Raptors Takeaways: Offence hits crisis point in despondent loss to Nets

Despite being one of the younger Gen Z-centric teams in the NBA, the Toronto Raptors seem to be suffering from a serious case of Millennial Malaise — a nostalgia for simpler times. Longing for days gone.

The world they grew up in — the one that saw them blitz through the East with nine straight wins — no longer exists. Instead, reality is hitting this team like a late 20-something paying rent on a Toronto apartment for the first time in their life.

That existentialism smacked the Raptors in the face on Sunday night with a sluggish 96-81 loss to the lowly Brooklyn Nets, a team they beat twice over the course of that nostalgic nine-game streak.

Long gone is that top-five offence, swinging passes with surgical precision and preventing turnovers, knocking down a palatable percentage of their three-point looks and getting contributions up and down the lineup.

In its place is a unit that committed 12 turnovers and scored a season-low 39 points in an incredibly hard-to-watch first half, while shooting an embarrassing 37 per cent from the field on yet another night where the offence was Brandon Ingram and not much else.

Ingram, who came into Sunday's outing averaging a team-high 22.1 points on 47.7/37.0/81.1 per cent shooting splits, led the way with 19 points on 7-for-18 from the field. But he's supposed to be the team's safety valve on those occasional possessions when the offence doesn't get going, not every possession.

So while the Raptors once again looked stuck in the good ol' days, they still got something of a blast from the past with an early-2000s-esque offensive line on the night.

Their 81 points were the second-lowest total by any team this year, saved only by a horrendous 79-point performance by the Los Angeles Clippers against the Golden State Warriors on Oct. 28.

But at least the Clippers lost to a Warriors team currently ranked fourth in the NBA by defensive rating. The Raptors should be afforded no such reprieve, unable to find the bottom of the basket against the fifth-worst defence in the NBA.

The Raptors took 36 three-pointers, hoping to claw back into a game — and season — slipping away, but only sank 10 of them for a paltry 28 per cent mark. They scored only 12 fastbreak points, well below their average of 19.5 a game, and looked sluggish getting up and down the court.

Sure, they're playing on the second half of a back-to-back after another ugly loss to the Boston Celtics on Saturday, but the fatigue excuse is getting a bit tiring. The season is 82 games long, making it through 30 is hardly the point.

The RJ Barrett excuse is also worn out. In 13 games without their low-usage, high-production wing, a good team would figure out a way to make things work without him in the lineup. The Raptors aren't even close, as they rank dead-last in the NBA in offensive rating at 105.5 in their games without Barrett.

At points this season, the Raptors have looked like a team that took its first steps to success. They graduated from college, landed a steady job and moved out of their parents' house. They had a new lease on life. But the first of the month is coming up, and rent is due.

Quickley's uneven night

Over the Raptors' dearly departed nine-game win streak, Immanuel Quickley shot a steady 49.2 per cent from the field and 39.1 per cent from deep, strong numbers for a guy whose efficiency has never been his calling card. Numbers that won't win you a game, but more importantly, won't lose you one either.

If you're a glass-half-full kinda person, you might look at Quickley's 17 points against the Nets as a bright spot after a despondent three-point showing against the Celtics on Saturday, which saw him shoot 1-for-12 from the field.

You wouldn't be entirely wrong.

Quickley did a solid job setting up the offence, dishing out 10 assists, sparking the team early on with dimes on their first four baskets of the game and igniting a 15-0 run from the end of the third quarter to the start of the fourth.

His two three-pointers to end the third made it a two-point game heading into the fourth, and his two assists to open the final frame to Jamison Battle and Collin Murray-Boyles gave Toronto its first lead since the 4:30 mark in the first quarter.

But take a step back, and you can't help but focus on a 5-for-16 (31.3 per cent) shooting night and a one-for-six fourth quarter, with a few ugly misses that turned a winnable game into an increasingly desperate affair.

He was hardly the biggest issue on the floor, as he finished at only minus-four on the night — worlds better than the minus-22 Scottie Barnes, minus-23 Sandro Mamukelashvili or minus-14 Ingram — but of late, it's a rarity to see him be the solution.

Barnes checks out

Scottie Barnes is in control of his own destiny.

Fresh off establishing himself as one of the top defensive players in the league and looking like a guy ready to break out offensively, combining his physical drives and playmaking aptitude with an improving shot, Barnes has firmly entrenched himself in the all-star conversation.

He looked locked in earlier this week in stellar showings against the Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat, driving that conversation and steering games with his play. Every choice he made looked intentional; he drove to the basket with purpose and played with the confidence you expect from your franchise player.

While he's leaned on to create for others, there's a difference between playmaking and delegating. Barnes looked like he wanted nothing to do with the game on Sunday.

He finished with six points on 3-for-10 from the field, with six rebounds, two blocks, a steal and three turnovers. An unspectacular line made worse by the eye test.

More often than not, Barnes does his damage in the restricted area, using his physicality to bully defenders off him and finishing with authority around the rim. When he's on his game, he's going after guys routinely, taking the fight to them, then using that gravity he's established to find an open man for an even easier bucket. By being aggressive down low, he creates space for his teammates.

He went away from that completely against the Nets, taking only one shot in the restricted area, and looked unwilling to even get to his spots on the floor.

While he's not the Raptors' leading scorer on the season, he's their tone-setter. If Barnes looks checked out as he did against Brooklyn, so too will Toronto.

Fastbreaks

• Poeltl pushed prematurely: If you're looking to salvage an excuse, getting only seven minutes from Jakob Poeltl is a good one to point to. The centre continues to manage a nagging back issue, but after drawing into the starting lineup following Saturday's absence, the hope was that he'd play for more than the first quarter. Another day, another nine-rebound deficit.

• Ingram's injury scare: The star forward looked to tweak his ankle slightly in the first quarter after coming down from a pass to Sandro Mamukelashvili for a three-pointer. He went back to the locker room but managed to return for the start of the second quarter. Going from 18 games last year to not missing a single one this season has remained a bright spot for the oft-injured wing leading into the year.