Lowry with the backdoor lob to OG #wethenorth pic.twitter.com/4NLBIverBH
— Sam Holako (@rapsfan) August 6, 2020
That first step after the small stutter opened up the entire lane for OG #wethenorth pic.twitter.com/CqQrtdMXL4
— Sam Holako (@rapsfan) August 6, 2020
Nice movement on and off the ball gets Norm a clean look at an open 3 #wethenorth pic.twitter.com/ifDuhP7IGG
— Sam Holako (@rapsfan) August 6, 2020
https://twitter.com/TheNBACentral/status/1289978910910767104
10 things: Raptors sleepwalk through another win over Magic – Yahoo!
Four — Revival: After two dismal showings, the Raptors’ bench finally delivered. Norman Powell was efficient with his offense, scoring 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting, and the Raptors were smart to call his number early and often to reestablish his confidence. The first play, Powell rocketed off a screen from Serge Ibaka and instantly exploded to the basket for a lefty layup. Ibaka was decent in his own right despite some slow or missed rotations on defense. Ibaka hit a three from the top of the floor, and he created his own offense by attacking the offensive glass for putbacks. Those two will eventually find their footing with the second unit, now the question is who else will join them.
Raptors bench shows signs of life in possible playoff preview with Magic – The Athletic
In a season full of upsets and surprises, the Toronto Raptors may have stumbled on the unprecedented once again Wednesday: A Kyle Lowry-and-bench lineup that doesn’t work.
For all the positives the Raptors have been displaying, those have tended to be concentrated to their starting five. Every bench player had a negative plus-minus through the team’s two victories, with the starters doing the overwhelming share of the work (plus-37 in 56 minutes versus minus-8 for any other combination). Norman Powell was 6-for-21 through two games after sputtering in two of three scrimmages. Serge Ibaka shot better inside the arc but had played poorly on defence.
Nick Nurse mentioned both by name before the game, which he knows at this point is a magic formula.
“I love Norman, I think he’s been great this year. He’s really taken a step forward this year and one of these nights he’s going to pop a 25-er off,” Nurse said, later noting that when Ibaka “gets cranked up” he can be an elite defender.
The Raptors eventually figured it out, a key to the back half of a 109-99 victory against the Orlando Magic. In large part, that was due to the playmaking of Lowry and Fred VanVleet — staggered with bench groups across the second-half quarter turn — aiding a few bench scorers who had been struggling. They combined for 20 assists, with Lowry flirting with a triple-double and VanVleet continuing his excellent play with 21 points. Toronto’s bench units can at times get sticky or cramped, and an extra safe pair of hands can help things run smoothly. That the starters opened up a sizable lead in the game’s opening minutes allowed the Raptors to focus on getting some of their reserves going throughout.
For Powell, that means being able to attack on the catch a bit more often, utilizing his first step and straight-line driving to turn small perimeter advantages into shots at the rim. Nurse wasn’t quite right that Powell was due for 25, but even a more modest 14-point performance was a step forward, with Powell shaking off a couple of misses around the rim by continuing to attack aggressively and raising up for three 3s, including on a neat elevator doors play. For Ibaka, it means a natural pick-and-roll partner to find him on above-the-break 3s or over-the-top feeds into the paint. He was still mostly an offensive presence with 11 points and a really nice pass on the roll to VanVleet for a 3.
Raptors’ deep-rooted defensive culture key to championship aspirations – Sportsnet.ca
It’s becoming clear that this is who the Raptors are — an amorphous blob of bodies and limbs that operates with a single, shared defensive brain. Opponents don’t get the luxury of beating one Raptor at a time, they have to beat all five, and more often than not, it’s not going to happen.
“It’s a matter of will,” said Marc Gasol after helping limit Magic All-Star centre Nikola Vucevic to an ineffectual 12 points on 10 shots, a Raptors tradition. “Defensively, it’s like believing in what the coaches are telling you, and everybody having each other’s backs. It’s a matter of continuous effort. It’s not one effort that’s going to stop the play. It’s not two, it’s not three. We’ll continue to make efforts and make it as tough as possible for the other team and continuing possessions with rebounding.
“It’s a matter of will, right? And I think, in our locker room, if you don’t have the will, or the discipline, to play defence, it is going to be really hard for you to see the floor, and that gives the coaches a lot of credit …they have high standards defensively, and I think that’s what separates the good teams from the great teams.
“I think that’s who we are.”
They are a coach’s dream, in other words.
While the appetite for defence in the NBA is far undersold by the general public — anyone who has had the privilege to see even regular-season games played up close would be shocked at the overall intensity on both sides of the ball – it is something that doesn’t come naturally to all teams, and not all teams want to make the sacrifices necessary to play great team defence all the time.
The Raptors don’t have that problem.
“Before a pass is ever made you’ve got to have some desire, you have to have some readiness, you got to have some anticipation, you’ve got to have some IQ before the ball’s even started in an offensive sequence,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “We’ve got a bunch of guys that are locked in on that.
Raptors 109, Magic 99: Magic offensive struggles against Raptors continue – Orlando Pinstriped Post
For those clamoring for the Magic to get the seventh seed, we just got another sneak peak of what that would be like.
The Raptors are not an easy team to score against, something the Magic have learned all too well in recent history. Orlando’s first half performance against the second-seeded Raptors in Wednesday night’s 109-99 loss was just the latest example of that.
The Magic struggled to find any early offensive rhythm against an aggressive Raptors defense that doesn’t allow anything easy. Orlando shot a dismal 30 percent in the opening half, making just 2 of 16 three-point attempts, en route to scoring 35 points, a season-low for a half.
After trailing 21-6 with 2:26 remaining in the first (and scoring only 11 points in the quarter while missing all nine of their three-point attempts), the Magic went into the break down by 20, evoking memories of their offensively-challenged first round series of last season.
Recap: Six Toronto Raptors score double digits in 109-99 win over Orlando Magic – Raptors HQ
Not to be left out, Anunoby had his share of fun against Vucevic, driving right, and pivoting hard for the smooth spin move on the Magic centre to put the Raptors up 10-6. In all, the Raptors held the Magic to just 11 points in the first quarter. Orlando shot a mere 25/0/50 in that frame, as Toronto went up 26-11.
The Magic made a strong push in the second, but they were ultimately tamed by the second-best defense in the league. Off an Aaron Gordon fast break early in the quarter, Lowry drew his 33rd charge of the season. It comes as no surprise that he currently leads the NBA in that category.
Meanwhile on the offensive end, OG seemed to fall in love with the paint, as he took the rock to the rim with aggression possession after possession. A bump and shove play for positioning lead to an easy lay-in, to put the Raptors up by 23. Toronto would eventually end the first half leading the Magic by 20 with the score at 55-25.
At halftime, Orlando had shot 30 percent from the field, just 2-for-16 from behind the arc, and had also committed nine of their 13 turnovers in the first half.
Going into the second half, Orlando went on a 12-2 run that was halted by a Gasol three-pointer — his second of the night. Magic forwards Wes Iwundu and Gary Clark helped spark a second Magic run, going 8-0, but that was ultimately chilled by an Ibaka three pointer to end the third.
The Raptors held Orlando to just 25.6 percent shooting from behind the arc, as they cruised to the 109-99 win. The Magic have now lost their second straight game in as many days, and fall to 32-37, comfortably holding eighth spot in the Eastern Conference.
Raptors closing in on No. 2 seed; improve to 3-0 in bubble – TSN.ca
The Raptors’ and their second-ranked defence dominated them in the opened half, leading by 20 points at break. While the Magic made a run in the third quarter, when Toronto took its foot off the gas, the game was never close and the result was never in doubt.
Marc Gasol continued to torture Magic centre Nikola Vucevic. OG Anunoby simply overpowered former Raptor Terrence Ross with his size and expanded offensive repertoire. Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet drained long threes, Kyle Lowry nearly recorded his quietest triple-double ever – finishing two points and one rebound shy – and the bench finally got going, with Norman Powell and Serge Ibaka each scoring in double figures.
Orlando is missing Jonathan Isaac, who suffered a torn ACL in his left knee on Sunday. The 22-year-old forward was blossoming into one of the league’s rising stars and premiere defenders before hyperextending that same knee back in January. It would have ended his season but the four-month hiatus allowed him to return and play limited minutes to open the restart.
At minimum, and even at less than 100 per cent, Isaac could have given Orlando another proven defender to throw at Pascal Siakam in a potential first-round series. His re-injury is a devastating blow to a team that was already lacking in high-end talent.
They have a few intriguing young pieces and are a well-coached team under Steve Clifford. They’re good enough to maybe take a game off the Raptors, like they did last year, but they simply don’t have enough talent to push them any further than that.
Raptors pound Magic, move closer to clinching second in East | Toronto Sun
“We have a good team defence,” Gasol said. “Everybody has done a great job. It’s not an easy task to stop a player, an all-star player like Nik.
“He’s a big body down there,” said Norman Powell, who had a nice night off the bench, said of Gasol. “It’s really hard for guys to score over and finish over him.
“Serge does a great job as well with that, moving his feet, being able to switch and do different coverages. Those guys really make us really deadly.”Toronto has looked excellent defensively in their first three games — all wins — in Orlando as it cut its magic number to clinch second in the Eastern Conference to one. The Raptors will meet either Orlando or the Brooklyn Nets after concluding the regular season.
While the Raptors won’t benefit from the typically boisterous Scotiabank Arena crowd playing in the bubble, Nurse believes there is still some benefit to gaining “home court” against every team in the East except league-leading Milwaukee.
“I’m not sure the home court thing won’t be a little bit of an advantage, maybe. It seems like (the NBA is) tweaking a little bit more and more as they go here in the games, as they’re learning things about how to put the game on in this setting,” Nurse said.
“We’re seeing familiar faces on those (virtual screens, such as the Raptors mascot and one of Siakam’s brother) and who knows what it’ll evolve to here two months from now. So I don’t want to discount the home court thing quite yet,” he said.”
Raps’ suffocating defence, bench play pave the way for another win – Video – TSN
Jack Armstrong joins SportsCentre to explain what makes the Raptors so effective on the defensive side of the ball and discuss what impressed him about Toronto’s bench in their win over the Magic on Wednesday.
Raptors stretch win streak to seven games with victory over Magic | The Star
The Raptors led by 24 points in the first half but the Magic came out far more aggressive from the halftime break, and sliced the difference to just seven points early in the fourth quarter.
Orlando’s burst was short-lived and by the time Siakam connected from long distance with 3:54 to play, the Raptors were back up by 15.
Some sloppy play down the stretch by Toronto allowed Orlando back within nine, but that was as close as the Magic would come.
The Raptors knocked off Orlando in the first round of the playoffs last year, losing the series opener and rebounding to win four straight in what coach Nick Nurse has credited as perhaps the defining games of their historic championship run.
The Raptors could face the Magic in the playoffs again in Orlando’s backyard. Toronto would technically be the home team, and while a fanless arena in the NBA’s bubble might not seem like much of a home-court advantage, Nurse isn’t so sure.
Nurse said the NBA has been tweaking the in-game experience, and he likes the results.
“They’re learning things about how to put the game on in this setting … and who knows what it’ll evolve to here two months from now. So I don’t want to discount the home court thing quite yet,” Nurse said before tipoff.
“It felt very quiet during the scrimmages. It’s getting less quiet. There’s crowd noise, you can see family members and coaches’ family members and players’ family members (on the giant video screen), there is a sense of personal touch to it. And there’s also a lot more noise … when you’re saying things, it’s crowd noise and music that’s feeling more familiar.”
NBA Bubble Stock Market: Raptors defend stars, Grizzlies trouble, Suns rising – The Athletic
They’re just really good at defense. Now that’s simplifying it quite a bit, but the Raptors don’t actually do anything out of the norm of what you’d expect a good defense to do under today’s rules. Toronto funnels a primary ballhandler to one side, attempting to take away his opportunity to dance around and put the defense on its heels. The Raptors keep a help defender in the fanny pack of the dribble path allowed. That defender is usually Kyle Lowry or Fred VanVleet, two guys who have meat hooks for hands. They switch, they recover and they eliminate space.
Toronto runs teams off the 3-point line well whenever they can, but the help and overall mental wear-down they put on their opponents seems to have star players second-guessing where their comfortable shooting opportunity is. This is what they did against Davis over the weekend. It helps a lot to have someone like Siakam committed to that end of the floor. He has the length and athleticism to hang with Davis or any other player physically built like him. His hands are so quick and his feet stalk like a shadow. His ability to recover and then take away space often moved Davis into shooting off the dribble, which is just harder.
The Raptors were able to trust the help and trust the defense being on a string. That’s easy to talk about in a shootaround meeting, but that’s not easy to do when you’re actually tracking LeBron and Davis in their typical exploits of greatness. When they left Davis, they quickly recovered. Everybody was sitting in the next amenable path of movement, waiting to help. They trust the rhythm they dictate on defense will keep shooters off-balance, even when they happen to be wide-open for the shot.
However, they never seem to lose track of the stars in any two-man action. Watch how Siakam and Anunoby never leave too much room. They recover and they eliminate space without losing balance. All the while, VanVleet and Lowry are moving into great help, and Gasol has the back line covered.
Toronto can play big or small. It has Serge Ibaka ready to step up whenever. But the way they use Gasol, especially in a lighter form, is almost Draymond Green-esque. He blows up whatever he can hawk on the perimeter, knowing the help will be there as he recovers into position.
The Raptors have schemes, but there isn’t some special unbelievable system that teams can’t crack. They just have high IQs, high trust and bear traps for hands when they help.
OG Anunoby letting his defence do the talking early in Raptors restart | The Star
The biggest thing to like is that Anunoby is having far more good games than average ones. The goal is always consistency and it’s one of the hardest things for a young player — Anunoby is still just 23 years old and in his third NBA season — to perfect.
“He shows us these glimpses of where he can go, and as we all talk about all the time, it’s doing those kind of games a little more consistently,” Nurse said. “I always like to pack ’em in five. ‘If you played five games, how many out of five can you play that way?’ You’re not going to do it five out of five — hardly anybody does that. So that’s it. We just want keep it positive.”
Anunoby isn’t one who’s going to expend a lot of energy discussing himself or his play. He’s a rather unwilling participant in the interview process, not at all interested in using 10 words to answer a question when one or two will do.
It’s not that he’s confrontational or condescending, and he will politely listen to queries when they are posed, but no one’s ever going to describe him as loquacious.
Teammates and team insiders swear he’s far more verbose and entertaining and jocular within the group. His public persona, however, is much less.
“The one thing about OG, man, (is) guys understand him as much as they want to but he’s going to be really good in this league for a long time,” Kyle Lowry said of him earlier this week.
Hearing Lowry’s praise did perk up the London, England-born Anunoby.
“He’s an all-star — six-time — Olympic medalist, a champion, so he’s really accomplished in this league so for him to see that in me, it means a lot to me,” Anunoby said.
5 Reasons Why The Toronto Raptors Will Play In The NBA Finals – Fadeaway World
5. Defense
The Raptors are an excellent defensive team. They rank third in steals, and first in opponent points per game (OPG). They are probably the most disciplined team in the NBA, and credit goes to the efforts of the players and also of the coaching staff.
From top to bottom, the Raptors are an excellent organization and it might have to do with the signing of president Masai Ujiri. Bringing him in changed the franchise culture, and Nick Nurse has later done a tremendous job of boosting the team’s defense.
Serge Ibaka (0.9 BPG) and Marc Gasol (0.9 BPG) are excellent post defenders, while guys like Kyle Lowry and OG Anunoby are excellent perimeter defenders. The Raptors rarely give up easy baskets, and they have shown that they can get stops in critical moments. Their Finals performance last season greatly helps the team with their confidence in getting stops too.
Toronto is getting a drive-in venue like Jurassic Park for Raptors playoff games – blogTO
In addition to live music and sports games, events held at this venue will also feature hosts, special guests and programming as well as contests in which audience members can win merchandise from Real Sports Apparel, admission to an upcoming event, and more.
Vehicle admission for a game is a minimum donation of $25, which will go toward the MLSE Foundation, while tickets for concerts will vary by event.
Tickets for both games and concerts are to be bought online, and food, beverages and merchandise can also be pre-ordered online and will be brought directly to each vehicle at the time of the event.
Fans will not be permitted to leave their vehicles during these events unless it’s to use the restroom facilities located on the property, and masks or face coverings will be required when doing so.
All venue staff will also be wearing face masks and cleaning staff will be sanitizing high-touch areas before, during and after the show, with increased frequency through the events.
“We are excited to bring live music back to the fans with our partners at MLSE,” said Erik Hoffman, president of Live Nation Toronto, in a statement.
“Fans will get a completely unique outdoor concert series that allows fans to enjoy live music again, while socially distanced. We have an incredible line-up scheduled for this summer, allowing fans a reimagined live music experience.”
Did I miss something? Send me any Raptors related content. Please. rapsfan@raptorsrepublic.com
