Follow our Raps Tracker for live reaction from Toronto Star sports scribes Doug Smith and Bruce Arthur all game long. Stay tuned to @StarSports and thestar.com/sports for all your post-game reaction.Pre-game MILWAUKEE—As the Raptors and Milwaukee Bucks got set to open their best-of-seven NBA Eastern Conference final, Toronto point guard Kyle Lowry was the voice of reason.“Every game will be different, everything in the past is gone,” Lowry said here this morning. “Everything we’ve done, they’ve done, doesn’t matter. Now it’s about tonight and get ready to go.”Raptors fans would be hard-pressed to find any way to dispute that fact, the semifinal series with the Philadelphia 76ers was more seven one-game events rather than a free-flowing, momentum-continuing series.There’s no reason to think that this series with the Bucks, owners of the NBA’s best regular season record at 60-22, will be any different.This is the first time the Bucks have been in a conference final since 2001, when they lost in seven games to the Philadelphia 76ers. Toronto, 58-24 in the just completed season, lost in six games of the conference final to Cleveland in 2016.HalftimeRemember all those three-point shots the Raptors couldn’t make in the playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers?They found them to open the NBA Eastern Conference semifinal against the Milwaukee Bucks, draining 10 of 22 attempts in the first half of Game 1 to take a 59-51 lead at halftime.Every Raptors starter and backup Norm Powell made at least one three-pointer and the Raptors limited the effectiveness of Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokoumpo in piling up the early lead.Kawhi Leonard had 15 points to lead Milwaukee and Antetokoumpo had 13 for the Bucks in the opening half.More on the Raptors:Deluge of threes expected from big men as Raptors face Bucks in East finalKyle Lowry says his sprained thumb will be ‘mind over matter’ in Gam ...
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