TORONTO — Scottie Barnes had the worst offensive game of his career less than a week ago. He didn’t make a shot, didn’t make a free throw and didn’t score a point. His team got blown out.
It stuck with him.
In his next game — Wednesday against the Orlando Magic — he missed his first field-goal attempt and had only four points in the first quarter. But he got on track in the second half, scoring 16 points while making all seven of his field goals on the way to 28 points in a Toronto Raptors blowout win. He righted the ship.
But he wanted more. Going 0-for-12 in an NBA game when his team needed him wasn’t something he was going to forget quickly.
So on Friday night in the second of the Raptors' two-game set with the Magic — this one a 121-114 loss marking the opening of NBA Cup play — Barnes kept the gas down. He shot seven times in the first quarter and 17 times in the second quarter.
He had 24 field-goal attempts at halftime. Had Barnes stopped there, it would have been tied for the fourth-most shots he’d ever attempted in a regulation NBA game.
But the Raptors were losing and the Magic were doing a good job cutting off RJ Barrett, the Raptors' leading scorer on the season, so Barnes kept going, taking five more shots in the third quarter.
“He just looked like a man on a mission,” said Raptors centre Jakob Poeltl. “He was really, really aggressive out there. They tried to throw everybody at him, but it didn’t really matter too much.”
By the narrowest of definitions, Barnes and the Raptors didn’t complete the mission.
The standings will show that the Raptors lost to the Magic to drop to 3-2 on the season and 0-1 in East Group A in the NBA Cup standings.
But as Barnes enters the prime of his career, he is in the process of expanding the parameters of what his mission could end up being about.
The versatile sixth-year wing finished with a career-high 41 points against the Magic, blowing past his previous career-best mark of 35. He shot 19-of-34 from the floor and added five rebounds, four assists and two blocks in a season-high 39 minutes of work.
In that sense, he set out to do what he wanted to do.
“I’ve been trying to be aggressive, especially since that Minnesota game for sure,” he said. “My mindset going into a game now is just to keep trying to be aggressive as best I can and help the team out as best I can.”
The Raptors needed all of it. The Magic were shading Barrett with soft doubles, forcing him to turn into a passer. They were also doing a much better job of protecting the ball — giving up just 13 turnovers against the Raptors' relentless pressure compared with 20 on Wednesday — which limited Toronto’s transition scoring. And with Leonard out, the Raptors are without their most proven half-court scorer.
The Magic led by nine at halftime.
Over to Barnes.
He is a defensive player first, and a playmaker next, and scoring is often third on the lengthy list of things he needs to do well if the Raptors are going to get anywhere near where they want to go.
He showed in the playoffs he’s capable with 24.1 points per game in the Raptors' seven-game loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
And he’s worked to make himself a dangerous mid-range scorer, which was how he generated so many quality looks against the Magic. He was 5-of-6 at the rim, which is to be expected given Barnes’ long arms and powerful frame, but he was also 8-of-10 in the mid-range — the area inside the three-point line and outside the paint where so many of the NBA’s most lethal scorers differentiate themselves.
Barnes will always have a lot on his plate: the toughest defensive assignments; flipping from point guard to centre depending on team needs; creating for others offensively and covering up for his teammates defensively. It’s a lot.
But if he can consistently score in the mid-range while maintaining his ability to collapse the defence by attacking the rim and make plays for his teammates from there, Barnes would be well on his way to superstar status.
He’s not shying away from it. One of his goals heading into the season was to set a career high in scoring. Not because of the number, but because of what it would represent.
“I wanted to break that (but) It’s just about trying to be aggressive,” said Barnes. “I think I did a great job doing downhill, being aggressive.”
Barnes' big night could have been even bigger if the referees had rewarded him more for his efforts to attack the defence. He shot just three free throws for the game and the Raptors shot just 15 total. The Magic shot 29.
It was a major swing factor in that outcome, even though the Magic (2-3) shot 18-of-34 from three compared to the Raptors' 11-of-27.
The Raptors allowing the Magic to shoot 52.7 per cent from the floor was an issue as well, led by Franz Wagner, who finished with 26 points and 11 assists and 28 points from Desmond Bane.
But if Barnes got a few more foul calls, it would have helped. He might have been on his way to a 50-point game.
“I could have got to the free-throw line more,” Barnes said. “I think being that aggressive, only shooting three free throws is kind of crazy … I’m trying to have good PR today ... but I’m kind of raging on the inside right now, but it is what it is.”
As his head coach Darko Rajakovic put it: “For me, a player who scores 40-something points and takes 34 shots and goes to the free-throw line three times, that’s kind of BS to be honest with you.”
But the real deal may be the new level that Barnes has found as a scorer and the new layer he can add to his expanding all-around game.
Three-point Grange
1. Out of gas? Barnes had played 30 minutes through three quarters and ended up at 39 for the game, a big total for October. He scored his last field goal with 9:43 to play in the fourth quarter and couldn’t muster up any more offence down the stretch as the Raptors made just three field goals in the final 8:38 of the game after they briefly took the lead on an Immanuel Quickley (17 points, 8 assists) triple. “He was rolling at the start of the first quarter and I kept him in a little longer,” said Rajakovic. “And after I subbed him out, it was hard.”
2. Not about the numbers: Jakob Poeltl had his best game of the season, contributing 12 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes. He had only 11 points and 18 rebounds total in the first four games of the season. “To be honest, I don’t really care about the numbers," he said. "It doesn’t really matter to me if at the end of the game I have 10 points and 10 rebounds or if I have like four points and two rebounds. Like, whatever. As long as we win the game.”
3. Up next: The Raptors head out on their first extended road trip of the season, playing a back-to-back set in Los Angeles on Sunday and Monday, first against the Lakers and then against the Clippers before heading to Denver to play the Nuggets on Wednesday and their second Cup game against Milwaukee on Friday.
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