Here are 10 takeaways from the Toronto Raptors‘ 131-129 overtime loss to the Brooklyn Nets.
One — The Raptors’ entire season will come down to these missed chances. Toronto had a wounded opponent in their sights, took them too lightly at the start but recovered in the third quarter, held a three-point lead with less than 15 seconds left in regulation, and still blew it. You have to give the Nets so much respect for playing so hard with only the minimum eight players available, but the Raptors should have taken this game.
The end result leaves you with the same burning frustration as their losses to Detroit, Portland, OKC, Memphis, and Cleveland. These regrettable games represent the difference between the Raptors being in the playoffs and them fishing in the lottery.
Two — Kevin Durant is a cheat code. Even without most of his supporting cast, he was able to record a triple-double and threaten the Raptors all night. The strategy was to run Durant off the line and meet him with a double inside the arc to prevent the midrange shot, but Durant smartly moved the ball to the few shooters who were available for the Nets, which accounted for most of Brooklyn’s scoring in the fourth quarter, and then he wiggled free for a few midrange shots that were always money regardless of how hard the Raptors contested the look.
He’s in the rare conversation as the best scorer of all-time, and he backs it up on defence, where he secured a number of key stops at the rim. Durant taking the third stringers and winning in overtime is just a small footnote in his long list of achievements.
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Three — Chris Boucher made an unforgivable mistake that allowed the Nets to force overtime. Boucher completely fell asleep after switching onto Patty Mills on the Nets’ final possession in regulation when they were down three, lingered for two extra seconds while Mills popped out for three, and then Boucher reacted too late in closing out, left his feet as he always does, which allowed Mills to relocate and fire for the tie to beat the shot clock.
There’s a chance the Raptors wanted to zone up on the play, so maybe Boucher lingering in the lane was by instruction, but there was no communication between Boucher and Gary Trent Jr. to account for Mills on the arc.
Either way, you cannot excuse such blatant mistakes in key moments, nor can you afford the completely unnecessary technical that Boucher picked up earlier in the game when he screamed in the face of a Nets rookie for seemingly no reason while the Raptors were on a scoring run. There’s a good reason why the Raptors coaching staff do not trust him.
Four — The Raptors struggle to generate advantages in crunch time. Whereas the Nets could turn to Durant to draw two defenders, to make the right play, and to hit tough shots whenever they needed, the Raptors lacked anything close to a closer. Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam were both great throughout the flow of the game, but when it came down to the moments when defences fully locked in, they couldn’t create for the team.
In Siakam’s case, he genuinely looks nervous in the moment — given how last season went — and shied away from plays, while VanVleet is always willing to step up yet he’s undersized so he can’t get the separation he needs.
The three must-have shots the Raptors missed today were a missed pull-up three from VanVleet with 35 seconds left in regulation, an airball pull-up two at the end of regulation, and a missed drive down two in the final minute of overtime. When you compare how difficult the Raptors’ looks were to the ease with which Brooklyn got open looks through Durant, that’s a big reason why the Raptors have lost so many of these coin-flip games.
Five — At some point the Raptors need to try different players to close. There’s no guarantee that Scottie Barnes or Trent Jr. would be that much more effective than VanVleet and Siakam, but they should at least be given a look.
The pattern when games get down to the wire is VanVleet and Siakam settling into their two-man game, and thinking shot-first, which is understandable given that they’re the leaders of the team, but they’re not the only ones who can score. Trent Jr. had the go-ahead three while Barnes nailed a stepback triple to tie the game. Especially in the case of Barnes, he has so much size and length that you can trust that he will get something off. What do they have to lose?
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Six — Trent Jr. might be getting prepped for the role. The Raptors have given him the ball to clear out on three end-of-quarter plays in the last two games, which breaks from their usual pattern to date. Trent Jr. nailed a three to end the first half, and lost his handle on another try, which is about what you would expect. His handle is decent but could still use some refinement to get him clear separation when going one-on-one.
Still, when it comes to making a contested pull-up jumper, Trent Jr.’s effectiveness from midrange in particular has to be a sign of promise.
Seven — The Raptors’ second unit keeps dragging this team down. They followed up their best showing of the season with another dismal night in which the entire bench was outscored by a single reserve on the Nets, who happened to be second-round rookie Kessler Edwards, who was playing in the rotation for the first time all season.
It’s incredible just how incompetent the Raptors’ bench can look at times, when you see Malachi Flynn bricking two pull-up threes right away, or Svi Mykhailiuk failing to catch a pass or when he drives into traffic for turnovers, or the missed threes from Yuta Watanabe when the team needs them most. VanVleet sat for six minutes after playing the entire second half, only for the Raptors to lose by 10 points in that time. Siakam rested for nine minutes and the Raptors lost those minutes by 15.
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Eight — It’s easier to be a reserve when there’s a superstar at the dials. One of the issues the Raptors run into is that their starters play well as a group, but none of the starters are good enough on their own to lift the second unit on their own.
It’s very different to come off the bench in Brooklyn when you’re getting set up each time because Durant or one of their other stars are getting doubled. That same effect doesn’t quite happen for the Raptors, even though the second unit does miss plenty of catch-and-shoot opportunities. At the minimum, you would hope to see the bench play some defence or box out for rebounds, and they weren’t even doing that tonight.
Nine — Watanabe is the only reserve right now that shows any reliability, and it almost exclusively comes on the defensive end. Watanabe checked in early after Barnes picked up two fouls in the opening three minutes trying to handle Durant, and while nobody ever stops Durant, Watanabe delivered a series of pristine shot contests to the point where he actually blocked him. Offensively, Watanabe couldn’t get his threes to drop, but he did a good job of playing on the catch, attacking the closeout, and making the right pass quickly while he was in the lane. He found Boucher cutting through for a dunk, and spotted Trent Jr. open for a triple. At least with Watanabe you get hard, smart, and unselfish play no matter what.
Ten — The NBA is reaching a breaking point due to the pandemic. The Bulls had two games called off due to them literally not having enough bodies to play, and Brooklyn was perilously close to that in this game.
Of course it’s difficult to reschedule games and there’s lost revenue in a time where the league has already lost so much of it, similar to most businesses since COVID-19, but what point do some of these games serve? Had the Nets lost tonight, would it have been fair that they were made to play with only eight players? Should that factor into how they fare in the standings? Is it even a good product to show to fans?
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