RJ Barrett's road struggles a blip in career-best season for Raptors

ORLANDO — Two things happened on Sunday that haven’t happened all that often this season for the Toronto Raptors.

One: They got a road win, as they survived what would have been a stunning collapse from leading by 19 in the fourth quarter. It was just their sixth road win this season, tied for the third-lowest total league-wide. 

And, two: RJ Barrett was a significant contributor to a road victory, as he finished with 22 points, five rebounds and five assists on 7-of-13 shooting. 

Like his team, Barrett wasn’t without flaws. The six-year veteran logged five turnovers, including a costly inbounds pass intended for Immanuel Quickley that gave Orlando the ball while down by two with just under five seconds left. The Raptors escaped as the Magic’s Franz Wagner missed a good look at a layup to force overtime. Toronto will try to make it two in a row against the slumping Magic on Tuesday night at the Kia Center.

But, overall, it was one of Barrett’s better road games and marked just the second time this season he’s had a 20/5/5 game in a Raptors road win, something he’s done seven times at home. His performance away from the friendly environs of Scotiabank Arena has been an odd blip in what has overall been an impressive season from Barrett and his best as a pro. 

As an illustration, the gap between Barrett’s True Shooting Percentage (which captures the value of two-point shots, three-point shots and free throws) is 10.0, which is the largest home-road split of his career and the largest since his rookie season.

At home, Barrett has been excellent, averaging 24.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 5.2 assists on 51.7 per cent shooting, including 38.6 per cent from three. On the road, he’s been more pedestrian, putting up 18.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 6.0 assists on 42.9 per cent shooting and 32.8 per cent from three.

There’s no single reason, and variations in home-road splits aren’t all that uncommon. Few Raptors have been steadier than Jakob Poeltl this season, and his numbers take a dip on the road, though not as dramatically as Barrett’s. Part of it likely stems from the load Barrett had to carry when injuries shortened the Raptors lineup — nine of the 14 games Scottie Barnes has missed this year have been on the road, for example.

“I don’t know, exactly,” Barrett said when I asked him about it in Orlando on the weekend. “We’re not really a good road team, so that’s a lot that goes into it, especially some games where we might have some bad losses, and obviously the energy at home feels great. On the road, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it's not.” 

It should help that the Orlando area is Barrett’s second home. He spent three years at Montverde Academy, the prestigious private school about 40 km east of downtown Orlando, where he transferred after playing his first year of high school in Mississauga, Ont. The Raptors had a day off on Saturday after arriving in the wee hours of the morning from Chicago, but Barrett was able to get some work in as he hit the floor at his old high school and got to sleep in his own bed that night.

“I’m just comfortable there, lived there since I was a teenager,” he said. “I like the area, it’s quiet, I have the school there, the gym, the facilities, everything I need. It’s nice.” 

It would be nice if a few more nights at home could help him provide another boost to the Raptors on the road.

“Recently, I’ve played a lot better on the road, but just continuing to figure it out,” Barrett said. “I'm fine. I'm locked in, so doesn't matter where we are, you got to be able to hoop.”

One area where Barrett has made progress throughout the season has been his defensive play.

Barrett, for example, ranks second on the team with 2.4 deflections a game and is second among regulars in the percentage of loose balls he recovers. He’s also second in three-point shots contested. 

There’s some encouraging data on some of the analytical sites also, with Bball-Index grading Barrett as an A- or B-level defender guarding small forwards and power forwards, a C-level defender guarding shooting guards and centres, and only struggling when guarding point guards, which tracks with the eye test, for the most part. 

“It’s progress. We identified with him that he has really good hands. So the big emphasis is using those hands, being active on the ball, looking for deflections, just not being afraid of going after the ball,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic, in a conversation earlier on Toronto’s four-game road trip, which wraps up on Tuesday. “And (Barrett) does a really good job — if somebody gets to the rim and has two feet in the paint — he does a good job going to the ball and attacking aggressively, and I like that we’re really encouraging him to continue doing that.”

Barrett’s progress on the defensive end both supported and has been helped by a lift in the Raptors level as a whole. Toronto is seventh in defensive rating, dating back to Jan. 13, after being 28th during its first half of the season, when it was dealing with a double-whammy of injuries and one of the most difficult schedules in the league.

“The whole team is defending the way we want to defend the majority of the nights, which is being aggressive and disruptive and playing full court,” said Rajakovic. “That demands a lot of energy, that demands a great level of conditioning, and (Barrett’s) commitment to doing that is really something that's helping him and helping us. He's committed to improving his defence. He's committed to being recognized as a good defensive, two-way player. That's exactly what we need.”

It’s a label Barrett needs to develop too, and he’s been working toward it. He may be in his sixth season, but he’s only 24 and feels like his game is still developing. 

“It's been over a year, watching film with coaches, (them) constantly being on me about it,” Barrett said, of the steps he’s taken defensively. “I think right now, our team, we hold each other accountable for stuff like that, so we're just trying to figure it out and just be a better defensive team, and for that, we need everybody.”

Even though management has labelled this season a rebuilding one, there is still a lot of evaluation going on. It’s not hard to look forward to next season and see a Raptors rotation that suddenly might be very crowded with the addition of Brandon Ingram and whoever the Raptors end up drafting in the upper end of the draft lottery.

Factor in the salary cap limitations that have been triggered by signing Ingram to a three-year contract for $120 million, and it’s clear any contracts that extend into the future will be scrutinized heavily. 

Barrett is in a tricky position this coming summer, when he’ll be coming off a career-best season and be eligible for a contract extension that could be worth $185 million over four years and would kick in for the 2027-28 season with the Raptors having only so much wiggle room. 

For Barrett to earn a deal like that — in Toronto or elsewhere — it will mean steadily sanding off the edges of his game, like making sure the production and efficiency he provides offensively travels and that his defensive game matches the growth he’s shown offensively. 

Here in Orlando, at his home away from home, Barrett has shown signs of both.