TORONTO — Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam will miss at least two weeks because of a strained right adductor muscle, the team said.
Siakam, 28, was injured when he slipped in the third quarter of Friday´s loss at Dallas. He was helped off the court and did not return.
An All Star in 2020, Siakam is averaging career-highs of 24.8 points, 9.3 rebounds and 7.7 assists this season. He has two triple-doubles in nine games, AP reported.
Siakam was named to the All-NBA third team last season when he averaged 22.8 points and career-highs of 8.5 rebounds and 5.3 assists.
Meanwhile, Brook Lopez scored 25 points and the Milwaukee Bucks extended their season-opening winning streak to a franchise-record nine games with Giannis Antetokounmpo on the bench, beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 108-94.
Antetokounmpo sat out for the first time this season. He was listed as “questionable” with left knee soreness after recording his first triple-double of the season a night earlier in Minnesota.
He did not go through warm-ups ahead of the game, and head coach Mike Budenholzer said before that game that the league´s second-leading scorer at 32.6 points per game would get the night off.
“It’s kind of exciting,” Lopez said of playing without the two-time Most Valuable Player. “Giannis gets a chance to rest, to refill his cup and we get a chance to get better and see what it’s like without him on the court and get better in that way.”
“He´s had so many good games for us, but to shoot the 3-ball so well out of the gate, then really be such a force in the paint, he really delivered in a lot of different ways,” Budenholzer said. “He was phenomenal.”
Jevon Carter and Grayson Allen each added five 3s and finished with 18 points and 19 points, respectively. Bobby Portis notched fifth double-double of the season with 12 points and 21 rebounds. Jrue Holiday also finished with a double-double, scoring 10 points with 13 assists.
“I think we all knew that we´d all have to chip in,” Lopez said. “You look across the board … everyone who (played) had an impact.”
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander connected on 7 of 16 shots and led Oklahoma City with 18 points. Josh Giddey scored 15 points and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl 12.
“We were playing well offensively and defensively, but they started to chip away more on the defensive end than we did,” Robinson-Earl said.
After finishing the opening quarter tied at 34, the Thunder trailed by as many as 24 before hitting four 3-pointers in the closing minutes of the third. Oklahoma City opened the fourth on a 7-2 run that cut Milwaukee´s lead to 95-85 with 10:22 to play.
The Bucks responded with an 11-2 run over the next three minutes to put the game away.
“We really hard a hard time getting it going in the second quarter and into halftime, but I appreciate how hard our guys fought in the second half,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “We just kind of hung in there and stuck with it.”
