https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb1DTtZFo1Q&ab_channel=Nicky
Nobody will confuse this for excellent basketball. The teams combined for 13 consecutive scoreless possessions to start the fourth quarter, including two video reviews. Since the Raptors last played at home, the Canadian men’s soccer team has become a virtual shoo-in to play in the World Cup, so perhaps the teams wanted to welcome back fans by offering 10 real-time minutes with no points.
There were certified moments, though — nothing that will transcend the years, but ones that certainly make going to a game worthwhile: Gary Trent Jr. calmly knocking down six free throws after the Nets had tied the score in the last minutes; the “ref, you suck” chants that followed Siakam’s fifth and sixth fouls; and, most of all, every time Scottie Barnes made a huge play.
In a game that finished without the Raptors’ and Nets’ best three players (and started without five of the six), Barnes was impactful even as he hesitated to shoot. He zipped a pass for a late assist, had a mammoth block on Seth Curry and then grabbed a key rebound on the decisive stop of the game.
Cheering or booing, it is nice to be heard.
“They really have fun doing that. Don’t they?” Nurse said of the fans booing Dragic. “They were ready. They were ready. Man, they were ready. They didn’t take the foot off the gas the whole game. They really have fun with that.”
Crowd pleaser: Raptors win thriller after capacity restrictions lifted – Sportsnet
Raptors fans had plenty to cheer about. Rookie Scottie Barnes was brilliant again as he finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds and four assists. He made a number of key plays down the stretch, including a jumper against the shot clock that gave Toronto its first lead since the third quarter and a perfect pass to Young that put the Raptors up five with two minutes to play. He also had a blocked shot on a game-tying effort by the Nets’ Seth Curry in the final minute.
Malachi Flynn was excellent again subbing in for VanVleet as he finished with 15 points and eight assists in 43 minutes, while Young filled in well for OG Anunoby (out with a fractured finger) as the veteran provided 11 points off the bench and was part of head coach Nick Nurse’s closing lineup that worked well even after Siakam (18 points, eight rebounds and six assists) fouled out with 2:40 to play.
Play Video
PlayMute
Remaining Time -2:57Share
Fullscreen
Raptors crowd provide great boost for team in first game back in front of fans
Trent Jr. led Toronto with 24 points.There were no hard feelings on the Raptors side towards Dragic. When he took the floor to shoot before the game it was all smiles, laughs and bro-hugs with his old team.
Part of the reason the Raptors parted ways with the veteran was that they wanted to make more minutes available for youngsters like Flynn. But it is only now that the second-year guard has taken full advantage.
“We gave him some chances [early in the season] and he didn’t really look like he was ready to go,” said Nurse. “He just wasn’t impacting, wasn’t making shots, wasn’t [giving] what I thought we needed … [and] we gave him a few shots here and there lately and he’s produced and that’s the only thing I can judge it on. Right? You go out there and you play your minutes and if you play well, I’m gonna play you, period. If you don’t, I can’t. And that’s just the fact of it.”
Dragic started the Raptors’ first game of the season and was part of the rotation for the next handful but played poorly, got buried and stayed that way until he requested a leave from the team. Raptors fans didn’t exactly give Dragic the Vince Carter treatment but did the job and booed at all the right moments. Dragic started 0-for-2 and missed a pair of free throws, so maybe it was working. Then he hit his next three shots, put his finger to his lips as if to shush the crowd and helped send the Nets into halftime with a 59-55 lead.
Prior to that the – for the second straight game – the best point guard on the floor was Flynn.
“I’m proud of him, I’m proud of Malachi,” said Siakam. “ I think, again, he’s been going through a lot and I always tell him, I’ll be talking to him, sometimes I text him, I’m probably sure he’s surprised like, ‘Why is Pascal texting me?’ This is the NBA and it’s tough, we all go through tough times and I’m just happy that he’s been given an opportunity and he’s taking advantage of it. He’s been playing his role well on both ends of the floor, controlling the game, making tough shots, his speed up the floor is great, and I think he’s making good decisions. We’re gonna need that from him and I just want him to keep it going, keep it going, I’m proud of him.”
Dragic might have played the role of villain for Raptors fans looking to vent, but there were plenty of positive things to cheer about, and Flynn was foremost among them.
Nets Post Game Plus: Nets fall to Raptors, 109-108 | 03/02/2022 | YES Network
Bob Lorenz and Frank Isola cover all the action from the Nets’ 109-108 loss to the Raptors in this edition of Nets Post Game Plus.
This was the response Nets fans wanted. Brooklyn shot 50% from the field and 40% from three. They defended with passion and honor, utilizing a 2-3 zone to stymie Toronto’s offense that flowed with unimpeded smoothness on Monday evening. It’s a shame the group couldn’t come away with a win for their efforts.
The story of the game — aside from Seth Curry’s bonkers three-point shot from damn near Vancouver — was the play of two of Brooklyn’s youngest, most intriguing prospects. What the two of them were able to do against a very strong, battle-tested Toronto defense was just outstanding.
Nicolas Claxton was a bright spot, recording 3 blocks along with 8 points on 3-of-3 shooting against the Raptors. The dude was everywhere, swatting shots from the weakside and finishing plays on baby hooks, looking like the promising young big that took the scene by storm last season.
“Nic came off the bench and gave us a lot of good minutes, the athleticism was good,” said Seth Curry. “And his play on the boards, protecting the rim a little bit was good.”
He even flashed his understated handle and looked like his University of Georgia self while pushing the pace on the break. Plus, you’ve gotta love him blowing up this handoff play like a 7-foot Alex Caruso!
Cam Thomas continued his strong play as well with 50% shooting on the night. One thing that has stood out about Cam recently is the advancement of his handle. He’s growing much more confident about mixing in changes of pace with his dribble moves, and it’s helped him greatly at getting to the rim.
Beforehand, Thomas worked primarily at one speed, his mind preset on either crashing toward the rim, taking a midrange jumper, or heaving a stepback three. Now, he’s reading what the defense gives him. No, better yet, he’s manipulating the defense into giving him what he wants. The move below is filthy; a backward between the league dribble as if he’s setting up a stepback three, a quick change in his stance like he’s about to fire off a three-ball, and then a sudden acceleration after the defense bites on the fake.
He wasn’t doing this stuff at the beginning of the year!
Raptors Game Recap: Raptors pick up crucial win in rematch vs. Nets – Raptors HQ
Mercifully, Nurse redeemed himself with a lineup choice that saved the game — and maybe the seventh seed — for his team. With 9:23 to go and the score locked at the same 89-81 gap the quarter began with, Nurse swapped Flynn in for Achiuwa to complete a five-man unit alongside Trent, Pascal Siakam, Scottie Barnes and Young. Through a mix of swarming defense and timely zone-busting, the group outscored Brooklyn 19-7 up until Siakam fouled out with 2:40 to go. From there, it was more or less the Barnes and Gary Trent Jr. show that carried Toronto to the finish line, with an enormous Barnes block in crunch time serving as one of the deciding blows.
Barnes finished the game with 18 points, 10 boards and four assists on a clean 8-of-13 from the field, scoring on a mix of transition opportunities, sneaky duck-ins as the Raptors dissected the interior of the Nets’ zone, and, well, casually flicking up late clock baillout jumpers with the suaveness of prime Swayze.
He also collected the game-sealing rebound, concluding an all-encompassing fourth quarter that has his finger prints all over it. Apparently though, that wasn’t enough for the Raptors dogged rookie.
“He was getting mad at me any time he was calling a play he wasn’t involved in,” Nurse noted after the game. Barnes is not a normal 20-year-old, man.
Along with Barnes and Trent, who helped put the game away with timely free-throws and some big time work from floater range, Malachi Flynn had a major hand in the youth movement that won Toronto the game. Over 43 spectacular minutes, Flynn poured in 15 points on 6-of-11 shooting to go along with six rebounds and eight assists; his work getting downhill and spraying to shooters and cutters was the kind of pick-and-roll acumen Flynn was vaunted for coming out of college. It’s been a delightful surprise to see him make good on the opportunity Fred VanVleet’s injured knee has granted him — something Nurse noted before and after the game he just did not do when similar shots presented themselves earlier in the year. What’s more, Flynn’s steady play over the two wins against Brooklyn have perhaps given the Raptors the green light to play it safe with VanVleet instead of rushing him back out of necessity. Hell, when VanVleet does get back, the two-point guard lineup appreciators of the past just might be in store for a return to an old Raptors staple.
“He’s staying ready so he doesn’t have to get ready,” said Trent after the game, remarking upon the similar journeys he and Flynn have had on their respective roads to carving out regular minutes.
Raptors welcome home fans back with gritty win – TSN.ca
At times, the flow of the game felt very much like it was early March, a week or so out of the all-star break. The Raptors’ effort was far less convincing than it was 24 hours earlier when they embarrassed the Nets, beating them by 36 points in their own building. But by the fourth quarter, with Toronto chipping away at a Brooklyn lead that grew to as large as 10, the fans were back into it.
They shouted, “ref you suck” when Siakam picked up his fifth foul early in the frame, and then again when he fouled out with less than three minutes remaining. The arena erupted in “let’s go Raptors” chants after Scottie Barnes hit a tough fade-away jumper late in the shot clock to put Toronto on top inside the final four minutes.
With less than two minutes to go, Barnes whipped a no-look pass to the recently acquired under the rim for an easy layup. Moments later, his vicious block and big defensive rebound, as well as clutch free throws from Gary Trent Jr. sealed the victory. And it was an important one.
Although each club was missing key players in both meetings – , and for Brooklyn; VanVleet and for Toronto – these were important games. After getting blown out on consecutive nights over the weekend, this was a chance for the Raptors to get back on track, and to pad their cushion on the Nets for the seventh seed in the East, which went from one game to three games in the span of 26 hours or so.
What a difference a few days make in terms of the narrative. The team held a lengthy meeting in the locker room following Saturday’s loss in Atlanta – the third time that they were defeated by at least 27 points in four games.
Since then, Flynn has emerged and impressed, Barnes has turned in two of his best games to date, Precious Achiuwa has continued to blossom in his role coming off the bench, and the trade for Young has started to pay dividends with Anunoby out of the lineup. The news on Anunoby is positive, too. The hand specialist he saw in Los Angeles on Monday believes it will take another two weeks for the small fracture in his right ring finger to fully heal. Although the team is still trying to determine whether he can, or should, return before that time and play through the injury, it’s encouraging to know that he doesn’t require surgery and likely won’t be out long-term.
“We didn’t get out from the vacation break very focused, but snapped out of it and they were incredible last night,” Nurse said. “And I thought they were battling, they weren’t incredible tonight, but they found a way to keep hanging [around] and playing. So I think hopefully we’re back for a little while.”
Raptors use home court advantage for cathartic win vs. Nets | The Star
The things that worked so well for the Raptors in a 36-point rout of the Nets on Monday vanished for most of Tuesday. Toronto made 18 three-pointers in its win in Brooklyn, tying a season high, and made only seven in the return match.
After dishing out a season-high 35 assists and shredding Brooklyn’s zone defence on Monday, the Raptors had 27 on Tuesday and couldn’t unlock the Nets defence. And a bench unit that provided a season-best 67 points in Brooklyn contributed only 23 in Toronto.
When Pascal Siakam fouled out with about two-and-a-half minutes to go, the Raptors needed to rely on defence and offensive guile. Siakam finished with 18 points and eight rebounds but fought foul trouble all night.
The Raptors were once again without starters OG Anunoby and Fred VanVleet, the former because of a small fracture of the ring finger on his right hand and the latter because he resting a bruised knee.
Anunoby saw a hand specialist who said the fracture, which could be weeks old, is healing fine. Anunoby has already played a handful of games with the injury and while it might completely heal in two weeks, Nurse said he and the team’s medical staff are discussing the next step with Anunoby. The forward could be out a few more games or he could return at the end of the week; nothing has been determined.
“The specialist said it was nearly healed, it’s getting better every day,” Nurse said. “He’s able to play on it. They said probably within two weeks it would be fully healed, so I guess we’re just trying to decide which route we’re going to take.”
VanVleet, who will have had four straight days off when the Raptors host Detroit on Thursday, got a standing ovation before the game when he was feted for his first all-star selection. And those same fans who lauded him blistered the guy who might have been his backup. Dragic, the short-time Raptor, was booed lustily every time he touched the ball by an audience bent on showing its disapproval for a 15-year veteran who was never going to last in Toronto past February’s all-star break.
“The only time I really noticed them was … I think Gary was shooting maybe one or two free throws or I think one and Dragic checked in and they were booing so much I was hoping they were going to stop before Gary got the ball and they didn’t really want to,” Nurse said. “They really have fun doing that, don’t they? They were ready. They were ready. They didn’t take the foot off the gas the whole game. They really have fun with that. Get it out of your system.”
Raptors complete the back-to-back sweep of Brooklyn | Toronto Sun
For the second night in a row Flynn, along with Scottie Barnes and this time with Pascal Siakam mostly back to his pre-all-star form leading the way, the Raptors finished off the back-to-back win in as many days over the Brooklyn Nets, this one much closer at 109-108.
On Monday night, the Raptors stunned the Nets with quick-strike aggression and tenacity.
Last night the Nets were ready for the attack. On top of that the Nets bench came to play, negating what had been a huge advantage a night earlier.
But all that was negated as first Flynn and then Barnes helped the Raptors back from a late nine-point deficit to flip the script.
Flynn looked every bit the floor general every point guard in the NBA aspires to be dishing out assists and putting teammates in a position to succeed.
When he wasn’t helping others he was contributing from a scoring 15 points to go with his eight assists and six assists.
He was also there defensively in the final few minutes standing in the way of LaMarcus Aldridge, who dwarfs him by 10 inches, forcing a rare miss for the veteran power forward who was on fire for most of the second half.
“It was tricky,” Raptors’ head coach Nick Nurse said of that final stretch the Raptors played without Siakam who fouled out. “It wasn’t an easy scenario, they were still sitting in a zone, we’d run a play, it’d get knocked out of bounds and we’d have to call another one. There was a lot of play calling going on in the last three minutes.
“I was trying to keep him going with another wrinkle or something and wasn’t perfect play calling but it seemed to end up in the right guy’s hand a lot down the stretch and they made some plays,” Nurse said. “It wasn’t like they were working perfectly as designed but the right guy had the ball and made a play out of some of them.”
In a nutshell Flynn handled a very tough situation under duress and did so without a lot of veteran help around him.
Barnes, meanwhile, took the baton from Flynn in the final few minutes setting up teammates, scoring and then swatting away a potential game-tying bucket from Seth Curry in the final minute to secure the win.
It was a true team effort as every one of the Raptors starters was in double figures in scoring in a game in which the Raptors were once again down two starters in Fred VanVleet and OG Anunoby.
Raptors Return to Normalcy in Win Over Nets – Sports Illustrated
It was to be expected coming into the game. Dragic wasn’t exactly a fan favorite during his Raptors tenure, to put it mildly. His time in Toronto started with those comments he made in Slovenian about wanting to play on a team with higher ambitions and it culminated with photos of him working out in the Miami Heat’s facility all while technically still a member of the Raptors. But in between Toronto had no qualms letting Dragic walk away.
“We probably wanted to focus on our younger guys. We wanted to see our younger guys play a lot more minutes. We made that decision fairly early on,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said pre-game. “I was meeting with him and talking about the time. We got to the point where he was OK with it. He understood.”
It’s why Dragic’s reception Tuesday night was genuinely surprising for the Raptors who weren’t expecting such a hostile environment.
“I don’t know why Goran was getting booed,” Pascal Siakam said. “I was surprised. I like Goran.”
The booing began the moment Dragic checked in and didn’t let up. Every time he touched the ball the fans let him hear it, reigning down boos throughout.
“They were lively, that’s for sure. They really have fun doing that. Don’t they? They were ready,” Nurse said. “They didn’t take the foot off the gas the whole game.”
The boos seemed to get to Dragic early. He missed his first three free-throw attempts, but regrouped and finished the night with 10 points and a +15 plus/minus in 15 minutes.
What’s it like to sit beside Drake at a Raptors game? | The Star
“The time that sticks out is the time he had his hand on Nick Nurse’s shoulder,” says Devlin, referring to Drake’s controversial courtside shoulder massage of Raptors head coach during the 2019 playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks. “The game will be going on and Nick will walk over, and they will shake each other’s hands while the ball’s going up the floor.”
And while Devlin sees Drake’s courtside passion and player interactions as a huge plus to the Raptors organization, it’s another idea suggested by Drake that Devlin thinks changed the game.
“He was going to join us on the broadcast, and we are really close to him,” Devlin says of the on-air team’s proximity to Drake’s seats at Scotiabank Arena. “He would always get up and walk around and sit between me, Jack (Armstrong) and Leo (Rautins).
“He said, ‘Hey, is there a chance I could sit in my seat and join you guys since I’m so close?’ So I spoke to our producer and said, ‘Drake is going to join us, but he’s going to stay in his seat.’ I said, ‘I’ll give him my headset because it’s the closest to him, and I will use the spare.’ And after that, every time we set up now, the spare has the special Drake extension cord. That was the game-changer, because he can sit in his seat and comment on the game.”
Drake will occasionally join Matt Devlin and co. on the Raptors broadcast, chatting about the game from his courtside seat.
Devlin has a unique perspective, but what is it like for fans to find themselves in the seats directly beside Drake at a basketball game?
Sam Cosentino, an NHL analyst for Sportsnet, sat beside Drake during the 2018 season. After the Raptors edged out the Warriors, Durant gave his jersey to Drake following a bet that the Raptors would take the game.
“Sitting beside Drake was awesome. It was the biggest game of the season at that point, and he and K.D. had something going most of the night,” recalled Cosentino. “It was great to see his fandom and how passionate he is for the game, and especially for his home team. We offered to buy him a drink at one point, but he politely declined. He was more than obliging in taking a photo with us.”
Sam Cosentino, an NHL analyst for Sportsnet, sat beside Drake during the 2018 season when the Raptors played the Warriors.
While seeing Drake courtside at a Raptors game is a fabric of the basketball culture in Canada, the rapper has also popped up courtside in other cities — including in Oklahoma City, which created a fun viral moment late last year.
Jim and Renee Stanley, both in their 70s and from Oklahoma City, attended the Thunder game on Dec. 1 to watch their team take on the Houston Rockets. Little did they know they were about to be catapulted into virality.
“When the game was starting after the half, a young man sat down next to us and really didn’t say anything at first,” says Jim Stanley. “My first reaction was — don’t get this wrong — he smelled good. I said to him, ‘I really like what you are wearing.’ He turned to me and said thanks and shook my hand.”
Not knowing at the time who Drake was, someone sitting behind Jim’s wife told her that she was sitting beside one of the most famous people on the planet.
“We talked hockey when he told me that he was from Canada. Renee mentioned that her maiden name was Charbonneau from Quebec, then asked Drake what his maiden name was. He laughed and said, ‘I guess it’s Graham.’ That’s when he asked if he could take a selfie with us.”
