Rather than coming into the early stages of the 2024-25 season coasting until the playoffs, or at least games that matter, the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics arrived in Toronto on Tuesday with a perfect 4-0 record in the pre-season and looking every inch the heavy favourite to defend their title.
Among those wins was one over the Raptors in Boston on Sunday when the Celtics’ second and third units mopped the floor with whoever Toronto head coach Darko Rajakovic put on it.
Toronto surged back in the second half in the road contest, but losing the first two quarters by 33 points meant it was hard to get too encouraged about anything that happened after that point. However it was not too soon to wonder: ‘if the Raptors starters are getting blown out by the Celtics non-starters, what does that say?’
That’s still too be determined, obviously, but so far the Celtics seem immune to any post-championship letdown,
“We’re just ready to compete [and] most importantly [want to know] how competitive can we be? How open-minded can we be to get back up to speed on our reads and our communication and building our connectivity and get [the] program to where it was before,” said Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla. “So they’ve done that, and we’ve brought that throughout the [pre-season].”
So far through a pre-season that has been marked more by injuries than long stretches of strong play – there may be a connection – the Raptors have looked like a team trying to find its identity, which is too be expected given the volume of player turnover in the past 12 months or so.
Rajakovic wants a team that plays with speed and creates plenty of looks from three, but through three pre-season games his club was 25th in pace, 30th (31.7) in the number of threes attempted per game and 24th in threes made (10.7).
The Celtics, meanwhile, came in averaging 52 three-point attempts and nearly 20 made threes per game, leading the pre-season in both categories after four games, picking up just where they left off during their championship season.
It’s a tough to win when your opponent is scoring 27 points more from the three-point line than you are.
Rajakovic holds out hope.
“I think there were situations in those last couple of games that we played that we skipped open shots,” he said Tuesday. “We’ve got to do a better job of recognizing those situations and shooting with confidence … they need to get comfortable with the spacing, with the line. They’re shooting a lot of shots in their workouts. That’s a big emphasis. And also it’s for them to start seeing it in a game. They can see on film, when we showed them, like, ‘That was an opportunity for a shot, but you skipped it. You were looking for something else.’ They’ve got to feel comfortable to take those shots.”
All of that coaxing, coaching and teaching seemed to pay off early in a 119-118 win that improved Toronto to 2-2 in the pre-season.
The Raptors pushed the ball, moved the ball and took and made a high volume of open to wide-open threes in the early going. Scottie Barnes was at the centre of it as he started the game by making four of his first five three-point attempts. He also was getting his feet in the paint, collapsing the Celtics defence and kicking the ball out to create looks for his teammates.
“He’s a our leader, a huge part of this team,” said second-year Raptors wing Gradey Dick. “And his energy is contagious, our whole team feeds off of that, and really makes us all want to play like that. That was an emphasis [after Sunday], coming out with energy and we tried to make a change from last game.”
Dick was the prime beneficiary as he chipped in with 15 first-quarter points on perfect 6-of-6 shooting, including all three of his three-point attempts, two of which were set up by Barnes.
By quarter’s end, the Raptors were leading 46-27 as they were 10-of-14 from deep, to 2-of-12 from three by Boston.
But that flipped in the second quarter. Barnes took the floor with the Raptors bench unit – a group even more suspect given Davion Mitchell and Ochai Agbaji were starting to make up for the absence of Immanuel Quickley (thumb) and RJ Barrett (shoulder) in the starting lineup. As well, depth pieces Kelly Olynyk (back), Bruce Brown (knee), Ja’Kobe Walter (shoulder) and Garrett Temple (hamstring) remain out.
An aside: Rajakovic said Quickley is close to returning after taking part in his first full-contact workout on Tuesday morning.
Anyway, all of this is to say the Celtics looked much too comfortable in the second quarter as their bench unit, joined by star Jayson Tatum, sprinted out to a 19-0 run to tie the Raptors after 4:10 had been played on their way to taking a 67-66 lead into the half. The difference was at the three-point line: the Raptors were 0-of-8 after their scorching start and Boston leveled up, making 8-of-15 attempts from deep.
Perhaps the Raptors’ most encouraging basketball came after halftime, however. With Boston playing its final pre-season game and the Raptors with just one more – Friday against Brooklyn – each coach was using Tuesday’s game to get their regulars closer to regular-season minutes totals.
And in a third quarter where most of the players on the floor project to be in each team’s rotation, the Raptors group more than held its own. No one seemed to have more legs that Dick, who scored 25 of his game-high 27 points in his first 25 minutes and got them on a wide range of attempts: catch-and-shoot threes, threes from dribble-handoffs with Barnes, pull-up jumpers after defenders forced him off the three-point line, some smart cuts and tough finishes in transition. It was a full menu and a reflection of the work the 20-year-old has put in to expand his game since being drafted last summer.
“I believe Gradey is more than a spot-up shooter,” said Rajakovic. “If we talk about our vision for him, this kind of the next layer to it … so everything that’s coming off cuts and drives and slip-outs, that needs to be developed, but his one-on-one game, his pick-and-roll game it’s going to come, he’s going to be able handle those as well.”
Barnes also was excellent in his second game after missing the first two exhibition games as he had 26 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds. Jakob Poeltl had 15 points and 16 rebounds in 30 minutes, while Mitchell had 10 assists.
Boston was led by Tatum’s 23 points. Each team played their starters in the range of 30 minutes. The Raptors shot 50 per cent from the floor and were 15-of-43 from deep. Boston shot 41.3 per cent and 18-of-55 from three.
The key stretch of the game was the third quarter as the Raptors picked up their defensive effort after a sloppy second quarter and held the Celtics to 25-per-cent shooting in the third quarter and took a well-earned 97-86 lead into the fourth. Each team gave their rotation players a little more room to stretch their legs in the fourth and by the time Barnes hit his fifth three of the night – and first since the opening quarter – the Raptors were leading 108-98.
They held on from there, though they required some clutch free-throw shooting from DJ Carton to give the Raptors a late lead, and a big block by rookie Branden Carlson at the buzzer to preserve the win.
Neither player figures to play a major role for the team this season, but after some shaky starts so far, the Raptors core more than holding their own against the world champion Celtics is welcomed.