Gameday: Hawks @ Raptors, Feb. 4

Fresh off of another overtime win, 3-0 in the week from hell, the Raptors and Hawks meet each other for a back-to-back contest to help solidify the back end of the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

When these two teams met earlier in the week (a Raptors win) the Hawks came into that game without their heliocentric star, Trae Young. He’ll no doubt be a huge part of this matchup. The Young-Capela and Young-Collins pick n’ roll partnerships both rank as extremely potent across the NBA, and the Raptors will be put in a position to defend heaps of those actions. With Barnes playing some drop defense over the past few games, and the Raptors operating as mostly a switching, hard-hedging, or level of the screen defensive team, I’m extremely interested to see how the Raptors decide to guard the Trae + whoever pick n’ roll, because it’s one of the best versions of offense in the league. Both Bogdanovic and Huerter had great games against the Raptors earlier this week – does that continue as they slide a little bit more 0ff-ball? Will the Raptors overload on Young and allow spot-up and decision making opportunities for the rest of the Hawks roster? Or will they put the onus on Young to score as much as possible, just one night after he poured in 43 points?

In the contest earlier this week, the Raptors led offensively with Siakam’s rim pressure, and Gary Trent Jr.’s torrid stretch of outside shooting. You can’t set your watch to 9 threes a game, but you can set it to Siakam’s rim pressure, and at least some volume from downtown from the trio of Trent Jr., VanVleet, and Anunoby. This team doesn’t pass the ball in a unique way, but it does share it in a unique way. I’m more interested in how often they try to involve Young in defensive actions, especially if they’re trying to put the scoring burden on him at the other end of things.

It’s been 5 games in a row since Precious Achiuwa has eclipsed 20 minutes, so I’m interested to see if Nurse opts to go to him a little more often in a game where his standout defensive utility could pay off. Khem Birch is also back in the swing of things, although perhaps in a limited capacity.

Two All-Star guards lead a host of talented bigs against one another. It should be fascinating.