Point guard T.J. Ford faces his former team right off the bat when the Raptors host the Milwaukee Bucks in their home-opener at the Air Canada Centre on Friday (TSN, 7 p.m. ET).

The storyline is all the more intriguing since the game marks the return of fan favourite Charlie Villanueva, who was traded away to the Bucks for Ford in the off-season, and is coming off a monster game against Detroit.

``Big win for them in Detroit, so I'm sure they're going to come with a lot of confidence, they're a good basketball team,'' Raptors coach Sam Mitchell said after Thursday's practice.

Villanueva, last year's runner-up for rookie of the year honours, had 16 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and four steals in the Bucks' 105-97 win over the Pistons in their season-opener Wednesday, prompting the inevitable speculation on who got the better of the trade.

The Raptors, meanwhile, will be trying to rebound from a 102-92 loss at New Jersey in their opener. Ford's night wasn't too shabby though _ the six-foot, 165-pound guard had 19 points, seven assists, and five rebounds, and showed signs of why the Raptors wanted him, sharing the ball and getting his teammates open shots.

``Charlie played well, we knew Charlie was a good player,'' said Mitchell. ``And T.J. had a good night for us. The (Bucks) had a need and we had a need. Sometimes in life, trades do work out for both teams.''

The Raptors acquired Ford to run it's high-octane offence, and earlier this week signed the guard to a contract extension for three years, plus an option for a fourth that could pay him as much as US$33 million.

The 23-year-old said he's looking forward to playing the Bucks and harbours no ill will against his former team.

``At the end of the day, you just want to come out and have a good game, no matter who you're playing,'' said Ford. ``I think it probably would have been more emotional if I got traded during the season and was playing against them. But what happened, at the end of the day, the trade made both teams better, and it definitely helped my career.

``(The Bucks) helped me, they put me in a good situation to come out and be around a great group of guys and great organization and let my talent blossom a little bit more than it would have there.''

Ford and Villanueva won't be the only ones in the spotlight Friday. Italian rookie Andrea Bargnani, the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, makes his anticipated home debut. Italian national team coach Carlo Recalcati was flying in Thursday afternoon to attend the game.

Bargnani is part of a growing international presence. Friday's game at the ACC features players from eight different countries, and a mixed bag of international media is expected including reporters from Russia and the Netherlands. Spanish paper AS was at Thursday's practice to cover Raptors Jose Calderon and Jorge Garbajosa. Toronto also has Slovenians Rasho Nesterovic and Uros Slokar, and Pape Sow of Senegal.

The Bucks have Andrew Bogut (Australia), Damir Markota (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Dan Gadzuric (the Netherlands) and Ersan Ilyasova (Turkey).

The Raptors are expecting a sellout crowd of 19,800 for the game, a good sign for a team that sold out just five games last season. The home-opener last year against Washington drew just 18,106 fans.

Plenty of eyes will also be on Raptors all-star Chris Bosh as he tries to rebound from a dismal opener. The 22-year-old forward, who insists he's just rusty after missing four games plus valuable practice time during the pre-season because of plantar fasciitis, had 14 points and five rebounds and shot just 5-for-13 from the field.

``I was a little frustrated at the beginning of practice, but I wanted to come in and work extra hard, especially on the things I wasn't doing so well (Wednesday) night,'' Bosh said. ``I had a good practice, got some good conditioning and got some extra shots up.''

Bosh admitted the last couple of weeks have been tough on him.

``It's hard, but that's the beautiful thing about the NBA, there's a game tomorrow, so I have a chance to redeem myself in front of the home crowd and hopefully they'll give me a bit of a boost and I'll be a little bit quicker tomorrow,'' said Bosh.

The Raptors will need to hit their shots and do a better job defensively against the Bucks. Toronto shot just 39 per cent from the floor against the Nets, despite having wide-open looks, and sagged on defence late in the game, allowing the Nets to go on an 11-2 run in the fourth-quarter to take control of the game.

``We got some good looks and that's all you can ask for,'' said Mitchell. ``As far as the coaching staff is concerned, we want to make sure we keep getting the good opportunities. If you keep getting the good opportunities, you're going to make your share of them. Hopefully we can get some of those looks we got Friday night against Milwaukee and they'll go down.''