Raptors Takeaways: VanVleet makes history in win, but Nurse story won't go away

I thought Sherman Hamilton set up the Toronto Raptors' afternoon start against a Charlotte Hornets team that was missing seven regulars pretty well when he called it a “chicken soup game” -- a chance for the Raptors to feel good about themselves after losing against Philadelphia on Friday.

Toronto took advantage of the opportunity with 128-108 win that lifted the Raptors back to .500 at 39-39 and evened their record on their five-game road trip to 1-1.

The Raptors will get a chance to move over .500 for the first time since early December when they play the Hornets again on Tuesday before heading to Boston for two games. They finish the regular season with another 1 p.m. ET start next Sunday against Milwaukee.

The Raptors shot 53.8 per cent from the floor even while going just 8-of-28 from deep. Pascal Siakam led all scorers with 36 points and added seven assists, which normally would have been the headline were it not for Fred VanVleet’s 20-point, 20-assist game -- the latter a franchise record.

The Raptors pulled themselves into eighth place in the East with the win. Some takeaways:

InFredible

Things are only a distraction if you let them distract you. Credit to VanVleet for avoiding that.

After a tough outing against the 76ers on Friday (5-of-17 shooting, six turnovers) and questions swirling around the Raptors' coaching situation, VanVleet made a statement in the opening quarter against the aimless Hornets.

In not so many words, he wasn’t going to allow the sudden uncertainty around the Raptors coaching situation or the fact that the undermanned Hornets were starting a G League level-team or the rare 1 p.m. start time be a reason, excuse or even a factor in his performance in the early going of what was really a ‘must-not-lose’ game.

The first quarter was more back-and-forth than it should have been, but VanVleet made sure the Raptors got the separation they needed early when he scored on a lay-up, drew an offensive foul, and then scored again just before the horn.

In between, O.G. Anunoby scored a three and a floater as the Raptors finished the quarter on a 9-2 run to take a 35-25 lead to start the second quarter.

VanVleet had 11 points and six assists in his first 12 minutes.

Hey, nice job, right? Turns out VanVleet was just getting started.

By the time his afternoon was finished, VanVleet had carved himself some more space in Raptors franchise history.

He broke the Raptors single-game record for assists with 20, a mark previously shared by Kyle Lowry, Jose Calderon (twice) and Damon Stoudamire with 19. VanVleet set the mark when he hit Pascal Siakam for a fastbreak lay-up that gave Toronto a 124-106 lead with three minutes to play.

Worth noting? VanVleet had just two turnovers.

“I’m just taking whatever the defence gives,” he said. “I know the more pressure I can put on them from distance the more they have to press up and the more I’m able to get inside the lane, but it just happened. It was really in the flow … and really trying to make the right reads and my teammates did a great job finishing.”

VanVleet already had the team’s single-game scoring mark, set when he scored 54 points against the hapless Orlando Magic on Feb. 2, 2021. He also became just the 11^th player in NBA history to have both a 20-assist game and a 50-point game, and yes, he’s the only undrafted player to ever have done it.

Oh, and the only other player in NBA history to hold a franchise’s single-game scoring record and assist record? Wilt Chamberlain. What a career.

Sorry, what was that?

I honestly am not sure what Nick Nurse was talking about.

In his first meeting with any members of the Toronto media since he raised eyebrows with his unusually frank comments on Friday about his future with the team, the long-time Raptors head coach was -- predictably and justifiably -- asked about those comments.

But before Lindsay Dunn of CityNews could even phrase a full question, Nurse cut her off.

“That’s exactly why I made 'em [his comments Friday] is to not have to answer that question every game,” Nurse said. “Because I got it about three games in a row, so let’s move on and talk about tonight and this team and this season. Please.”

If you missed what prompted all of this, the notes version: On Thursday, The Toronto Star published a story that essentially said there have been persistent rumours that Nurse -- who has one year left on a three-year contract extension worth $24 million -- was lining up for a job with the Houston Rockets this off-season. Similarly, the Raptors were beginning to lay the groundwork to replace Nurse with former Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka.

Nurse was asked two questions in Philadelphia on Friday – the first a broad one about “where his head was at” at the tail end of an up-and-down season.

It was at that point things got interesting, as Nurse took the opportunity to say “I’m gonna take a few weeks to see where I’m at, where my head’s at, to see how the relationship with the organization is and everything. It’s been 10 years for me now. Which is a pretty good run …”.

Hmm.

He was then asked specifically about his future coaching in Toronto, and again, Nurse didn’t deflect.

“No, I think I'm concentrated on this job, for sure, and this game," Nurse said. "But I think that 10 years is a good time to sit back and reflect a little bit, right?”

And that’s it. That was the first time anyone who covers the team on a regular basis can recall Nurse being asked about his future with the Raptors this season, or ever, frankly.

During the 2019-20 season, there were some casual conversations about when Nurse might get an extension given that he won a championship in his first season and was on his way to leading the Raptors to a 60-win season before the pandemic interrupted everything and he had to settle for a franchise record wining percentage. Nurse easily won the coach-of-the-year award and didn’t have to wait too long to get his well-deserved extension.

But ever since? Nothing. The topic was coming, certainly. Whether it happened now or after the season it would have been raised given Nurse would be heading into the last year of his deal, but short of any firm reason to bring it up sooner, those are typically end-of-the-season type questions.

So, what was Nurse referring to, this question he claimed he had received about three games in a row?  As I go through my notes, there has only been one ‘big picture’ question where Nurse has been asked to reflect on the season to date and it came before the Raptors played the Washington Wizards last Sunday. The subject or anything similar to it didn’t come up at practice on Monday, at the Miami Heat game on Tuesday or at practice on Thursday.

On Sunday, he was asked to assess the season. His answer then:

“I don’t think it’s going to do me much good to assess the season at this point. My thoughts are get our guys healthy [and] let’s continue to play as well as we can,” Nurse said. “Again, it’s been pretty good basketball for the most part for a few months now, probably post-trade deadline.

“And it really doesn’t matter anymore, looking back and thinking, ‘oh, we coulda, shoulda, woulda.' If we want to do that in the summer we can, I guess. My focus has to be on what’s good, let’s polish that, what needs work, let’s really work on that. Keep trying to get these guys to play better at both ends of the floor and see what happens.”

All that said, I can understand why Nurse didn’t want to revisit his comments from Friday. He stepped into it when he didn’t have to. He had all kind of options for how he could have answered the questions he was asked at the time that didn’t involve him speculating on his future and his need to reflect on his long run with the Raptors or the nature of his relationship with the organization.

Instead he gave the story legs, as the saying goes. But it’s not accurate to say his comments Friday were a pre-emptive effort to put an end to a line of questioning that had been persistent beforehand.

There had been no questions beforehand. But from now until his future in Toronto is resolved, the questions -- whether he answers them or not – will be out there, hovering. Nothing he says or doesn’t say will change that.

No makes, no assists

You can make as many passes as you want, they only count as assists if someone is making buckets. More often than not lately for the Raptors, that someone has been Anunoby.

The Raptors wing made five threes on six attempts with VanVleet feeding him on three of them, along with another helper on a jumper. Getting the ball to Anunoby seems like a good idea at the moment. He was shooting 46.7 per cent from deep for the month of March and is now shooting 83.3 per cent for April.

He did leave the game with an ankle injury late, but Nurse said it was a "minor, minor" sprain.

Go Iowa

Nurse is a proud Iowan, and like everyone else from the mid-west state, or anyone who loves basketball or sports or humans doing incredible things, he’s been keeping up with Caitlin Clark -- the spectacular guard who led Iowa to the NCAA championship game against LSU Sunday afternoon.

Heading into the final, Clark had set the NCAA tournament record for three-pointers made, assists, and was closing in on the all-time scoring mark.

She lifted Iowa, a No. 2 seed, to their first national championship appearance on the heels of a 41-point, 10-rebound, 12-assist triple double in the Elite Eight last weekend. Then, she had an electrifying 41-point, six-rebound, eight-assist outing to upset undefeated and No. 1-ranked South Carolina in the Final Four on Friday.

“We’ll be glued into that game, for sure,” said Nurse before the final tipped off Sunday afternoon. “It’s an amazing opportunity and she’s worth every second you spend watching her. I’ve watched a lot of Iowa women’s basketball games this year and every second is worth it. She’s really something to see.”