more earlier in the series? A guy who can score 25 in the playoffs should not be getting a DNP in the very same series.
I’m not 100% sure that Powell is actually the reason for the Raptors’ improved chances of advancing. He’s definitely part of it, on account of how badly he dominated the Bucks tonight, but the Bucks are extremely prone to sucking hard for no reason for long stretches; this is probably one of those stretches. It’s entirely possible that Toronto still wins this game with a VanVleet-Joseph-Caboclo-Nogueira-Poeltl lineup. I was expecting this slump after that blowout, and now it’s happening, and that’s okay. At least I got to see Raptors fans collectively melt down for a bit there.