Quick Reaction: Raptors 104, Suns 97

Really not the night for lead-footed bigs with the Suns playing a pair of stretchy frontcourt players for stretches. Other than a charge and a corner three, this was a pretty rough one. Not the matchup for him.

Scored well enough inside but was a mess defensively. He’s backslid some on that end after a really encouraging stretch and breaking up this starting duo is long overdue.

Was the only one cooking early and then – SURPRISE! – helped the bench units dominate for stretches and pick up the starters’ slack. Obviously 42 minutes isn’t ideal, nor is six assists over three games, but this was a good bounce-back after two down games.

Five threes, and the only one that went in was a prayer? Bruh, maybe don’t buy into your own small sample. Scored well enough despite the presence of Tucker but didn’t provide much defensively and had a few bad turnovers. It was fine, and he single-handedly became a zone-buster early by attacking and distributing through the seams.

I’ll have more on Powell’s performance on Thursday, as I was really focused in on him early. Offensively, he made a couple of nice decisions and just missed shots, and his turnover was a miscommunication. He was really active defensively and caused some havoc, though he lost Booker a couple of times dying on screens. I’m grading on a curve here, which I think is understandable.

Pretty rough go of it for Patterson at both ends. Shot wasn’t falling, passed up a few open looks that forced tough late-clock decisions, and had his lunch eaten by Morris.

Would it be a stretch to call him the team’s best player Tuesday? Maybe. Probably. But he turned in another great night, jumping passing lanes on defense, making smart decisions in transition, and knocking down shots when few of his teammates could.

Really nice energy off the bench and a better look against some of the stretchier Phoenix bigs. Would have liked to see Nogueira get a look, but Biyombo’s play dictated otherwise.

Played better offensively than his shooting line would suggest and better defensively than Booker’s would. Throwing him on Booker was a nice way to disrupt him off the bounce. Joseph is still dribbling too much of the clock away and picking up his dribble in tough spots, but he mostly makes up for it with funky takes and sound defense.

I don’t hang the early defensive issues on him given that he was audibly losing his mind trying to get guys into their assignments early. I groan at the minutes, too, but some of it is on the players to close things out better. No real issues with the rotation given the limitations, though I probably would have given Powell a bit more of a chance, maybe saw what Nogueira looked like against a quicker team, and broken up that starting frontcourt months ago. I know some groaned at the late DeRozan ATO but Casey values eating clock over getting a quality look early, which makes some sense given the quality of 1-on-1 players. It’s just ugly.