https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BggF_asQ094
Kyle Lowry and Norman Powell coming up barely short in keeping Raptors afloat – The Athletic
The reality is that Kyle Lowry and Norman Powell, pending free agents whom the Raptors have to at least consider moving before the March 25 trade deadline, are the only offensive creators for Toronto: Lowry for everyone else, and Powell for largely himself. It is interesting that the two players most likely to be traded if the Raptors decided to act as sellers have to do so much in order to get them to the finish line right now. They couldn’t do it against Atlanta, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.
They both had great moments. After taking an elbow in the eye from teammate Aron Baynes, Lowry called a timeout to get himself bandaged up, and delivered a pull-up 3-pointer and a beautiful pass to get Powell a layup in transition before breaking down Atlanta’s Kevin Huerter. Lowry eventually hooked up with Chris Boucher to put the Raptors up by 15 points with six minutes to go, the high point of the night. Lowry asked for noise from the non-existent crowd.
At the same time, Lowry shot just 5-for-17, and his nine turnovers included a lot of high-difficulty passes: shovel passes to Baynes in traffic or over-eager entry looks. Lowry has 31 assists over the past two games, and he had to do a hell of a lot against Boston, too. Some of those mistakes are obvious signs of a player trying to do much, but who can blame Lowry for feeling like he has to do too much right now?
For the second straight game, Powell mostly had a dud of a fourth quarter after lighting it up in the first three, scoring just two of his 33 points in the final frame. Against Boston before the break, he scored just two points, taking only one field goal, in a spirited loss to the Celtics, finishing with 25 points. Against the Hawks, he was a fireball early on again, calmly stepping into pull-up 3s as if they were wide-open spot-up 3s from the corner. He made a pair of excellent passes after forceful drives that led to open Raptors 3s in the fourth quarter.
He made a few crucial errors, or at least failures to make a play, in the final minute. He missed a pair of free throws with 56 seconds left. (We understandably fixate on late-game free throws, but keep in mind that 88 percent free-throw shooter Trae Young missed freebies in the second quarter alone. The late ones certainly come with more pressure, but they all count the same.) With the Raptors up two, Powell decided to throw a cross-paint dump-off pass instead of attempting a (difficult) layup, and DeAndre’ Bembry missed the contested hook that followed.
“He comes up the floor and if there’s any space at all he just vaults up and takes it with no worry of whether it’s a good shot or not,” Nurse said. “I think he realizes that he’s the No. 1 option and he’s got to put (shots) up. So I think that’s a big factor. He probably tired a bit. I didn’t think he had the ball as much late in the game.”
Finally, Powell made the wrong defensive read, although it was an understandable reaction as Huerter cut to the rim, which left Snell to win the game instead of forcing Atlanta to try to score inside the arc.
Powell put it on himself. He fell on his wrist before the missed free throws, but said that didn’t excuse the results. With the defensive play, he said he didn’t see Lowry coming to cut off Young’s drive, or else he would have switched on to Snell to prevent the worst-case scenario from transpiring.
NBA: Raptors lose Hawks Tony Snell buzzer beater three pointer 10 things – Yahoo!
One — Gutted: In a heartbreaking season for the Raptors, this one hurts the most. The undermanned Raptors battled out of a 19-point deficit, took a 12-point lead in the fourth quarter, only to lose it at the final buzzer. And it wasn’t Trae Young, or any of the Hawks’ flashy offseason signings that hit the game-winner, it just had to be journeyman forward Tony Snell — who inexplicably has a history of burning the Raptors — to nail the final three. There were regrettable moments, and the Raptors really have nobody to blame other than themselves, but this rag-tag group played well enough to win, only to come up empty. That has been the motto of the entire season.
Raptors collapse vs. Hawks as second half begins in tightly-contested East
They came into their first game after the all-star break in eighth place in the East with a sub-.500 record. Their path to their customary place in the top half of the conference is a tenuous one.
So their 121-120 loss to the surging Atlanta Hawks on a buzzer-beating three by Tony Snell is not to be taken lightly. They all matter for Toronto, particularly given Atlanta was one of five teams trailing Toronto by three games or fewer for the East’s final playoff spot. Of course, the Raptors were also just two games out of the fourth seed when play started. The Eastern Conference is just like that.
“We’re trying to get in,” said Raptors guard Kyle Lowry, who passed former Raptors star Chris Bosh for second-place on the franchise’s all-time scoring list, trailing only his friend, former Raptor DeMar DeRozan. “We’ve got to make a push.
“And tonight we had the game and we didn’t finish strong. They scored 37 points in the fourth quarter — that’s way too many points to give up in the fourth quarter. We have the game and they made some great plays down the stretch and we missed some shots, turned the ball over some. Just a rough night for us. We didn’t finish well.”
The loss dropped the Raptors to ninth place.
Short-handed both on the bench and on the floor due to COVID-related health-and-safety protocols, the Raptors got contributions from nearly everyone that was available. Unfortunately they couldn’t survive a four-minute drought without a field goal late in the fourth quarter that allowed the Hawks to cut what was a 15-point Raptors lead to three with just over two minutes left.
As Lowry pointed out, getting outscored 37-26 in the fourth while giving up 50 per cent shooting to Atlanta — led by Trae Young, who scored 11 of his game-high 37 points in the final 12 minutes – didn’t help. A rare pair of missed free throws by Powell – who led Toronto with 33 points — with 56 seconds left that would have put the Raptors up six didn’t help either.
The Raptors had another chance to gain some separation but came up empty while leading by two with 26 seconds left after a drive through the lane by Powell proved fruitless. And they had no answer when Young found Snell for a wide-open three just before the horn sounded, as the Hawks finished on a 24-8 run.
Tony Snell beats buzzer as Atlanta Hawks top Toronto Raptors, 121-120 – Peachtree Hoops
The Atlanta Hawks (17-20) returned from the All-Star Break with an important Eastern Conference matchup against the Toronto Raptors (17-20) on Thursday evening. The Raptors entered in the No. 8 spot in the East standings going into the second “half” of this COVID-shortened season; Atlanta entered at No. 11.
The Raptors were missing a host of players, including OG Anunoby, Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam, Malachi Flynn, and Patrick McCaw. This required the Raptors to start former Hawks guard DeAndre’ Bembry. The Hawks listed Cam Reddish, De’Andre Hunter, and Kris Dunn on the injury report for tonight’s game.
The Hawks managed to steal a win in this roller-coaster game against the depleted Raptors. Despite being up by as many as 19 points in the second quarter, the Hawks found themselves in a 15-point hole in the fourth quarter. But a hard-fought final six minutes led to a Tony Snell game-winning three.
Recap: Raptors lose a heartbreaker to the Atlanta Hawks, 121-120 – Raptors HQ
We’re well aware at this point that the Raptors are in fact annoying as shit. It’s more or less been their most defining quality since the beginning of last season’s middle-finger waving title defense. That held up against a Hawks team that had absolutely no business trailing in with 7 seconds to play in the game. Pest status, confirmed.
We also know that Kyle Lowry and Norman Powell are pretty freaking great — enough to keep the Raptors very much in games despite the skeleton crew flanking them. They continued their work as Toronto’s life preservers: Powell with 33 on 11-of-20 shooting; Lowry with 17-6-12 on a night that saw him pass Chris Bosh for second on the all-time Raptors scoring list.
And the third thing that was proven for what feels like the thousandth time in the last seven years: Tony Snell is a God tier Raptors killer. Half of his six points came at the most inopportune time imaginable, sinking the Raptors on a game-winner three at the buzzer to seal a third-straight Toronto loss.
It’s a loss that stings maybe more than any others suffered this season, for oh so many reasons.
Toronto had this game after three quarters. After a wretched opening 12 minutes, the Raps spent the bulk of the next 24 pounding the Hawks in just about every area of the game. They hammered the offensive glass uncharacteristically hard, their ball movement was as pristine as you could hope it to be for a team fielding no more than three reliable scoring options at a time. And their defense harassed Trae Young and his merry band of disappointments to the tune of just 47 points allowed in the middle frames. The Raptors looked inspired; Atlanta looked like a team that just fired a coach who was very much not the problem.
But good things don’t last in this sweaty night terror of a Raptors season.
In a final quarter that matched the 37-26 number the Hawks won by in the first, Toronto’s offense, perhaps predictably, dried up. With 6:13 to play, the Raptors had raced out ahead by 15, only to go a hair shy of four minutes without scoring a point. In that time, Atlanta pulled to within a single possession, which was about where they’d hang until taking the lead on the final play of the game. The final minute saw a pair of Norman Powell free throws that would have nudged the Raptors ahead by six with 56 seconds to play — the lone blemish on a night that otherwise served as ammo for the “bring Norm back next year” crowd. Atlanta even tried to own themselves, bobbling a lightly contested rebound out of bounds in a fashion usually only achieved by Aron Baynes (his 15 rebounds probably could have been like 25 tonight if not for the meat fists).
Heartbreaking loss could cost Raptors in tight Eastern Conference race – TSN.ca
It’s still early, sure, but with the way this race is shaping up, one play in one game could end up making all the difference. That is not good news for the Raptors, who did not fare well in close contests during the first half of the NBA calendar, and with Thursday’s 121-120 loss to Atlanta, they opened the second half by dropping yet another.
“We just needed one more play anywhere we could find one, one more bucket,” head coach Nick Nurse said afterwards. “One more bucket probably puts the game away or one more stop probably puts the game away and we just, unfortunately didn’t find it. The guys played their guts out, really proud of them for that, that is for sure. But yeah, definitely a tough one to take after putting so much into the game and getting so many contributions all up and down the lineup.”
Toronto was playing without a third of its roster and 60 per cent of its starting lineup, as , and remained in the league’s health and safety protocols after missing the final two games before the break (Siakam missed the final three contests). Nurse had just returned from his stint in the protocols, though his bench was still shorthanded, with five assistant coaches away from the team.
Still, even undermanned and after falling behind by 19 points early in the second quarter, the Raptors nearly pulled off an improbable comeback win over a Hawks team that was looking to pass them in the standings.
They led by as many as 15 points midway through the fourth quarter before going nearly four minutes without scoring. , who scored 33 points and carried them offensively for most of the night, missed a couple of big free throws inside the final minute. They still had a chance to close it out, up by two points with seven seconds remaining, but let it slip away in heartbreaking fashion.
– the Hawks’ star, with the limitless range, a flare for the dramatic, and 37 points on the evening – had the ball in his hands, and the Raptors weren’t going to let him beat them. As he drove on , came over to help. They had him trapped with three seconds left on the clock, but as cut towards the basket, Powell left open at the elbow. Young made the right play, throwing the cross-court pass, and Snell had just enough time to get the shot off. Game over.
“I think we were pretty determined not to let Young take the last shot,” Nurse said. “I think that probably makes sense. You don’t want to let him shake you down for that step-back three or deep three or whatever. We did force him inside the line and I thought for sure the time was going to run out. It seemed like he had it forever in there and it probably felt that same way on the floor. Then the last second he flings it out and happens to find Snell out there all alone and he stepped into it and made it. It was just tough. Would I have rather seen Trae throw up that 14-footer? Right now I would have, yeah.”
It was another tough break for a team that’s had a few of them this season. 21 of the Raptors’ 37 games have been within five points or less in the final five minutes – only four clubs have played more ‘clutch’ contests. They’re just 7-14 in those games – only two clubs have a worse record in ‘clutch’ contests, the Detroit Pistons and the Minnesota Timberwolves, both last-place teams.
Hawks spoil Raptors’ night after Kyle Lowry moves up scoring list | The Star
Lowry and the entire Raptors offence went a bit cold late in Thursday’s game and it gave the Hawks the chance to win on a Tony Snell three-pointer at the buzzer.
Snell’s shot capped off a disastrous finish for the Raptors, who were up four points and shooting free throws with 56.1 seconds left. Norm Powell, otherwise excellent with 33 points, missed both those free throws and the Raptors never scored again.
“A lot of that’s on me,” Nurse said. “I thought I found some good stuff there for a couple stretches and then we didn’t get enough. I’ve got to get that one home somehow from a coaching standpoint.
“I was working the lineups pretty hard, and thought we had the right guys in there, especially defensively, and we just needed one more play anywhere we could find one, one more bucket.
“One more bucket probably puts the game away or one more stop probably puts the game away and we just, unfortunately, didn’t find it because the guys played their guts out.”
Still missing Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, Patrick McCaw and Malachi Flynn due to NBA health and safety protocols, it took the Raptors a while to figure things out. It looked like they had as they wiped out a 19-point second quarter deficit to lead by 15 with six minutes to go in the game.
But the collapse was completed when Atlanta’s Trae Young got in the paint, spun and found an open Snell for the game-winning three.
“We didn’t want to give up a three,” Powell said. “I was playing my guy, Kevin Huerter, I didn’t see (Lowry go try to stop Young); If I had seen K-Low go, and Huerter’s cut, I would have stayed out and took Snell.
“It’s just tough. We didn’t want Trae Young shooting the ball at the end, so we sent the farm at him, and wanted someone else to make a play. (Snell) did.”
Raptors can’t close it out against Atlanta | Toronto Sun
Without Fred VanVleet, without Pascal Siakam and without OG Anunoby, the likes of Norm Powell, Chris Boucher, Aron Baynes, Terence Davis and DeAndre Bembry under the ever-watchful eye and leadership of Kyle Lowry stepped up but they couldn’t close it out.
Snell took only four shots all night but he was money with the game on the line. The Raptors collapsed on Trae Young as he got into the paint but Snell was left wide open behind the three point line.
“It seemed like he had it forever in there and it probably felt that same way on the floor — that that was the shot that was going up,” Nurse said. “Then the last second he flings it out and happens to find Snell out there all alone and he stepped into it and made it. It was just tough.
“Would I have rather seen Trae throw up that 14-footer?” Nurse asked. “Right now I would have, yeah.”
Lowry came into the game needing five points to pass Chris Bosh for second on the Raptors all-time scoring list. He missed his first six attempts from the floor but had four free throws before a three ball late in the second quarter put Bosh in his rear-view mirror for good.
Lowry trails only good friend DeMar DeRozan in points by a Raptor.
He’s about 3,000 behind DeRozan so unless he’s around for at least three more seasons and perhaps more than that, chances of him getting No. 1 are slim.
Offensively it was Norm Powell and Chris Boucher carrying the load, for the Raptors, Powell from the starting five and Boucher off the bench. Powell finished with 33, Boucher had 29.
Could the Sixers lure Kyle Lowry away from Toronto Raptors? – The Athletic
There are two general frameworks for a potential deal, one of which seems more likely. Let’s start with that one.
Getting up to the matching requirements for Lowry’s salary without including Tobias Harris would almost certainly include Danny Green ($15.3 million) and Mike Scott ($5.4 million). That still doesn’t get the Sixers to the $24.3 million they need. One more player will be needed as salary filler. Vincent Poirier is the most expendable and could move depending on the deal framework but Terrance Ferguson ($3.9 million) makes the most of the remaining realistic options. Either way, it seems likely someone else will have to go.
The good news for the Raptors: All three players are on the final year of their deals and Scott is hilarious. But you are right, the Sixers will have to include something else to bring Lowry home.
The Sixers offer two types of trade chips, prospects on rookie/cheap contracts and draft picks. The three players in the first category are Shake Milton, Matisse Thybulle and Tyrese Maxey. And unlike a lot of the league’s other top teams, the Sixers have their first-round picks for the next few years. Of course, “first-rounder” can often sound better than the final result. You never know, but the next few Philly picks would likely be in the 20s.
All that said, I don’t know what the first pass from the Sixers’ side looks like. They will be interested in Lowry, of course, but how much does Daryl Morey value the young players? My guess is if you’re pushing for a title over the next few seasons by acquiring Lowry, Milton would be the least likely to move because he is currently the best player and the most important to the current team. Thybulle seems gettable, although he could in theory play a part in a Brooklyn series because of his defense (side note: watching him rotate within the Raptors defensive schemes would be a blast). And Maxey theoretically has the most upside, not to mention he was the only player drafted by Morey. But at the very least, he needs time to develop as a shooter. I can’t envision Maxey being ready to contribute in a playoff series. But could parting with him haunt the Sixers down the line? Absolutely.
It’s unwise to assume the young players will be valued the same, but hey, I don’t have to negotiate the trade. My guess at a first pass would be a player and a lottery-protected pick. Since Thybulle was likely gone in a Harden trade, maybe it turns into him and two picks.
So, size it up for me. What holds the most value for the Raptors? And would they be able to handle something like a 4-for-1 in-season trade?
5 Players Raptors Should Target Before NBA Trade Deadline | Complex CA
2020-21 season stats: 20.0 PTS, 5.2 REB, 4.5 AST, 1.7 STL, 33.1% 3PT%
Why?
If the Raptors pursue Oladipo before the trade deadline, it will be because they believe vice president of player health and performance Alex McKechnie can work his magic like he did with Kawhi and also believe he presents a higher ceiling than Powell in the near-term. Oladipo is a better two-way player and has better playmaking chops.Why not?
Concern over the injury history is real. He suffered a ruptured quad tendon in his right knee to miss almost the entire second half of the 2018-19 season and then played just 13 games in 2019-20 due to recovery. His jump shooting has suffered a precipitous drop and Powell seems to be on the rise.How?
TOR sends Norman Powell, Patrick McCaw, and Stanley Johnson to HOU for Victor Oladipo and Ben McLemore.
As the ball left Leonard’s hand, Loyd didn’t think he’d make the shot.
“I was like, ‘Man he’s not getting this off,’ because Joel Embiid was closing,” Loyd said. “Kawhi’s jump shot is usually pretty narrow. He doesn’t have the highest-arching jump shot. So that’s what I’m thinking, I’m going to this dead corner and I just hope he gets it off. And then once he shoots it, it’s like super high, I’m like OK, it’s higher than normal. And then I’ve always told people I thought Scotiabank has the hardest rims, basketball rims, ever. You don’t get a lot of bounces in these arenas, and then for that ball to bounce around like I don’t know how many times, and then fall in, was like, come on man. It was insane. I didn’t think it had a chance, and sure enough, I was in so much shock.”
It’s a photographer’s dream for the end of an NBA playoff game, one that decides who advances and whose season dies, to come down to a single shot, and have that shot bounce, so deliberately, and hang, so dramatically, on the rim.
The expressions were priceless. Leonard in a full crouch, with his tongue out. Embiid with his mouth agape and eyes that said, “No way.” Raptors bench players, like Danny Green, in full-on stare. Fans, waiting to erupt.
“All this stuff happening, and then you’ve got Jordan Loyd, just like in the front and center,” Loyd said. “Which I am not big on being, honestly, I prefer to be in the background, but that game was so crazy. I just had to watch the game. I was in a suit, I didn’t have any pressure, I’m just having fun watching the game, and then there we go with this picture, it’s just, it’s all she wrote after that.”
Loyd was under contract for another season with the Raptors, but it was still the same two-way deal — which meant less money and more time in the G League. He thought he had nothing left to prove in the NBA’s minor league and was hopeful the Raptors would tear up the two-way deal and give him a full contract. But they didn’t. So Loyd asked for and received his release, so he could try his hand in the EuroLeague with Valencia Basket of Spain.
Marc Gasol told Loyd to hit him up if he needed anything while he was in Gasol’s home country. There would be texts with Chris Boucher, who thrived alongside Loyd in the G League in 2018-19 but was on his way to Toronto, and with Green and Fred VanVleet. Loyd was already overseas on Toronto’s ring night but received a nice shoutout from Kyle Lowry during the ceremony.
“I was on a two-year two-way, which probably ended up being a big mistake — I should’ve been on a one year,” Loyd said. “I just thought, ‘Hey, I played well in the G League, I showed what I can do on and off the court,’ and I thought that was enough for a roster spot. Like Freddy said, you’ve got to kind of bet on yourself, so I said, ‘Hey, if you guys wouldn’t mind,’ and we mutually agreed to get out of the contract, and I could go play EuroLeague, which I had never done before. That was my mindset, go and grow your stock somewhere else, keep trying to get better every year, and you might end up back.”
