The Toronto Raptors play just five more games at home before the Feb. 8 NBA trade deadline and – starting with Wednesday night’s visit to Memphis – 13 more on the road.
Did we mention Toronto was 4-11 on the road far this season? The road games come in bunches.
The Raptors are at the outset of six game road trip that takes them to Memphis, Sacramento, a stop in Los Angeles to play both the Clippers and the Lakers before dropping into Salt Lake City for a matchup with the Jazz on Jan. 12.
It doesn’t get any easier once they arrive back in Toronto, with games at home against Boston and Miami, and an improved Chicago Bulls team. Then it’s a quick trip to New York for a reunion with OG Anunoby and Precious Achiuwa before a brief two-game homestand leading up to another six-game trip.
All of which is to say, it’s probably wise to take the long view regarding the Raptors’ integration of newcomers Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett.
And if at some point in the next five weeks the Raptors decide to pull the trigger on a long-rumoured Pascal Siakam trade? The rest of the season could become an extended laboratory to build some momentum for the following season.
In short, there’s a lot of stuff going on and trying to evaluate what it means in the here and now is probably a fool’s errand.
In the meantime, there are games to play, and lot of them away from the friendly confines of Scotiabank Arena.
And how about that? Yeah, the long-term view matters, but hard to ignore the Raptors are 2-0 since their blockbuster trade with the Knicks after an impressive 116-111 win over Memphis. It was one of their most encouraging performances – start to finish – all season.
The win improved the Raptors 14-20 and sets them up to win three straight for the first time this season if they can manage an upset at Sacramento. And this wasn’t the pushover that Memphis was during superstar Ja Morant’s 25-game suspension to start the season. The Grizzlies were 5-2 since Morant returned, but the Raptors paid no mind.
Quickley was outstanding, leading his new club with 26 points and five assists while shooting 5-of-8 from three, including a 13-point burst in the third quarter as the Raptors jumped out to a 20-point lead shortly after halftime. Barrett had 14 points, seven rebounds and three assists while knocking down two of his five three-point attempts.
Each of them meshed well with Siakam (24 points while limited to 30 minutes due to foul trouble) and Scottie Barnes (20 points and eight assists). The Raptors looked – predictably – a little ragged in the fourth quarter as the Grizzlies came back and had the Toronto lead down to six with four minutes left. There were a number of empty possessions with some confusion regarding who was initiating offence and to what effect, but the Raptors made their free throws, and Dennis Schroder scored a key lay-up as he moved the Grizzlies defence with a pump fake and pass fake to give Toronto a seven-point lead at the 1:22 mark.
Here are some takeaways from the game.
• It’s hard to beat perfect shooting mechanics. Quickley arrived in Toronto with a reputation as a quality three-point shooter. He was shooting 39.5 per from deep before suiting up for the second Raptors game of his career.
It’s easy to see why his percentage is strong and not hard to imagine him nudging that already excellent number up a few percentage points into the elite category. The guy the Raptors hope will be their lead guard for now and well into the future got off to a rough start early in the first half. He forced – and missed – a contested pull-up jumper in transition, got a weak drive to the rim spiked by the Grizzlies’ Jaren Jackson Jr. and turned the ball over as he couldn’t create anything meaningful in a late shot-clock situation.
He missed his first two threes on good looks and in general looked the part of a young player adjusting to a new role on a new team. But then, coming out off an inbounds play, Quickley set a back screen for Siakam before coming up to the top of the circle to take a hand-off from Jakob Poeltl, who screened for Quickley.
From there, everything the 24-year-old out of Kentucky does is perfect as he runs out of the paint and towards the ball at the top; he stays low, and cuts tightly around the screen, squeezing off his defender, and then with a perfect left-right sequence with his fee, he squares up his body, turning left to right, gets his balance and rises up with power. Splash.
You couldn’t teach it better and it’s an example of why so many have been so high on his potential even before the breakout opportunity that this trade should bring. He hit a three on another set play in the third quarter, too. And then he can just do stuff like this too, where he casually dances into one of his trademark above-the-break threes, and then hops and skips on his way back down the floor.
And that was before he really got hot and put up 13 in the third quarter alone.
• Anunoby is a better all-around player than Barrett at this stage of their respective careers. He’s a more reliable three-point shooter and at his best is an astonishingly versatile defender. He fits well in almost any lineup and will likely be hugely positive asset for the Knicks.
But his offensive toolbox was relatively limited, at least as an initiator. And watching Barrett, one thing that he brings to the table that Anunoby was sometimes lacking is an intuitive feel for the game on the offensive end, especially, born of a lifetime of either being ‘the man’ or believing in his bones that he can be if called upon.
It doesn’t always work out perfectly – you don’t have to watch Barrett too long to see an ill-advised drive to nowhere or see how quickly he can run out of options when defenders sit on his left hand. But having Barrett on the floor instead of Anunoby does give the Raptors another ball-handler who believes in his ability to make plays.
Barrett’s drive and one-handed, right-handed pass to a cutting Siakam for a dunk early in the third quarter was one example and his lefty, cross-body, pocket pass out of a pick-and-roll for Poeltl in the second quarter was another.
I’m not trying to suggest that Barrett is some kind of wizard, but he knows how to find shots, how to map the floor and how to take advantage when the situation presents itself. He can carry an offence when the match-up is right and he’s rolling – which isn’t all the time, granted. But he gives the Raptors more of what they have been short of prior to the trade.
• Trading Precious Achiuwa has left the Raptors – not all that big in the front court, anyway – very thin behind Poeltl. How they manage that long-term will be interesting to watch, but for now it looks like recent two-way signee Jontay Porter will get a crack to soak up some of those minutes. Porter was signed after the Raptors waived Ron Harper Jr. when his season ended due to shoulder surgery.
They looked prescient when Porter was named to the all-tournament team at the recent G-League showcase as he averaged 18.8 points while shooting 60.7 per cent from the floor and a blistering 68.2 per cent from three while contributing 1.4 steals and 2.6 blocks in five starts for Raptors 905.
It’s taken him some time to establish his NBA game since he suffered two major knee injuries before going undrafted out of the University of Missouri in 2019. But in his first NBA appearance since playing 11 games for the Grizzlies in 2020-21, the 24-year-old flashed some excellent feel and was on the floor for a productive seven-minute stretch straddling the first and second quarters.
He survived being switched on to Morant on the perimeter, had a nice vertical challenge of Jackson Jr. at the rim and made a heads-up pass out of a tough situation under the basket that led to a wide-open Schroder three. He looked poised and smart and comfortable defensively, and that should serve him well for the role the Raptors need filled for the moment.
• It’s been a bit of tough road for Darko Rajakovic, which is often the case for first-year head coaches. It’s not often that rookies get to step into ready-made jobs with rosters that are over-flowing with talent and options up-and-down the lineup. Rajakovic has justifiably been questioned about some of his lineup choices and has had some moments where he’s looked the part of a first-year head coach.
But to his credit, he’s delivered on his promise to have the Raptors play a more fluid style of offence with the ball moving and the assists piling up. He’s coaxed an excellent season out of Barnes, has built a strong relationship with Siakam – not easy under the circumstances – and has remained true to his relentlessly positive self throughout.
Undoubtedly, going back to Memphis where he was an assistant for three seasons was meaningful to him, and having his newly constructed team show up for him the way they did Wednesday night had to be a good feeling. He deserves that, just as he deserved the long line of warm hugs he got from the Grizzlies staff and players after the win.