The breaks fall the Raptors’ way as they hang on to beat the Hornets | The Star
Thursday night in Tampa,Fla., the Raptors basically butchered their final defensive stand of the game, allowing Charlotte’s P.J. Washington a virtually uncontested three-pointer with less than four seconds left that missed, not because of anything the Raptors did right.
“So, isn’t it a funny game,” Toronto head coach Nick Nurse said.
Funny? Yeah. And frustrating. And entirely unpredictable.
For the Raptors, though, “a win is a win is a win.” If their execution down the stretch in Tampa was far less than perfect, it didn’t matter a lick because they escaped with a 111-108 victory that temporarily staunched the bleeding of a brutal start to the season.
“We found a way to get the win,” Kyle Lowry said after his 14-point, 12-assist night. “You guys know I say, a win is a win is a win. We just got to continue to build.”
Playing against a Charlotte team that was missing its best player — the injured Gordon Hayward — and playing for the second night in a row, the Raptors had every chance to make it an easy night. But there would be none of that.
The Raptors’ Stanley Johnson has waited and worked for his opportunity | The Star
Stanley Johnson sat and watched but he didn’t stew.
He didn’t get angry, he didn’t quit on himself or his team. He worked when he had to, listened when he should have, learned what he could. He was an NBA lottery pick relegated to the end of the bench with his third team in five seasons. So many before him in similar situations had given up. He didn’t.
That attitude and ethic was not lost on his teammates or his coaches, and now Johnson finds himself in the regular Raptors rotation, a testament to his personality, his professionalism, his level of self-awareness.
“This is a performance-based thing,” Johnson said this week. “This is not AAU, this is not YMCA, you play on your performance. If (I wasn’t) playing good enough, that’s probably why I wasn’t playing.”
That’s a very astute observation and runs counter to how many players would react. Few who are buried on benches realize or admit the responsibility is theirs — it’s always a coaching issue, or a usage issue, or a fit issue.
“I think he struggled a little bit with his role and the way that we do things when he first got here,” Raptors guard Fred VanVleet said. “It took some time for him to warm up to the idea of what we needed him to be. I’d say probably since the bubble, getting time to be around him every single day and learn about him more, learn his story, he’s been great ever since.”
It is telling that Johnson could have bailed on the Raptors last summer when he had the option to get out of the final year of his contract but he didn’t leave. Yes, the $3.8 million (U.S.) he will earn this year was a factor but the NBA unemployment rolls are filled with players who figure they will become free agents and find work immediately at the same, or close to the same, salary.
Yuta Watanabe is becoming Raptors’ glue guy off the bench – The Athletic
Try as he might, Yuta Watanabe could not shed the man covering him, LaMelo Ball. The third pick in the draft might be a point guard, but he is athletic and long, and he leaped to intercept the pass, trying to box out Watanabe, who knew he could not step on the other side of half court. Watanabe could have played defence and simply tried to knock the ball out of bounds and avoid a live-ball turnover. He could have given up entirely and tried to set himself up to defend what would become a Hornets fast break, maybe giving a foul to take away an easy bucket. Instead, he made the bold play: He jumped to try to keep the offensive possession alive and came up with the ball. He drove, kicking it to Pascal Siakam, who passed it to Chris Boucher for a lightly contested 3.
There was no happy ending, no immediate reward for Watanabe’s hard work. Boucher missed the shot. However, the moment the pass was thrown, the Raptors getting an opportunity to score seemed wildly unlikely. Charlotte turning its defensive effort into an easy bucket was the safe bet. With a greater effort than necessary, Watanabe gave the Raptors a chance. (It was illustrative that Charlotte turned the ball over on a similar play early in the second half.) A three-point, four-rebound line is decidedly unsexy, but he played a distinct role in the best stretch of the Raptors’ 111-108 win.
“The kid is playing so hard. … He plays so hard,” Lowry said. “He’s a guy that gives you maximum energy every time he’s on the floor. And when he goes out there … he’s going to dive for loose balls, and he’s going to be at the right spot, and he’s going to give you everything (he’s) got. That’s what you need sometimes. And he can shoot the ball. So that’s a plus. And to be honest with you, he’s 6-8, and he gives the opportunity to get there and get to the basket, and finishing. He just plays with an extreme hardness.”
With apologies to Lowry, Watanabe is listed at 6-foot-9 with a bigger wingspan, and that fits the Raptors’ defensive style, and their needs, perfectly. Much like Siakam, he presents a quandary for any opponent thinking about throwing a deft pass. Even if Watanabe is not notably explosive, he becomes a meaningful obstacle just by being down in a solid defensive stance with his arms spread wide.
Charlotte Hornets vs. Toronto Raptors game report | Charlotte Observer
HAYWARD’S HIP
The Hornets played without leading scorer Gordon Hayward, who suffered a strained left hip in Wednesday’s home loss to the Dallas Mavericks.The Hornets listed Hayward as probable to play Thursday morning, then downgraded him to doubtful, and then out just before tip-off. The Hornets are calling Hayward’s injury day-to-day. The Hornets play the Raptors again in Tampa on Saturday. If Hayward sat out that game as well he’d have a long rest, because Charlotte doesn’t play again after that until next Wednesday against the Washington Wizards.
This was the first regular-season game Hayward missed this season. He fractured his right pinkie finger in the preseason, but then played in the season opener in Cleveland.
WASHINGTON UPSWING
Center-forward Washington has steadily improved since the preseason, when coach James Borrego raised concern about his performance and conditioning.Washington had a 16-point, 10-rebound, six assist game Wednesday against the Mavericks, then followed that up with 20 points and 11 boards Thursday.
Washington starts at power forward, then shifts to small-ball center. That was always the plan going into the season, but Washington’s minutes at center expanded with Cody Zeller breaking his left hand in the season opener. Zeller is out until early February.
Raptors squeeze out much-needed win as Eastern Conference gets tougher
In that context, the Harden trade hits different. It’s Nurse who now has to figure out not only how to punch through the top of the Eastern Conference that now looks – on paper – even tougher with Harden lining up with Kevin Durant and (presumably) Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn, but how to keep pace with other teams in the conference that seem to have improved too.
For example, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Indiana Pacers are both ahead of the Raptors in the standings – not that special given Toronto entered play Thursday night ranked 14th in the East – and both picked up good players in the fallout from the Nets-Rockets deal. Cleveland came away with former Nets centre Jarrett Allen, one the of the league’s better young big men, and the Pacers got Caris LeVert who averaged 20.3 points, 9.8 assists and six rebounds for Brooklyn against Toronto in the playoffs last year.
“I think that a lot of people did good on that trade,” Nurse said. “That’s three teams in our [conference] that probably did the deal hoping they were all gonna benefit. I guess that remains to be seen.”
What is evident is advancing through the East is a tougher task than it has been in years past.
The Hornets – who the Raptors hosted Thursday night and again on Saturday – are a case in point as they arrived in Tampa as winners of four of five and one of the teams Toronto might have to squeeze past to regain a playoff spot, this after Charlotte finished with the third-worst record in the league last year.
But the Hornets struck gold with lanky young point guard LaMelo Ball who looks like a star in the making, playing the game easily even at just 19-years-old, and Charlotte looks like they made a smart signing in adding former Celtic Gordon Hayward in free agency. Ball is a triple-double threat every night and Hayward is putting up career numbers as the Hornets’ primary offensive option.
Recap: Hornets second half comeback falls short in loss to the Raptors, 111-108 – At The Hive
The Hornets came out sloppy on the defensive end, allowing some really easy looks for the Raptors. By quarter’s end, the Raptors had hit 8-of-14 3-pointers. Offensively, the Hornets didn’t look quite as connected without Gordon Hayward on the floor to help move the offense. They were still able to grind out some buckets before getting a jolt from LaMelo Ball’s passing. He dropped five dimes in the opening quarter including a full court alley oop to Miles Bridges and a kick out to Malik Monk for his first 3-pointer of the season. After one, the Hornets trailed 35-34.
The Hornets defensive struggles continued into the second quarter. Norman Powell and Chris Boucher combined to score the Raptors first 13 points of the period, and it took them less than four minutes to do so. A timeout did little to stem the tide, as the Raptors grew as large as 15. A couple of assists from Ball to PJ Washington cut the deficit to 10, a pair of Malik Monk 3-pointers cut it even further, and then a pair of Devonte’ Graham 3-pointers cut it all the way down to three. The Raptors punched back and pulled away a little bit, taking a 71-62 lead into the half.
The halftime intermission did little to cool off the Raptors. They hit several more 3-pointers and added to their lead, at one point leading by 18. Terry Rozier helped buoy the Hornets offense with some impressive shot making early in the quarter, and a little mini-run by Ball and Miles Bridges helped cut the deficit down to 13 by quarter’s end.
The Hornets scored eight straight points to start the fourth quarter, forcing turnovers and getting out in transition. The Raptors took almost five minutes to score their first basket. The Raptors counterpunch was countered by Miles Bridges ruining the life of Chris Boucher, followed by LaMelo Ball splashing a deep triple.
10 things: Raptors win ugly against Hornets to snap 2-game losing streak
Five — Activity: The challenge for the Raptors’ bench is to string two solid shifts together. In the first half, the second unit delivered incredible energy. Charlotte is a young team filled with quick guard and bouncy forwards, yet it was the Raptors who overran them with all-out energy. They couldn’t maintain the same hustle in the second half and were promptly yanked in favour of the starters, but it’s something to build on. The formula is simple: Nurse is trying to stack the lineup with as many plus defenders as possible, then to run and play on the fast break as much as possible. The Raptors’ bench was unplayable to start the season, but slowly they are coming around.
Six — Length: Nurse continues to shuffle his bench, this time deploying the combination of Stanley Johnson and Yuta Watanabe at the same time. Previously, Watanabe and Johnson had shared the same role as the energy sparkplug off the bench, but it was an inspired call by Nurse to have both of them on the floor at once. They blanketed the Hornets with their length and hustle, plugging passing lanes, switching freely across all five positions, and did just enough on offense to make it all work. Watanabe hit a three, Johnson followed suit, but their main function is to make the right reads to set up their teammates. Watanabe has always been an intuitive and unselfish player, and Johnson has become that too by making quick reads to either swing the ball, or to drive into the defense before kicking it out.
Kyle Lowry is 1 of 3 players to record 4,000 assists with their current NBA team, joining Stephen Curry & Damian Lillard#WeTheNorth
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) January 15, 2021
Game Recap: Raptors hang on for hairy 111-108 win over Charlotte – Raptors HQ
Another quietly positive element on display in the game was Siakam’s understanding of when not to do too much. Charlotte gave him a similar treatment to what the Blazers threw his way in the second half on Monday. Instead of taking his post-ups to the point of no return, he coolly opted to kick out, content to rack up secondary assists as the Raptors executed a legit half-court attack against a constantly rotating Hornets defense. Siakam’s 15-7-4 on 6-of-15 line looks underwhelming, but for the most part, it was meh by design.
All of the good that came before the crummy finish is poses a conundrum. How should Raps fans feel about a win earned by the skin of Boucher’s ass? In many ways win number three felt worse than losses seven and eight. But for the Raptors, whose results over the next few weeks will dictate their plans ahead of the trade deadline and possibly beyond, wins are wins, man. Their process was sound as can be over a road trip that yielded just a single win. It’s high time they got a W on a night where they didn’t do everything by the book.
1. The Fourth-quarter woes continue
The Raptors were in command for the majority of the night, taking a 99-86 lead into the final frame, but they had some trouble putting the Hornets away.
Toronto shot just 5-for-23 from the field and 1-for-11 from deep in the final frame, allowing Charlotte to cut the deficit to three points down the stretch with Washington and Devonte’ Graham each missing potential tying opportunities in the game’s final moments.
While the Raptors would ultimately hold on, it is a cause for concern that the well ran dry and they had to fight to hold off a Hornets team that was without its best player and came in on the second end of a back-to-back.
A win is a win but Toronto can identify plenty to work on moving forward.
2. Baynes gets the start
Toronto tried three different starting lineups in its first 10 games but tonight, reverted back to the starting unit from its first seven contests.
After three consecutive DNPs, Aron Baynes was back in the starting unit alongside Lowry, VanVleet, OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam. Aside from a charge drawn early on, it wasn’t much of a notable night for Baynes, who finished with two points and a rebound in just eight minutes of action.
While Toronto still looks to get more from its free-agent acquisition, it continues to enjoy the play of another centre…
