Raptors notes: Injury updates, Anunoby rolling, Hernangomez finding minutes

The Toronto Raptors are finally getting a break to pause, refresh and recalibrate. As of Wednesday night, the Toronto Raptors had played more games – 16 – than any other team in the NBA except for Utah, cramming them into 29 days, with nine of them on the road.

Now? After an off-day Thursday, a game in Atlanta on Saturday and then not another until they host Brooklyn on Nov. 23, Toronto gets a chance to find their bearings somewhat.

The timing of the schedule quirk – after playing five games in seven days the Raptors will only have one in the space of six days – couldn’t have come at a better moment, with the team dealing with multiple injuries to key players.

Some notes:

Training room:

• Gary Trent Jr. will miss his third straight game and will not travel to Atlanta for Saturday’s tilt against the Hawks, though this time it’s due to a non-Covid illness, rather than his hip, which had kept him out of the previous two games. 

• Chris Boucher is also out with a non-Covid illness. 

• Otto Porter Jr. will not travel to Atlanta due to the dislocated toe he suffered on Monday in Detroit. He was seen in a walking boot at practice on Friday. 

• Dalano Banton’s sprained ankle suffered on Wednesday is not as bad as first thought, but he won’t be making the trip to Atlanta. 

• Pascal Siakam resumed on-court work on Tuesday as he slowly ramps up from what has been described as a "Grade 2" strain of the adductor muscle in his right leg. He was due to be re-evaluated after two weeks, with a timetable for his return being set based on the outcome of that. Thursday was the two-week mark of his injury. “[We’ll] probably get another update in a week or something like that. Maybe less than that,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse.

• Finally, Precious Achiuwa (ankle) remains out and was seen moving with a limp on Friday, so he’s likely several weeks away from returning.

Add it up, and the Raptors will be without two starters and four rotation-type reserves against the Hawks, giving them nine eligible players. “I would imagine everyone is going to play [Saturday],” said Nurse.

O.G. Anunoby, rolling: The sixth-year forward is playing some of the best basketball of his career this season, which was the hope after coming off consecutive seasons when injuries limited him to 91 games in total. He’s leading the NBA in steals with a career-high mark of 2.5 per game and is also averaging career-highs in blocks (1.0), points (18.3), rebounds (6.4) and – after a slow start shooting in the first week of the season – has a True Shooting percentage of 59.0 over his last 13 starts, which is tracking towards his career-best 60.5 in 2020-21 when he played just 43 games.

He said before the season started that he wanted to earn recognition as a defensive player of the year candidate and it’s hard to argue he hasn’t done that with his steal and block totals as well as his deflections (3.7 per game, third in the NBA) and loose balls recovered (1.4 per game, also third) and his general proficiency and versatility against the league’s toughest one-on-one matchups. But as his offensive games expands, it can only help that cause. Nailing down what makes a defender elite is still a slippery business and when most other factors are equal, a defender who can contribute on the offensive end with high efficiency and high volume is hard to ignore.

“I think so. I mean, I've always never just thought of myself as a defensive only player,” said Anunoby when asked if he thought his all-round game will bring more attention to his defence, or even vice-versa. “I’ve always thought I was a two-way player. That's always what I want to be. … I think it's impressive when you can do it on both ends, when you can score and defend. Not a lot of guys can do that. So when you can I think you’re doing a good job.”

Juancho finding minutes: In his first 12 games as a Raptor, Juancho Hernangomez did a lot more watching than playing. He only appeared in five games and 10:34 was his largest chunk of minutes. But with Siakam and Achiuwa out, the rotation has opened up for the skillful 6-foot-9 forward who doesn’t quite have the bulk to play inside or the quickness to thrive on the perimeter, but who can shoot, pass, and cut well enough that he seems to figure things out wherever he lands in the lineup. In his past four games he averaged nearly 20 minutes a game, contributing 4.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and a steal while shooting 37.5 per cent from three.

The Spanish international star – he was MVP of the championship game when Spain won the title at EuroBasket this past summer – is in his seventh NBA season and with sixth organization and is used to figuring out how to navigate uncertain roles.

“I mean, it’s frustrating but every team has got [17] players, the games are played with nine, 10 players, so as a player you gotta stay ready, keep working on your game,” he said. “You never know when the opportunity comes. It’s not the first time I've been in this situation. I mean NBA every year, there’s a lot of players getting out, a lot of players coming in, so the players who keep working hard, keep believing in themselves and keep being ready when the chance comes are the players who are staying. It’s a hard business.”

What’s my password? Hernangomez is perhaps best known for starring as Bo Cruz, the hidden European gem that Philadelphia 76ers international scout  Stanley Sugarman (played by Adam Sandler) discovers and his trying to shepherd into the NBA. You might think that all of his teammates would have made time to watch the Netflix production. You would be wrong. After praising Hernangomez for his versatility on the floor and his professional approach to preparation, Anunoby allowed that he's been asking Hernangomez about getting a role in his next movie.

So, what did Anunoby think of Hustle, anyway? Well, just one problem…

“I haven’t watched it yet,” said Anunoby. “I don't know my Netflix password.”

The Argo influence: Nurse is a big football fan – he played quarterback in high school, was overlapped briefly with Kurt Warner at Northern Iowa, and follows the Los Angeles Rams. So not all that surprising that Nurse was wearing Toronto Argonauts garb at practice Friday.

The Raptors' fellow MLSE stablemates are in the Grey Cup Sunday, after all. But Nurse’s Canadian Football League appreciation runs even a little deeper than being a good company man. He counts former Argos coach Marc Trestman as a friend and says that once he became familiar with the way CFL teams use pre-snap motion – unlike in American football where only one player can be in motion at the time of the snap, and it has to be lateral to the line of scrimmage, in the CFL basically anyone other than down lineman can be in motion in any direction at any time – he thought there could be basketball applications.

Nurse uses it on out-of-bounds plays, often getting all five players moving before they get into position for whatever play they’re going to run.

“It’s kinda where we got the idea,” said Nurse. “Was going early one day to an Argos game. We went over a few hours early and were watching them do their plays and stuff before the game, that’s kinda where we got it.”