Barnes agreed with the officials, didn't think Martin's foul on his dunk should've been a flagrant. "I felt like it was just a hustle play. He tried to get the block." https://t.co/W6yn2ouIyz
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) January 18, 2022
Scottie Barnes was asked about being in the mix for ROTY: "It's important for me to try to win Rookie of the Year to start my legacy off right. That's been a goal of mine since the start of the season. It's something we should all be trying to achieve."
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) January 18, 2022
Even in defeat, Raptors unearth more of who they are in the post-Lowry era – Sportsnet
A deep three by VanVleet had cut the Heat’s lead to three, after Toronto had trailed by nine with 5:33 to play, but Miami quelled the comeback. They went back up six when a mix up on pick-and-roll coverage between Barnes and VanVleet – and a poor read by Boucher – yielded a wide-open three by PJ Tucker off penetration from Jimmy Butler. Bam Adebayo sealed it from the line for Miami, as he returned to their lineup for the first time after missing six weeks following thumb surgery.
The Raptors dropped to 21-20 with the loss before they travel to Dallas to continue their five-game road trip on Wednesday. The Heat improved to 28-16, good for second place in the East. The Raptors went all out, playing just six players, for the most part. They were led by another brilliant night from Siakam, who finished with 20 points, 10 assists and five steals, while Boucher had 21 points and 10 rebounds off the bench, VanVleet had 22 points and six made threes and Achiuwa had 15 rebounds in 37 minutes against his old team.
But the Heat held Toronto to 41 per cent shooting and shot 47.4 per cent themselves, while Tyler Herro came off the bench to score 23 and Butler finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists for the triple-double.
The Raptors fought and it didn’t come easily and, in that way, it was a fitting end to the first half their season, and perhaps a jumping off point for the second half.
“I think we know what we have to do,” said Siakam, who record 10 assists for the second straight game. “I think today it could go either way, like, a couple of mistakes; a couple little things and it’s a different game. So, I just feel like we know what type of team we are. If we play to our strength. If we bring that intensity a lot of teams won’t want to play us if we have that mentality and we come out aggressive, being the aggressor and playing hard every single night.”
In Bam’s return, Heat edge Raptors – Hot Hot Hoops
Miami by no means played well tonight. The Heat had committed several turnovers early, allowing the Raptors to score fast-break points. Both Butler and Adebayo missed shots at the rim. (Adebayo may have been hesitant playing in his first game with his surgically repaired thumb.) Miami only shot 9-of-24 from 3-point range.
And yet the Heat played with enough toughness and intensity to come away with a victory. Midway through the fourth quarter, Max Strus and Gabe Vincent both stripped the ball before Caleb Martin rose for a breakaway dunk. A little more than a minute later, Martin found an open Strus in the corner for a 3. Those plays helped Miami win a game that included 22 lead changes.
Herro led Miami with 23 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the field. The third-year guard went on a personal 7-0 run to close the third and even had a dunk on Heat 2020 first-round pick Precious Achiuwa.
Butler notched a triple-double on the night, going for 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting from the field and 7-of-8 from the foul line, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. As mentioned before, Butler missed some shots at the rim he should make. But he did enough for the Heat to win.
Adebayo shot just 4-of-12 in his return, but finished with 14 points and nine rebounds on the night. His athleticism was there, but Adebayo will need to get comfortable shooting the ball and finishing around the basket.
Erik Spoelstra put Duncan Robinson back in the starting lineup Monday night, and Adebayo soon found Robinson for two dribble-handoffs that resulted in two 3s. Spoelstra, though, went with either Vincent or Strus for the fourth-quarter minutes alongside Herro and Butler.
Spoelstra also opted to use Dewayne Dedmon as the backup center for Adebayo. Omer Yurtseven did not play. And Dedmon showed why he’s a valuable rotation player, scoring eight points and grabbing nine rebounds in just 16 minutes.
Raptors can’t take the Heat, fall 104-99 to Miami – Raptors HQ
THEY ARE THOUGH — they are playing at such a high level. Pascal has been assisting more than ever before (averaging over six per game in January), and if Fred VanVleet isn’t an All-Star… we won’t think about that now. VanVleet ended the night with 22 points, four assists and four rebounds, while Siakam had 18 points, 10 assists and six rebounds.
As for the rest of the third quarter, neither team could get in rhythm enough to go on a big run. The lead flipped back and forth often, and it was obvious the level of frustration was rising. As the quarter ended, the Heat finally scraped together another 11-4 run to get up by five points.
The lead extended to begin the fourth quarter – Miami leading by eight with about nine minutes left. Mostly due to Tyler Herro going off and hitting shot after shot — something that is becoming standard from the young star.
At the nine minute mark, Scottie Barnes gets SLAMMED into the crowd by Gabe Vincent, but it stays a common foul — which kind of gets Scottie going? He drains a three shortly after.
The Heat then go on a 7-0 run, which… is not ideal. You can tell our six man rotation (lol) was getting tired, and there is only so much they can do when shots just aren’t falling as much as they would like them to.
With three minutes to go, the Raptors were down seven points. They get it down to a three point deficit with two minutes to go. Nick Nurse challenges a foul to Siakam which is unsuccessful — but is NOT a shooting foul.
A steal from the Raptors gets a (very messy) stop, leading to a jump ball between OG Anunoby and Gabe Vincent. The Raptors initially get the possession but Barnes steps out of bounds and turns it over. Unfortunately a turning point this late in the game.
Miami sinks the three — extending the lead to six. But in Fred VanVleet fashion, he DRAINS a loooooong three. After a foul and some free throws, the Miami lead is back to five points, where it stays as time runs out.
Miami takes the first match up of the season 104-99.
All things considered, it wasn’t a terrible game for Toronto. Missing Gary Trent Jr, who would have made a difference, the Raptors are 1-2 bench players away from being able to contend against the top seeded teams in this league.
Fred VanVleet, with 22 points, Chris Boucher (21), Pascal Siakam (20), Scottie Barnes (16) and OG Anunoby (14) gave Toronto their best but there was no one to make a couple of shots to put the Raptors over the top.
“I thought I had six guys, I wanted them all out there,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “I kind of wanted to keep Precious (Achiuwa) out there more in the fourth quarter but … (Boucher) was having a great game so I let him keep going.
“I don’t know, looking at the guys we played, if I can fault any of them for the way they played tonight, so I’m not saying I needed to try anyone else.”
The multitude of skills presented by the combination of VanVleet, Siakam and Anunoby are estimable and at the heart of what the Raptors want to do. They shoot, they dribble, they pass, they attack and they work in cohesion well enough to allow the Raptors to stay afloat most nights offensively. Nurse said over the weekend that the team is “finding a lot of different areas” for them to attack opponents.
“You can see sometimes we’re doing it in the middle of the floor and sometimes we’re doing it on the side and sometimes we’re doing it in little passing and cutting thing between the three of them as well. We’re trying to create some matchups that they can take advantage of.”
But when they are slightly off, when they can’t create enough mismatches to make opponents play, it’s hard for Toronto to win.
There are certainly issues with the Raptors offence beyond what the three veterans give them. Toronto went into Monday’s games in the lower third of the league in three-point shooting and points per game. The bench production has been virtually non-existent some nights. And with Gary Trent Jr. hampered by ankle swelling and Barnes levelling off after a torrid start, points come at a premium.
VanVleet, Siakam and Anunoby combine for 62.4 points per game, on average, which is almost 60 per cent of Toronto’s per-game output.
Raptors Conclude First Half With Loss to Heat – Sports Illustrated
Through it all, Toronto has found a way to get by. Monday night’s 104-99 loss to the Miami Heat showed that the Raptors are good, not great, but good. They’ve strung together impressive performances against the Phoenix Suns, Milwaukee Bucks, and Heat, skipping over the embarrassing loss to the Detroit Pistons. At 21-20, they’ve shown they can hang with anyone when healthy.
“I just feel like we know what type of team we are. If we play to our strength and bring that intensity a lot of team won’t want to play us,” said Pascal Siakam who had another double-double with 18 points and 10 rebounds on Monday.
The defense has come a long way since its disappointing start to the season. Toronto forced 12 turnovers against Miami, including one on Jimmy Butler courtesy of Fred VanVleet to keep the Raptors alive late. Six straight stops in the final four minutes allowed Toronto to climb back into it late, but the offense couldn’t quite pull even, and eventually, P.J. Tucker nailed a corner three-pointer to clinch it.
Even in the loss, Chris Boucher continued to show how far he’s come from his disastrous start to the year. Against Miami, he was running the lane in transition, whizzing up and down the court, and picking up easy buckets in the fastbreak. When the game slowed down, he found cutting lanes inside, presenting himself near the basket to the tune of 23 points including 7-for-9 shooting from the free-throw line and 10 rebounds.
“He is really a problem on the glass on both ends and he just battles so hard and keeps a lot of balls alive,” Nurse said. “Defensively he has been pretty good too. All kinds of matchups which you probably wouldn’t expect. He’s been guarding a lot of guards and doing an incredible job.”
COOLED BY HEAT: Raptors fade late in loss to Miami | Toronto Sun
The difference though in this one was the energy and shooting from Tyler Herro off that Heat bench.
Herro, who is making a strong case for Sixth Man of the Year at the halfway point of the schedule, finished with a game-high 23 points and seemed to be in attack mode all night.
Siakam had a pretty impressive line himself on the night with 18 points, 10 assists and six rebounds to go along with five steals, but it wasn’t enough, not even with Boucher’s 23-point and 10-rebound night.
Interestingly Nick Nurse chose to go with just a seven-man rotation with Boucher and Justin Champagnie the only bench players to get involved. Champagnie was limited to nine minutes after dislocating his finger midway through the game, although he was able to return after being tended to by the Raptors’ medical staff.
It’s hard to blame Nurse for cutting his rotation given the struggles many on that bench have had of late including the normally reliable Yuta Wantanabe who just hasn’t found his legs since coming back from COVID protocols.
Nurse was not buying any suggestion of any fatigue in what was, for the most part, a six-man rotation Monday night.
“I don’t know,” Nurse said. “We played as tough as we could. I didn’t see anything that was changing. We were battling from start to finish and other than one small stretch where they took it out to nine but we clawed it straight back, that one probably could have gone either way. That was a hell of an effort by our guys.”
When it was suggested that maybe it was just a matter of not having another dependable option to go with, Nurse admitted he wasn’t really looking for another option.
“Well, again, I know that is a lot of minutes for some of those guys but I felt comfortable with it,” he said. “I thought I had six guys (going) and I wanted them all out there. I wanted to keep Precious (Achiuwa) out there more in the fourth quarter, but kind of ran Scottie (Barnes) and Chris (Boucher) was having a great game so let him keep going. I’m not sure if I’m looking at the guys we played if I can fault any of them for the way they played so I’m not saying I needed to try anybody else.”
The Raptors will now head to Dallas, where they will start the second half of the season with a 21-20 record and take on the Mavs and Luka Doncic on Wednesday in the fourth game of this five-game trip.
Raptors’ late comeback falls short in Miami as Heat hang on for victory | NBA.com
Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro combined to overpower the Raptors tonight, with the duo combining for 42 points.
Butler recorded a 19-point, 10-rebound,10-assist triple-double, while Herro finished with 23 points, including some key buckets that helped turn the game in their favour.
With the teams tied at 75-75 late in the third quarter, Herro scored the last five points in the period and had the first bucket of the fourth to put Miami up by seven and they wouldn’t trail again.
Pascal Siakam cut the deficit late to 99-96 before P.J. Tucker sealed the win with a corner 3-pointer with 20 seconds remaining.
SIMMONS: The toughest half-season of Raptors coach Nick Nurse’s career | Toronto Sun
“I don’t want to stay in negative city, here, there’s been a lot of positives too,” Nurse said. “You can almost go through a whole series of guys. Fred (VanVleet) has played amazing. Pascal (Siakam) has gotten back to the Pascal we remember. OG (Anunoby) continues to grow. Scottie (Barnes) has been great. And I’ve fallen in love with Gary Trent Jr. We didn’t know he could guard like that.”
And then he went on to brush by on some pet projects, the lost Chris Boucher finding his game in recent weeks; the semi-lost Precious Achiuwa, learning on the job, still semi-lost. Not Nurse’s words. Mine.
There is a lot to like about this Raptors team, even as they scrap to make the playoffs or the play-in round. If you don’t care about VanVleet, check your pulse. It’s the same with Anunoby. They’re keepers. It’s incredibly encouraging to see what Barnes is and imagine what he will become. This week, Siakam looks great. Last week, he looked great. And if this is who he will be, that’s great news for the Raptors.
But he seems to be week-to-week and month-to-month and who knows what that means — but there is a certain encouragement to have Siakam and Anunoby and Barnes and Trent and VanVleet all on the court together. That’s a competitive NBA first unit. Not a championship lineup but a team to give others trouble.
The second unit, though, not so much, The trade deadline comes next month and Goran Dragic and his Instagram photos will be sent somewhere for something, and the rest of the Raptors roster is mostly marginal and day-to-day.
You need an A-superstar to be a real competitive NBA team and Barnes could well be that player down the road. VanVleet is already punching above his weight. Anunoby is a keeper. There is more for Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster to care about and feel good about than they might have expected in this season where Nurse rarely has had a set lineup and it’s one thing for the team to be sick, it’s another for it to be injured as often as they seem to be.
Nurse has probably overplayed his best players because he’s had to and four Raptors are among the top 10 in time on the floor on a nightly basis in the NBA. That will catch up with them as the season moves on. That’s the act of a coach who knows he has few options in his lineup and as the old radio stations would tell you, always play your A-records.
A coach who is trying to win, trying to remain balanced, trying to pick himself and his team up, all of it at the very same time.
NBA Power Rankings, Week 14 – Can Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies keep rising? – ESPN
This week: 14
Last week: 14Fred VanVleet should be headed to his first All-Star Game next month. VanVleet has fully stepped into the role vacated by Kyle Lowry as Toronto’s undisputed leader. He is playing the most minutes per game of any player in the league while averaging 21.9 points and 6.7 assists and shooting over 40% from 3-point range. — Bontemps
This week: 16
Last week: 1421-19, +0.9 net rating
Weekly slate: Loss to Suns, Loss at Pistons, Win at BucksFirst-quarter Grade: C- | Ranked 21st
Halfway-point Grade: B
This is more of the Toronto Raptors teams we were hoping to see this season. They’ve gone through plenty of player unavailability, just like every other team. But the Raptors are once again disrupted with their home. They get to stay in Toronto, but fans are no longer allowed for the time being and even the mascots have to be carefully placed in the arena. The Raptors have won seven of their last nine, and Fred VanVleet is playing like an All-Star. Pascal Siakam has been great during this stretch. OG Anunoby is back and playing really good basketball. The Raptors look like they’ve gotten through the worst of it, and they’re headed toward being major problems in the Play-In Tournament.
Prediction Update? I’m not going away from this prediction of the Raptors finishing as a top 10 defense in the NBA. It hasn’t been very good all season long, but the Raptors — now healthy — do look like they’re in a good position to climb up those defensive rating rankings. They currently sit at 17th in the NBA in defense. They’re 10th in the NBA during this really good nine-game stretch for them. The Raptors are currently 1.5 points per 100 possessions behind the 10th place Memphis Grizzlies to get into the top 10. That’s asking a lot, but it’s doable.
