5-2
Kings couldn’t deal | Gasol is the Raptors spirit animal | Calderon talks retirement
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Pascal Siakam’s foul trouble for the Toronto Raptors – Yahoo!
This was one of the first things I asked myself with all the attention this topic of discussion has received, so I went back and looked at each foul he’s committed. Granted it’s very early in the season, but certain types of fouls are generally more “sustainable” than others.
What do I mean by that? Well, as Nurse alluded to during his extremely honest assessment of Siakam’s propensity to get whistled this season, there are those ticky tacky fouls 30 feet away from the basket that generally should be avoidable. There are others that can stem from someone generally being a lazy defender and then always being in recovery mode which can take time to figure out, as well as offensive fouls where a player is just consistently making bad reads or cursed with tunnel vision.
Context for all these fouls such as when and what led to certain plays matters, too, so let’s start with when.
A breakdown of when Pascal Siakam has committed each and every one of his fouls.Siakam has gotten himself the bingo card of foul trouble. In the Boston game, he gets in foul trouble early but avoids the whistle entirely for three quarters. The trends of the Bulls and Bucks games are very similar, except that one fourth quarter was actually of consequence and probably pushed Siakam over the edge as a result. The Pistons game wasn’t an issue, the New Orleans game became one after halftime. The Orlando meeting was a bizarre one in that he was sailing smooth until halfway through the fourth quarter, which was when he picked up three fouls in the span of 100 seconds.
Of the 26 fouls Siakam has committed thus far, six have come as a result of contesting a shot at the rim, another six have been offensive fouls, three have been over-the-back fouls while trying to rebound, another three have been very normal fouls where you credit the opposition for a good move/play, and there’s one genuinely bad call on a 3-point attempt by the Pelicans’ Nicolo Melli where the Italian clearly kicked his legs out and Nurse probably wished he still had his challenge.
That leaves seven more fouls that probably provide the biggest learning moments and should be avoidable based on what he’s said about watching film and trying to make sure this trend doesn’t continue.
10 things: Raptors weather scorching shooting from Kings – Yahoo!
Four — Boost: Serge Ibaka has the opposite effect of Powell, as he never fails to impact the game when he checks in off the bench. Ibaka was nothing short of dominant, as he supplied 21 points in 24 minutes off the bench and got the nod to close the game ahead of Marc Gasol. Ibaka’s finishing around the basket is automatic, he makes smart cuts to receive the pass and he also shares great chemistry with Siakam on the big-to-big sequences that he used to run with Jakob Poeltl.
Marc Gasol is emblematic of Raptors’ ideal identity and mentality – The Athletic
With every passing dribble, Gasol lost some ground. Throw in a momentary fumble, and when Gasol attempted the shot, he had gone from near the restricted area to near the free-throw line, releasing his famous high-arching shot as he spun clockwise. It was all very painful to watch, except the part where the shot silkily fell through the mesh. When Gasol’s shot falls, little that can be found around the league looks more beautiful.
It just hasn’t been happening a whole lot this year. Gasol came into the Raptors’ 124-120 win over Sacramento shooting just 31.7 percent from the floor, which is not what you want from your starting centre, even if he plays the type of game now that is unlikely to produce a super-high percentage. His offensive game is based more on jumpers than it ever has been, and, at 34, the lift on his jumper is at an all-time low. (The all-time high was nothing to crow about.) Earlier this week, Raptors coach Nick Nurse posited that if Gasol could have done it over again, he would have dunked the ball late in Saturday’s game against Milwaukee instead of trying a layup that Giannis Antetokounmpo devoured. A bucket would have cut the Bucks’ lead to two. The implication would seem to be that dunking was even an option for Gasol, which seems questionable given the traffic he was in.
Gasol eschewed the notion that relief accompanies any made shot, saying the first two games of the season — he combined to go 2-for-17 — are outliers. Those games are currently big parts of a small sample size, but part of the point is that when he has been anything more than a tangential part of the Raptors’ shot chart, he has been efficient. Wednesday represented a happy medium the Raptors can likely live with: 12 points on six field goal attempts and four free throws. He was finding ways into the cracks of the Sacramento defence on pick and rolls like it was nothing at all.
“Marc made a big improvement. I think he’s been a little hesitant going to the basket,” Nurse said after the game. “I think he might have even had a dunk tonight. … Again, he made a couple of quick, decisive post moves. He did shoot the ball away, but that’s kind of his move. We need him to throw a few of those in there.
“I think (in the first two games of the season against) New Orleans and Boston, I rushed every decision I made out there,” Gasol added. “I felt kind of sped up. After that, my shot has felt great. My legs have felt great. For me, it’s very encouraging after a long summer.”
But enough about Gasol’s points total. On some nights, they will need buckets from him to win. As a general rule, the Raptors have figured out how to win with him doing the other things. Those things are considerable.
The Raptors played one of their prettiest quarters of the season in the opening frame Wednesday, hitting 14 consecutive shots to finish off the 36-point outburst. In the end, 10 of the 14 baskets were assisted. The game ended with four of the five Raptors starters — everyone but Gasol — finishing with at least five assists. They have come a long way from where they started in February when Gasol joined the team, when it seemed like only Norman Powell had ever played with a centre who could pass before.
Raptors’ depth gets job done vs. Kings but real litmus tests await – Sportsnet.ca
Consider it job done. Six Raptors finished with double-digits, led by Kyle Lowry’s 24, Pascal Siakam’s 23, and Serge Ibaka’s 21 off the bench. Siakam added 12 boards for his first double-double since opening night, which was nice. And four Raptors dished out five assists or more, which was even nicer.
“The offence was great. They kept playing next action, they kept taking what was there,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “I thought that was one of our better offensive nights. There was no real lulls where the ball was sticking very much tonight.”
The Raptors will win and lose most nights based on how well they defend, which was the underappreciated special sauce of last season’s title run. But early Wednesday, they showed what they can accomplish offensively when everything’s humming. After starting 0-of-4 from the field, the Raptors hit 14 consecutive shots, each one seemingly more unselfish and in-rhythm than the last.
Lowry and OG Anunoby kicked it off with a swift two-man action that freed the 22-year-old forward up for a dunk. Anunoby later found Fred VanVleet unguarded beyond the arc for a bucket, hit one from long-range himself, and set up Marc Gasol at the end of a scrambling play in transition for another three.
Gasol’s 10 first-quarter minutes were his best run of play so far this season, as he found the right mix of facilitation and aggressiveness, finishing the quarter 3-of-3 from the field with a pair of assists. And, in a not necessarily unrelated event, Toronto’s ball distribution was a good as its been as well. All five of Toronto’s starters finished the first quarter with an assist — Anunoby and VanVleet had three each — while 10 of Toronto’s 14 consecutive buckets were assisted.
“Marc made a big improvement,” Nurse said. “Those guys are getting a little bit more in sync when they hit him to quickly back cut or slip a screen or head to the rim, because they know there’s a good chance he’s going to try to feed them.
“But I thought everybody was in to what we call ‘next-action basketball’ tonight. When it didn’t look good, boom, it was to Marc and to the other side and to the next screen and roll. And if that didn’t look good then, boom, it was to the other side. That’s a little bit more like it for us offensively.”
Red-hot Toronto Raptors shut down Sacramento Kings | The Sacramento Bee
The Kings took knockout blow after knockout blow from the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night; thing was, the Kings didn’t land any haymakers of their own.
The defending NBA champions slugged their way to a 124-120 win over the Kings behind 24 points from Kyle Lowry, 21 from Serge Ibaka and 23 from Pascal Siakam. Harrison Barnes had 26 points to lead the Kings while Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 22 and Buddy Hield had 21. The Kings hit 20 of 43 3-pointers to hang with the Raptors.
But the Raptors knew how to close out a win. In the fourth quarter, Lowry drained 3s and Ibaka had a thundering dunk as the Raptors never let the Kings come within a basket of the lead.
Barnes hit a 3 with a minute to go to draw the Kings within four, but they were unable to get any closer.
Raptors 124, Kings 120: Moral victories are getting old – Sactown Royalty
We’ve got a little Cory Joseph revenge game brewing after a flurry of buckets to open the 4th. Kings down just 4 with 8 minutes to go.
Well, this game got weird during the final few minutes. The Kings made several mini runs late in the 4th, but didn’t have enough time on the clock to close the gap. I can’t help but feel like the Kings missed an opportunity to steal a tough game on the road here, but if you’re into moral victories, I guess you can call this one of those. The Kings played hard and fought till the end, but they didn’t get enough key stops when they needed to, and their offensive execution could have been much better, especially with how frequently the Raptors were turning the ball over.
Recap: Toronto Raptors execute down the stretch to beat the Kings, 124-120 – Raptors HQ
Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam did the types of thing you’d expect of them based on how damn good they’ve been early on. Lowry lifted some kooky, reserve-heavy lineups when Nurse dabbled in a slightly deeper bench. As Nurse alluded to before the game, Toronto flirted with a real, 10-man rotation, sacrificing minute-by-minute maximization in the interest of “treading water” with unseasoned bench hands. A play to close the first quarter, on which Terence Davis and Chris Boucher clearly didn’t know the play call and Lowry drove headlong to the rim for the 35th and 36th Toronto points of the frame, highlighted just how much Lowry can raise the floor of even the most piecemeal lineups.
As the Kings nagged and nagged into crunch time, Lowry was entrusted to play the entirety of the fourth quarter, five or so minutes of which stuck on five fouls. When he was on the court, the Raptors’ lead seemed safe. He finished with 24 efficient points and six assists.
Siakam on the other hand served up a chill brand of goodness. Nurse remarked that his top option lacked his usual aggression on both sides of the ball — perhaps a slight over-correction in hopes of curbing his recent fouling issues. The thing about Siakam, though, is that even on relaxed nights he’s liable to pour in 23 points on 13 shots, grab 13 boards (including the game clincher as time expired) and dish five assists.
“Every time he got double-teamed to the post he found us a cutter to the rim or the kick-out for the three,” Nurse said of Siakam’s play making on the night. “We probably should have played through him in the post a lot more because although he wasn’t scoring down there because they were double teaming him it was really opening things up for us.”
Two stars being stars, it’s tough to be angsty about that. Until of course you look at the minutes column of the box score, and come across another reason why this game could be viewed as more disappointment than triumph. Lowry’s 12-minute fourth pushed him into another 40 minutes of high-leverage action. Siakam playing 37 isn’t exactly alarming, but with a tricky five-game road trip and sucky travel schedule awaiting, it probably shouldn’t have been necessary. Seven games is still not enough to be concerned about minutes totals, but that event horizon isn’t far off now. Terence Davis picking up five fouls in seven minutes in his first shot at Patrick McCaw’s spot isn’t super encouraging.
WOLSTAT: Raptors do enough to hold off determined Kings | Toronto Sun
Lowry hit five three-pointers of his own, had 24 in all, Siakam added 23, Anunoby, 18, plus stellar defence and Serge Ibaka had 21 off of the bench.
Bogdan Bogdanovic hit six from long range for the Kings, Buddy Hield five and Harrison Barnes had 26 points for the visitors. Ex-Raptor Cory Joseph had 10 points and four assists off of the bench in a strong effort.
“They were hard to get rid of,” head coach Nick Nurse said of the Kings. “Defence is a work in progress (for the Raptors) … the offence was great.”
The coach was correct on those counts. The Raptors hit 13 straight shots after opening the game with four misses and should have been up by a ton of points thanks to 64% first half shooting, yet only took a 66-58 advantage into the break. In all the home side shot 48% from deep, but still nailed six fewer than the Kings.
Anunoby had a spectacular first 17 minutes, hitting 5-of-6 shots, throwing two nice passes and playing well defensively. He continues to be in the midst of a breakout year. Overall, Anunoby was dominant on both ends of the floor in his latest impressive performance. Anunoby’s only blemish was two late free throw misses, which gave the Kings a tiny bit of life, down four with 10 seconds remaining.
Anunoby got help — in time — from Siakam, who started off quietly, but at least stayed out of foul trouble with a season-low one a day after being called out for his fouling problems by Nurse.
“He did a good job tonight,” Nurse said.
“I think it was a good step forward,” Siakam added. “Just making sure that I don’t get silly fouls and obviously just watching all that I’m doing and make sure that I get better.”Siakam scored at will in the third, but the Raptors only led by eight, setting up a competitive finish.
The Raptors improved to 5-2 ahead of a trip out West to see LeBron James and Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers, amongst others.
Power Serge helps Raptors short-circuit Kings while experimenting a little | The Star
Nick Nurse is going to have to fight against his own instincts in the next little while.
With his already-thin Raptors roster reduced by one with Patrick McCaw on the shelf for a minimum of a month, Nurse is going to have to live with some growing pains while force-feeding minutes to youngsters.
“In the moment you’re trying to coach to win for that night, and that’s always the way we’re going to approach it. It’s kind of what my training has been: Let’s get the next one and worry about everything else later,” Nurse said before the Raptors hung on to beat the Sacramento Kings 124-120 at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday night.
“But now I’m going to have to try to long play within a game just a little bit more.”
Nurse did that early on Wednesday, rolling through 10 players in the first quarter alone, but he had to rely on four starters and Serge Ibaka to hang on down the stretch as the Raptors ran their record to 5-2.
The backups besides Ibaka, who was tremendous with 21 points, ate minutes but were mainly ineffective. Matt Thomas made a couple of shots and that’s good, but Terence Davis committed five fouls in the seven minutes he was able to play, Chris Boucher was scoreless in his five minutes and Norm Powell had a minimal impact in his 19 minutes
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