Quick Reaction: Raptors 99, Heat 104

He’s the skeleton which holds this whole thing together. Excellent in transition and creating for his teammate, but we needed him to be more aggressive. Zero FTs on the road against a good team is unacceptable, and that stat looks especially bad since he had a couple questionable jumpers where he could’ve looked to slither like he does so well. It’s the main reason his grade isn’t higher. But hey, with Fred deferring PG duties to Siakam, he’s actually adapting to a whole new role.

Lots of rebounds and activity which is good. The bad part is that he plays on an island and doesn’t seem to have any notable chemistry with anyone, so he’s quite figuratively a fifth wheel on offense. There were also those moments where you ask yourself, “what is Precious trying to do here?” Nobody can answer that because he himself doesn’t know.

Peripheral game where he mostly knocked the looks he was supposed to make, but otherwise wasn’t an integral part of the offense. Guarded Butler which takes a toll so maybe not going to him on offense is intentional energy conserving thing? We’re wasting him by not posting him on the block more against lighter defenders. He has a game down there and we don’t see enough of it. Got to knock down those threes.

Took him some time to rev up for this one and you saw both the rookie in him and the future All-Star. Wonder Boy had his share of risky passes through congested Miami passing lanes and lost track of Herro and Robinson too much for this observer’s liking. In the fourth he shined as he took over the bring-the-ball-up-the-court responsibilities from Siakam and pushed it to generate clean looks, while hitting a few himself. Made a horrible decision where he held onto the ball too long before passing it to Siakam, costing the Raptors two easy points with about 43 seconds left. Some say Devlin is still shocked they didn’t call a flagrant when he went to the stands.

Some of his turnovers were him trying to thread needles that weren’t there, and some were passes that were a tad bit too telegraphed. Was happy to bomb away from deep instead of orchestrating play, and I notice that he’s deferring more to Siakam in that regard, preferring to pounce from three instead. Was put through the grinder on the screens as Miami sets a lot of them for their shooters, so he either was fighting through them (the 1-4 switch was less preferred by Nurse tonight) or looking out for them.

Had a big transition pull-up three in the fourth, threw a vicious one down after slipping on the screen with Pascal feeding him. Listen, I love the energy and the hustle, but he’s got to have better court awareness after he gets the ball on offensive rebounds and surprise dump-offs. The Raptors always seem to have a perimeter guy open (usually OG) and it’s a matter of swinging it and finding him. In general, continues his strong play. Can we even afford to trade him? I mean, I’d rather have THIS Boucher on the team.

Last time I gave this guy a low grade I got hate mail. But this time I feel confident my inbox will stay silent. Good job in almost getting a rebound. Nurse gave him the hook after he failed to make an IMMEDIATE impact. Nurse has that vibe about him, it just depends on how his day’s going.

How little does he trust Yuta, Svi, Banton and Flynn, that he’d opt for a 7-man rotation on the road against a physical opponent? (really 6-man since Champs didn’t really play much). The Raptors were leaving a lot of their shots short late on and that’s no surprise since Siakam, Fred and Barnes logged 42, 41 and 39 minutes, respectively.

I’m surprised the Raptors don’t operate out of the post more. They have the length and strength on the wings to invite double teams, which gets shooters like Fred open for in-rhythm shots rather than contested bombs which teams are now expecting and picking up on.