Kawhi Leonard is getting closer to returning.
No, like literally. Proximally.
After spending his first two weeks recovering from swelling in his left knee away from the team while the Raptors were on an extended road trip, Leonard was back on the bench Monday night as the Raptors were hosting the Memphis Grizzlies.
Unfortunately, it was a crowded spot. Joining Leonard on the sidelines were Immanuel Quickley (right hamstring) and Scottie Barnes (left adductor strain), each missing their second consecutive start.
Not at the game and not in the building was Collin Murray-Boyles, who was sick.
The timing isn’t great for the Raptors to be down three starters and four of their top six rotation players.
Not just because they were hosting the rebuilding Grizzlies, who have exceeded expectations and officially qualify as feisty, having started the season 6-0 before dropping the next three before the ball went up at Scotiabank Arena for the first time since before Halloween.
“Tonight is going to be a fight,” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic predicted. “… It has to be a team effort. Everybody has to come ready from the start to compete… we’re never looking for excuses. We believe in our guys… so all the guys that are available to play, we’re going to go out there and fight. If you have that spirit and that approach, that gives you an opportunity.”
The problem with entering a fight without most of your major weapons is that odds are you’re going to lose, which the Raptors did, 118-102, to fall to 5-5 while the Grizzlies improved to 7-3.
The Raptors battled. They led by one after the first quarter but fell behind by 16 midway through the third, only to pull within one after a spirited third-quarter burst led by RJ Barrett (19 points on 7-of-21 shooting) and Jamison Battle (18 points with five threes in 12 attempts).
But they stalled from there as offence dried up, and the Grizzlies used a 22-7 run punctuated by a jump hook from local giant Zach Edey (eight points, nine rebounds in 23 minutes) to erase all of the Raptors' best efforts and put Memphis up by 16 again, but this time with just 3:37 to play. There was no late surge from Toronto this time.
The Raptors had some success at some things they do well, as they came out ahead in a battle of the best offensive rebounding team (Toronto) and the league’s best defensive rebounding team (Memphis). Toronto’s 16 offensive rebounds were the second-most the Grizzlies have given up this season. And the Raptors did generate 17 Grizzlies turnovers — a little below Toronto’s league-leading average of 20, but still a good number — but they only translated into four fast-break points, robbing the Raptors of one of their offensive pillars: points off turnovers and points in transition.
Process can only take you so far sometimes.
“When we miss guys like Scottie, who is a one-man offence in transition and Quickley, who is scoring a lot in transition… you know, we were missing a couple of guys tonight,” said Rajakovic.
The timing is less than perfect. The Raptors haven’t given any indication of when any of their wounded might be back. You have to expect that, given Quickley’s hamstring issues at the end of last season, they’ll be very careful with him. And as for Leonard? The best guess is he’s out another week. A formal update is expected Tuesday. If they’re fortunate, maybe Barnes and Murray-Boyles are back soon.
They’ll need all the help they can get given what’s ahead of them.
On Wednesday, the Raptors host the Boston Celtics before travelling to Philadelphia on Thursday to play LeBron James and the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday. Then they are back home to host hosting the defending champion New York Knicks for two games in Toronto. The Sixers (9-2) and Celtics (8-2) have two of the best records in the league, and the Raptors lost all five of their starts to the Knicks last season, none by less than 16 points.
Did we mention the Raptors have picked up where they left off last season by losing all four of their games so far this season against quality opponents quite handily?
If the Raptors can go 1-3, they’d be doing well; 2-2 would be a triumph. They catch a break in that at least the Celtics will be on the second night of a back-to-back following what promises to be an intense and emotional first meeting between the Sixers and Celtics since the Jaylen Brown trade.
Regardless, if the Raptors season is going to be consistent in any shape or form with the pre-season visions for it — a top four seed with a chance to compete for a spot in the conference finals or beyond — they can’t let go of the rope too early.
The goal has to be keeping things on the rails until Leonard can get back, stay healthy and hopefully help them pick up some steam as the season progresses.
So maybe there’s a silver lining somewhere. The Raptors got what Rajakovic called a ‘culture win’ while playing short-handed against Milwaukee Friday at the end of their road trip.
And even if the final result wasn’t there against Memphis, there were some positives: Another strong showing from Jakob Poeltl, who was looking much more like his old self against the size the Grizzlies can put on the floor. He finished with 18 points, eight rebounds, a steal and four blocks on 9-of-12 shooting. He’s now averaging 15 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 1.7 blocks on 71 per cent shooting since coming back after sitting out three games due to bursitis in his shoulder.
Jamal Shead followed up his career-high 16 assists on Friday with a season-high 20 points on Monday in his second straight start. Jamison Battle’s playing time continues to climb and his shooting remains lights out: he’s up to 43 per cent from the deep on nearly five attempts per game.
What does Shead think when the ball goes up and three starters are on the bench and their top reserve is at home sick?
“It’s exciting,” he said. “It’s an opportunity. I think a lot of guys wait for those opportunities and are just ready to play. Obviously those are really important pieces for us, really important to our team, but when they’re out, it’s next man up. There’s a lot of opportunity and you get excited for it.”
Three-point Grange:
1. How do you define ‘lap dog’?
Zach Edey has always loved dogs. Even when he was playing at Purdue, he would visit the humane society when he found himself in need of a mental reset. With a lot of time on his hands recovering from two surgeries on his left ankle Edey that limited him to 11 games last season he took the next step and adopted two dogs — Moose (‘because he’s big’) and Rocky (‘because he likes to fight everybody, he’s always jumping up and throwing paws’).
Edey said even though the dogs are fair-sized at about 80 pounds, they like to think of themselves as lap dogs, which in relative terms, makes perfect sense, given the seven-foot-four, 300-pound Edey has plenty of room on his. His job requires him to be away from home a lot, which is a sacrifice, but the Toronto native said that he's willing to make it in the summer of 2027 and 2028 to play for Canada at the World Cup and the Olympics, respectively.
“If I’m healthy, I’m playing, that’s it,” Edey said.
2. O-Maxxing: The odds of raising an NBA player or a WNBA player are exceedingly long, but raising an NBA player and a WNBA player? Somewhere north of astronomical. Which is why Olivier-Maxence Prosper’s mom, Guylaine Blanchette, is well positioned to share her expertise, having seen her daughter Cassandra Prosper get drafted by the Washington Mystics this past summer as well as her son go 24th in the 2023 NBA Draft. Her book is titled To Drive Their Game, Drive Their Growth and is about strategies parents and mentors can use to help young people reach their potential in sports or elsewhere.
“I’ve read it multiple times,” said Prosper, who is in his second season with the Grizzlies after starting his NBA career in Dallas. “I’m really proud of my mom. She’s always been someone who wants to help people and give knowledge to those who have similar dreams and aspirations but don’t know as much. She had all these experiences from raising me and my sister, and she was like, ‘I can’t keep all this to myself’ … it’s kind of a blueprint. There’s no guarantees or anything, but there’s knowledge so that they can make the best choice for their kids.”
3. Keep motoring: Sometimes a coach’s message isn’t all that hard to decipher. When Rajakovic was asked about the inconsistent minutes so far this season for Trayce Jackson-Davis, who has had some strong box score showings followed by some quick hooks and DNPs, Rajakovic said the formula for steadier minutes was pretty simple: “A lot of motor, energy, being able to guard his position, rebounding. He’s a very, very talented player. When he plays with a lot of energy, a lot of motor (that word again), he’s an awesome player, he can help us.”
Jackson-Davis finished with four points, six rebounds and two steals in 14 minutes.
