Raptors Takeaways: Tidy defensive effort seals rare road win

A tight game down the stretch, the best players making big plays, a collective effort on the defensive end and a hard-fought road victory.

It’s a standard NBA storyline, but hardly written as it relates to the Toronto Raptors this season. For one night in January, it all unfolded as scripted for Toronto as it held on to win 122-119 against the Atlanta Hawks.

It was the Raptors' second road win this season in 21 tries and arguably their first "real" one given the other came against the then-sinking New Orleans Pelicans back in November. It had all the hallmarks of a win against a quality opponent in their building. Scottie Barnes and RJ Barrett helped keep the offence moving as the game got tighter. Barnes scored 11 of his 25 points down the stretch, a flurry that included him getting to the free throw line three times after the Hawks fouled him on post-ups while the Raptors kept going to him for offence in the halfcourt.

He also scored what proved to be the winning bucket on a tough pull-up jumper from the left elbow with 40 seconds on the clock and DeAndre Hunter draped all over him.

Prior to that, Barrett hit a pair of crucial shots, one on a spinning right-handed lay-up around Hawks defensive ace Dyson Daniels and then he calmly drained a three to give the Raptors the lead with 2:55 to play after Jakob Poeltl rebounded Barnes' lone missed free throw in the quarter. Then the Raptors got a pair of defensive stops in the final seconds as Barrett contested a Trae Young pull-up followed by Barnes challenging Hunter as he tried to drive the basket after the Hawks had grabbed the offensive rebound.

How tidy was the Raptors performance down the stretch? Poeltl — a 61.2 per cent free throw shooter this season — hit a pair with 2.7 seconds left to put Toronto up by three. That meant when the Hawks inbounded the ball, the Raptors only had to defend against a three-point attempt, and they were perfect: first forcing the Hawks to call another timeout after they couldn’t inbound the ball and then only allowing Atlanta centre Onyeka Okongwu to catch the ball and take a hurried, off-balance and well-contest shot that had no chance. That’s the way it’s all supposed to work.

The Raptors won for the fourth time in five games — doing so for the first time during head coach Darko Rajakovic's tenure — and improved to 12-32 overall. Toronto shot 58 per cent from the floor and 42 per cent from three. Barnes' 25 points led the game in scoring, and he added six rebounds and three assists. Barrett had 15 points, six rebounds and three assists on 6-of-9 shooting, and Poeltl finished with 17 points, nine rebounds and five assists. The Raptors had 32 total assists, and their effort was only spoiled somewhat by 19 turnovers.

Toronto and Atlanta (22-22) get to do it all again at the State Farm Arena on Saturday night in the second leg of a two-game series. It wasn’t a perfect game by any stretch, the Raptors' transition defence in the fourth quarter was unjustifiably bad at times, with basic communication seeming non-existent. But, they got away with it and can celebrate a road win for once, er, twice.

Grange for three:

Raptors defence: We haven’t seen it very often this year, but the Raptors have played some more than respectable defence over the past five games, a big reason they’ve won four of them and put together their best stretch of basketball this season. Remember, this is a team that gave up 136 points in a loss to the Hawks the last time these teams met on Dec. 29, part of a four-game stretch over the holidays when the Raptors gave up an unfathomable 555 points, or nearly 139 points a game.

Before meeting the Hawks for the second time, the Raptors had held their last four opponents to 105.3 points per game and their defensive rating of 110.2 was eighth-best league-wide during that span. It's been built on solid rim protection as Toronto has allowed just 55.8 per cent shooting inside five feet, good for third in the NBA, while leading the league in defending corner threes throughout the stretch. It’s a small sample size, but it at least paints a picture of a team covering a lot of ground and moving as one.

There were certainly some nice stretches of it against Atlanta, especially early, as Toronto held Atlanta to 39 per cent shooting in the first quarter and led 35-25 after 12 minutes. Barnes set the tone early by picking up Daniels full court and forcing the Hawks wing into a weak entry pass that Poeltl deflected, leading to a runout and eventually a wide-open three for Gradey Dick. Later, Barnes squared up Young and then recovered to tip his floater when Young tried to squeeze by. Poeltl was a presence at the rim most of the night and Dick had some nice moments in the opening quarter as well. Their defence did take a beating in the middle of the game as the turnovers mounted – the Raptors gave the Hawks 21 points on 13 turnovers over the second and third quarters – but they were able to tighten up considerably in the fourth, holding Atlanta to 40 per cent shooting in the final 12 minutes.

Gradey's got bounce: The second-year guard seemed to hit a bit of a wall — like many of his teammates — over the holiday period and it was fair to wonder if the burden of being an NBA starter was still too much for the 21-year-old. But the Raptors have had some off days and Dick’s minutes have been trimmed a little — he’s now averaging 26 minutes a game over his last nine starts, down from 32 minutes a game in his first 28 — and he seems to have regained some juice.

He had three dunks against the Hawks, bringing his total to five through his past two games, compared with eight leading up to now. More significantly, he’s moving crisply and looks more athletic, as subjective as that seems. He started the game with a lighting quick pump-and-go to draw a foul on his first touch, later he confidently squared up Young on the perimeter defensively and stuck with the speedy Hawks guard before eventually jumping the passing lane on the weak side and going the full length of the floor for the score. He battled for contested rebounds and was first down the floor in transition. 

Dick finished with 16 points, three assists and three rebounds on 6-of-10 shooting, scoring 11 of his points in the opening quarter while looking energized doing it.

Get Brown out of dodge: Um, the Raptors better get something going at the trade deadline or they’re going to blow this thing, and by thing, I mean what has been a pretty effective tank job so far.

For the second straight game, the Raptors bench, bolstered by veterans Bruce Brown, Kelly Olynyk and Chris Boucher, proved too much for the opposition. The Raptors bench won their minutes 41-11 against the Orlando Magic on Tuesday and while the margin was much tighter against the Hawks (48-44), there was no way Toronto would have won this game without a significant contribution from its bench vets.

Bruce Brown finished with a season-high 18 points, five rebounds and four assists in 20 minutes, Chris Boucher added 17 points and a pair of threes in his 17 minutes and Kelly Olynyk had 11 points, four rebounds and five assists in his 14 minutes before leaving with a strained calf, which is something that will probably need to be monitored. Brown, in particular, was excellent, delivering the all-around, two-way type of performance that earned him his two-year $45 million contract after helping the Denver Nuggets to an NBA title in 2022-23.

The Raptors haven’t seen many efforts from Brown like that since he joined the team last January, but as he’s got into game shape following late off-season knee surgery, they're becoming more common. If he continues playing at this level, he’s going to help the Raptors win games, which could be a problem, but if he can show he can consistently provide this kind of pop — he’s averaging 11 points, five rebounds and two assists in 20 minutes a game over his last five starts — it should also make him that much easier to trade.