Raptors Takeaways: Throwback late-game execution completes comeback over Pacers

Shortly after the trade deadline, in February of 2018, the Toronto Raptors ran an unexpected play to force overtime against the Milwaukee Bucks. 

With 3.3 seconds on the clock, C.J. Miles set to inbound with Jonas Valanciunas at the elbow. Kyle Lowry went wide to the weak side to take an extra defender out of the play. DeMar DeRozan came across the court just above the free-throw line, around a feigned Valanciunas screen, giving him a clear lane for a catch and, surely, a baseline jumper against a scrambling defence. Instead, the pass went directly to Valanciunas, reminding everyone that the inbounder is the most dangerous player on the floor. Miles darted toward Valanciunas, surely for a dribble-handoff.

But Valanciunas kept the ball, driving to his right past John Henson, who had leaned too far toward helping on Miles. Valanciunas dropped a nasty hammer on Henson to tie the game at 110, and it very likely should have been an and-one situation with a free throw to potentially win the game.

The Raptors lost that game in overtime, so forgive me for this trip down memory lane. Wednesday’s 132-131 victory against the Indiana Pacers invoked more than a few flashbacks of Raptors games lost in the past, both distant and more recent. 

None of those flashbacks were more important than Scottie Barnes engaging in a DHO-keeper of his own, this time with the and-one.

With 30.3 seconds on the clock and the Raptors down one, the Raptors emptied out the side of the floor nearest inbounder Pascal Siakam. With three players stationed on the weak side, Siakam entered the ball to Barnes just above the 3-point line.

Siakam had 36 points on 13-of-24 shooting and 9-of-11 at the line at this point in the game, absolutely picking apart a Pacers team that is as shaky defensively as they are electric offensively. Especially down two of their best defenders in Aaron Nesmith and Andrew Nembhard, the Pacers conceded space, position and trips to the line throughout this game, at least once the Raptors figured out how to push those advantages. Understandably, the Pacers were hyper-aware of Siakam getting the ball back after the inbound pass.

So when Barnes caught the ball, his man, Myles Turner, shifted toward the middle of the floor to block off Siakam’s path to the paint on the hand-off, or maybe even break up the transfer. Siakam’s man, Obi Toppin, slid under Barnes and Turner, looking to meet Siakam at the nail. With two defenders worried about Siakam and leaning too far one way, Barnes revealed the play was a keeper play for him, turning the corner and delivering a momentous go-ahead dunk. No help came in time from the weak side, and Turner was in time enough only to foul Barnes and give him an extra point at the line.

This is the type of play that makes late-game scenarios so fascinating. Darko Rajakovic was engaging in offence-defence substitutions to maximize around the four combined timeouts that were used in the final 35 seconds, after already going nominally smaller to allow more switching on Tyrese Haliburton actions. Rick Carlisle had to decide who was and how to hide his lesser defenders on key plays, a bit of a difficult choice with the league’s No. 29-ranked defence. Do you sell out to stop Siakam, who was having the best game of his season? Do you help more aggressively off of shooters, knowing both Siakam and Barnes are capable kick-out passers? And what do you make of the threat of Barnes, on a night where he hadn’t been quite as effective as we’ve seen but has shown a real knack for stepping up in key moments? 

The right answer is the one that works. Whether Turner or Toppin over-extended relative to their assignment, the Pacers just overindexed to Siakam and off of Barnes, or the Raptors just executed a creative quick-hitter involving two very talented, matchup-hunting forwards, the play decided an all-offence slugfest of a game.

It was not without a few more dramatics. That bucket put the Raptors ahead by two with 27 seconds to play, and after Haliburton missed on a drive, Barnes split a pair of free throws after an intentional foul. Haliburton then drew a foul on O.G. Anunoby that Rajakovic used his final timeout to challenge, ultimately losing. Haliburton’s two free throws put Indiana within one, and with both teams now out of timeouts, Gary Trent Jr. had a chance to ensure at least an overtime period.

He missed both freebies. A three-point shooting guard who shot 83.2 percent on free throws over the last four seasons went 0-for-2, inexplicably dropping his free-throw percentage on the season to 55.6 per cent. As a team, the Raptors are 28^th at the stripe. It’s a bizarre trend, and it set Buddy Hield up for the type of shot that feels like it’s so often sunk the Raptors in the past: A scrambling, somehow-open, buzzer-beating 3-point shot from just below the logo.

It didn’t fall. Raptors win. 

Maybe it’s the bounce that gets them back on track. Or maybe, after falling behind double-digits for the eighth time in their last 10 games, the Raptors very nearly found their footing too late. As strong as the final three quarters were, the team’s most troubling trend continued, and the league’s best offence relented just enough for the Raptors to escape with the win. That’s not to discredit the work they put in to do so, it’s just to point out the pattern, and that the games they’ve climbed out of big holes to steal have come against the league’s three worst defences in Indiana, San Antonio, and Washington.

It is certainly better than not pulling off the comeback at all, and the Tuesday-Wednesday road split should give Rajakovic plenty of film for the team to digest, positive and negative. With a struggling Bulls team visiting Toronto on Friday, the hope has to be that a comeback and another very spirited, exciting, fun victory carries over into how they start the next one.

Here are a few other takeaways from Wednesday’s win.

• Haliburton is incredible. The Pacers are the league’s top offence — not this year, ever — and Haliburton is the engine that drives it all. It is of course risky to make any Steve Nash comparisons, but the way Haliburton leverages his shooting gravity to open up just enough space for an array of creative passes all over the floor at least lets you know whose mixtapes Haliburton was watching as a kid.

He had 33 points and 16 assists in this one, and I’d still argue that Anunoby did what he could, other than the first few minutes of the game. The play prior to Barnes’s keeper and-one was indicative of that, as Anunoby managed to fight to stay with Haliburton around one of Indiana’s pet ghost screen actions with Hield, then recovered from a pump-fake to contest a Haliburton jumper at the elbow. No chance. At different times, Haliburton had the Raptors going small, switching everything, asking Jakob Poeltl to move his feet on the perimeter, and everything in between. He’s awesome, and the Pacers are really well-built to maximize what he does. On offence.

• Siakam was excellent, carrying the offence for bursts of this game. Dennis Schroder was co-pilot for most of the game until Barnes became instrumental with bench groups and again late. 

As the pivotal play outlined above highlights, when Siakam and Barnes are both on, they can really complement each other, putting defences in difficult tactical quandaries. The bigger picture franchise direction questions should not take away from the fact that Siakam and Barnes make things easier for each other — they seem to love setting the other up. The Raptors have won the minutes they share by a solid margin, and an extreme one when Anunoby joins them.

• Barnes was a monster defensively all night. He is killing the role as a low man who can move around to help, use his instincts and create havoc and turnovers. There were entire possessions where every Pacer who looked up saw Barnes, including one that ended with an incredible denial of a lob pass. This, on a night where defence was not exactly en vogue.

• The Raptors used that DHO-keeper for Barnes a bunch in his rookie season, then barely at all last year. That might be teams being too aware of it and of Barnes’ offensive talent. It’s really nice to have in the bag when you need it.

• Rajakovic tweaked two things with his rotation patterns that helped the bench provide their biggest contribution of the season.

First, Otto Porter Jr. found himself back in the mix, knocking down a corner three and grabbing four rebounds in 11 minutes. The Raptors won those minutes by 14, and while some of that is shooting variance and a thinner Pacers bench with two key injuries, Porter’s presence remains a stabilizing one for transitional units that can get frenetic.

Precious Achiuwa missed this game due to knee soreness. Even when he’s available, Porter should see his way into more action. The Raptors are now 5-2 when Porter plays non-garbage time minutes.

The second was that Barnes was not left on as much of an island, operating with four bench pieces that don’t fit perfectly. Instead, Rajakovic extended Anunoby more with those groups, and used Siakam there for a stretch. Barnes and Anunoby fit really well together, and the presence of an extra shooter and someone comfortable in the two-man game helped, as the Raptors actually won the parts of this game with more bench-heavy units. That’s been rare.

Maybe that was only possible on the second night of a back-to-back because the Raptors packed it in early against the Magic on Tuesday, allowing Barnes, Siakam, and Anunoby to play 39, 38, and 36 minutes, respectively. They should try to stick with that rotational tweak where they can.

• Rajakovic also got a do-over on the Barnes substitution decision from Friday against Boston, when the Raptors didn’t have an opportunity to get Barnes back in for several minutes of crunch time. Today, Barnes came out with 4:22 remaining and was back in before the three-minute mark, giving him a breather before closing time. The key difference this time was the Raptors had an additional timeout to use to make sure Barnes could get back in.

• It also helped those bench groups that Malachi Flynn was really good in this one. Hitting shots goes a long way, and Flynn was 2-of-3 on his threes. That wasn’t all he did, though. Flynn looked confident attacking seams either to shoot or make the next pass, and he completely fooled the Pacers once by slowly bringing it up and then bursting to the rim for an open layup once they were convinced he was setting up a halfcourt set. Flynn has been solid defensively for the most part, and while I don’t think he’ll play this well against backcourts that aren’t so, uh, friendly, it’s good to see him gaining confidence.

• It’s too early for this. I’m sorry. But the Raptors and Pacers make a lot of sense as eventual trade partners, given their roster makeups, strengths, and weaknesses.