Quick Reaction: Warriors 100, Raptors 119

Hit his first shot, a triple. A good sign. Later, rolled in the pick and roll with VanVleet and hit a toughie floater. The dude has skills! Battled in the second half, attacking the offensive glass, blocking shots on the other end. He was one of the most skilled players in this game, but he also worked harder than his matchups.

Looked for his shot from deep to start the game. All his shots seemed to be short on the night, which makes plenty of logical sense considering how long he had off, letting his legs get rusty. He didn’t get back to his pre-injury star self, but he didn’t need to in this one. Toronto could afford to work him back in slowly. VanVleet and Barnes made sure of that. He looked better in the second half than the first, with some nice dribbling and passing out of post-ups. His defense was characteristically brilliant, but that was to be expected. I always give higher grades than I would otherwise on first-games-back-from-injury, but Anunoby played much, much better than his statline.

He looked for his shot quite a bit, and a lot of that had to do with Golden State not really giving him any extra attention (and being pretty small, besides). Once he scored early, Golden State actually started sending bodies, and then Barnes’ passing picked apart the Warriors. Caught the ball in midair and threw the leaping one-handed touch pass to the corner (a missed three), which is maybe the best non-assist pass I’ve ever seen. Threw live-dribble skip passes to the wing, the corner. Detonated a zone by hitting the middle of the floor and the resulting jumper. Threw in a ruthless put-back dunk. Future GOAT.

Looking to set his teammates up from deep to start, swinging the ball around the arc. Then some slick bounce passes to rollers, cutters. His passing was surgical — had one leaping, drifting bounce pass to Achiuwa in the pick and roll that made me wake my dog with a yelp. Great off-ball cutting, as well, to get himself open from deep. Hit some pull-ups, just for fun. Some nasty handles. Battled for rebounds even with Toronto up 20. Current GOAT.

He gets the same shots against good defense as he does against bad defense, and that’s not always a good thing. But he does so much other good stuff that it’s okay (and he hit his shots fairly well, besides, even if he didn’t create great ones.) He did some other fantastic things though outside of the scoring: threw a few incredible lob passes in transition, compiled a huge number of deflections. The man is not just a scorer anymore, which is fantastic for the Raptors.

When VanVleet created for him, he looked wonderful on the offensive end. Initially, when he tried to go it alone, he had some ghastly results. That actually changed in the second half, as he scored in the post and in a few isolations, too. Defensively, he erased the Warriors around the rim. In other words, welcome back, Precious! Picked up right where he left off. Also, he threw down a monster alley-oop dunk in transition.

Was aggressive with his shot early, but he also committed a rare defensive miscue, losing his man by going with a shooter. But then rotated to the rim from out of nowhere to block Kuminga at the rim! (Was called for a foul.) Surprisingly, that didn’t really get his defense going, as he gave up a blow-by to Chiozza in the third. Offensively, he did start to hit shots, though. Oh, and threw in a one-handed hammer after a nice cut.

As usual, solid cutting to make himself available along the baseline, particularly when Barnes had the ball. Didn’t always finish well. He’s a gritty, low-mistake player, and this game didn’t serve to optimize his abilities.

Didn’t check in until the third quarter (lol). He looked off Anunoby in the post when the latter was specifically in the game to get his rhythm going (and Flynn turned it over on the drive, to add injury to insult). But he started hitting some jumpers in the blowout towards the end of the game, which has become his calling card this season.

Looked like he was trying to force his rhythm against an inferior opponent, and it made for an awkward few shots in the fourth as well as a turnover trying to punch it into a cutter.

He threw a turnover trying to feed the ball to Achiuwa in the post.

What to say? Nurse didn’t have to do anything tonight with the Raptors rostering the five most talented players on the court tonight. But Toronto ran some nifty sets both to capitalize on the lack of defensive attention paid to Barnes early and the exaggeration of it later. I really liked his choice to keep Anunoby in the game in the fourth, when the rest of the starters were done, just to get his rhythm back.