The Toronto Raptors were absolutely blown out by the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals Friday night.
Toronto now finds itself down 2-0 in the series heading home for Game 3 on Sunday. Teams that win the first two games of a conference finals series move on to the championship round a resounding 94% of the time.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse couldn’t care less about that stat.
“That can’t be right. That can’t be right. Check the figures,” Nurse said when presented with the figure, via ESPN. “I don’t know. How do I find the solace (in that)? I find the solace when OKC got beat by 34 and 24 and went down 2-0 and then won four straight against a great, great, great, great San Antonio team. I don’t know.”
Nurse added.
“I don’t really give a crap about that. I just want our team to come play their ass off [Sunday night] and get one game and it changes the series.”
More than being down 2-0, the issue for Toronto has been a lack of performance from the role players. That includes a future Hall of Famer in Marc Gasol who is averaging just 4.0 points on 15% shooting from the field through two games.
The Raptors are obviously in must-win mode. No team has ever come back from down 3-0 in an NBA Playoff series to win.