INDIANAPOLIS – The Toronto Raptors‘ tour through some of the best young talent Canadian basketball has to offer continued on Saturday night.
Barely 24 hours after the Raptors had to contend with Canadians Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort and Eugene Omoruyi, who led the Oklahoma City Thunders’ all-too-easy charge with 55 combined points on 64.5 per cent shooting in a blowout, it was a new city and three more Canadians doing their part to knock off Canada’s team.
On Saturday, it was the rebuilding Indiana Pacers, who have come to count on significant contributions from rookie-of-the-year candidate Benedict Mathurin from Montreal and rookie starter Andrew Nembhard, not to mention former Raptor and fellow Canuck Oshae Brissett, both from the Toronto area.
Once again the Raptors were undone in large part thanks to contributions made by athletes who grew up watching them as the Raptors fell 118-104 to the Pacers, frittering away a 15-point second-half lead in the process.
The Canadian contingent was front and centre as Mathurin (15 points) and Brissett (12) combined for 21 second-half points. Nembhard did his bit too, as the Thornhill product finished with eight points and two assists in his first game against the team he grew up cheering for.
“It’s fun playing against those guys for guys from Canada,” said Mathurin. “Me, Oshae, Andrew, we got to step up. It’s great for us.“
It was salt on an open wound for the struggling Raptors who dropped their second-straight game to fall to 7-7 on the season. Not helping matters was the Raptors came into the second half of the back-to-back missing the regular crew of walking wounded – Pascal Siakam (groin); Precious Achiuwa (ankle) and Khem Birch (knee) – but also short all-star point guard Fred VanVleet, who was kept out with a non-Covid illness.
Toronto was up by eight to start the fourth quarter and leading 99-95 when Mathurin hit a three with seven minutes and change to play, sparking what ended up being a 12-2 run that was punctuated by a deep three by Tyrese Haliburton, who finished with eight points and 15 assists. The Pacers were led by Buddy Hield’s 22 points but had six scorers in double figures and three more with eight.
The Raptors were led by Anunoby, who had 26 points, while Chris Boucher had 19 points and nine rebounds off the bench.
Statistically, the Raptors were undone by the Pacers’ three-point shooting as they shot 19-of-43 from deep to the Raptors’ 7-of-35. Otherwise, they led in shots attempted (94-82), free throws made (23-17), offensive rebounds (16-11) and turnovers (21 for the Pacers, 12 for the Raptors).
It’s usually a sound formula to win games, but not against a team that goes 11-of-22 from deep in the second half, especially when you’re the guys going 3-of-23.
“I think that you’re never going to win a game when you get beat 19 -7 on threes,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “It’s almost impossible to do that. A lot of those things happened in transition. A lot of them happened in the second half. I think they made a strong effort to really push it … I thought when we did get back we guarded them pretty good most of the night, but we weren’t getting back enough in transition.”
And it doesn’t help missing 20 threes in a half fed right into the Pacers’ running game as they enjoyed a 13-4 edge in fastbreak points, many times taking advantage the Raptors’ lack of floor balance after long rebounds from missed threes.
Between shortened bench and the Raptors playing their third game in four nights, it was clear before the ball went up that if Toronto was going to avoid dropping their second straight game and falling to .500, they were going to have get some contributions from some different sources.
For the most part, they got exactly that. Dalano Banton had 14 points off the bench and Malachi Flynn chipped in eight quick points just before halftime, while Thad Young, pressed into the starting lineup, had 15 points and three steals in 34 minutes of work.
Some of the regular starters could use some of his energy. Gary Trent Jr. was 1-of-13 from the floor, and Scottie Barnes continued his run of sub-par play – at least compared with the lofty standards the second-year star has set for himself – as he was 4-of-16 from the floor for eight points.
After a sluggish start with a new-look starting lineup – Otto Porter Jr. and Young were inserted in place of VanVleet and rookie Christian Koloko – the Raptors got things rolling in the second quarter.
A lineup featuring Boucher, Barnes, Young, Flynn and Anunoby made some headway after Toronto trailed 28-26 after the first, mainly due to their shooting 6-of-20 from the floor, though going 13-of-16 from the line helped in that respect.
A pair of post-ups by Young along with a triple by Boucher sparked a 16-2 Raptors run that pushed their second-quarter lead to 11 before Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle, hands on hips, signalled for a timeout.
The Raptors’ success wasn’t complicated: They tried to get the ball as close to the rim as possible and often as they could, taking advantage of the edge in size they had across the lineup against the Pacers who came into the game with the NBA’s 28th-ranked defence and looked the part.
The Pacers’ Canadian content didn’t make like their OKC counterparts and act as the driving force behind the Pacers play.
Nembhard, who has earned a starting spot as a second-round pick out of Gonzaga, had some nice early moments against his hometown team: an early triple, and a nifty no-look pass for a lob stood out.
But the Pacers like him for his ability to have a quiet, calming influence, even just a month into his first professional season.
“It’s been a crazy six or seven months, that’s for sure,” said Nembhard. “It’s been a blessing and all I can ask for: getting meaningful minutes and a chance to help my team win.”
Mathurin has been a revelation since the Pacers took the Montreal-based wing with the No.6 pick in the draft. He came into Saturday’s game averaging 20.4 points a game – second among rookies — while shooting 46 per cent from the floor and a sizzling 43.7 per cent from three, all while coming off the bench.
“I’m not that surprised as everybody else is that he’s doing it (scoring),” said Nurse, who recalled Mathurin opening some eyes in the summer after his freshman year at Arizona and the u19 national scrimmaged against the senior men in preparation for the 2019 World Cup. “He came in there and from the moment the ball went up, he gave us buckets. I mean bucket after bucket and I was just like ‘this kid can really play.’ He already had a physical strength and an NBA athleticism to him then that you could see. So I rate him pretty highly. I’m happy that he’s playing well and, again, has found a home and is excelling because he’s very, very good.”
Mathurin didn’t have a field goal in the first half but hit a pair of threes in the third quarter and was showing signs of heating up. The Pacers as a group used a 20-3 run early in the third quarter to turn cut what was a 15-point Toronto lead to two by the mid-point of the third quarter as the Pacers began raining threes in volume.
Toronto went to its bench again and was able to stabilize with a quick 9-0 run of its own. But Mathurin’s threes allowed the Pacers to maintain their momentum even as the Raptors took a 90-82 lead into the fourth.
The lead fell away quickly and the Raptors will now have an off day to sort things out before trying to half their slide against the Detroit Pistons on Monday in Detroit.
“You’re on the road missing a bunch of guys. It’s really tough,” said Nurse. “I’m proud of the way these guys played tonight. I wasn’t very proud of the way they played last night. But that was just kind of maybe one of those nights but I’m proud I thought we fought like heck tonight. Did a lot of the things we’d like to do and just didn’t quite have enough juice in the end.”