The last time the Miami Heat played in Toronto, Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry stole the show together as protagonist and antagonist. VanVleet broke Lowry’s record of most 3-pointers made in a single season — in front of the wily vet — and accomplished it in just the first quarter. Not to be outdone, Lowry outfoxed and outhustled the Raptors for the remainder of the night as he stole a Miami win from the jaws of VanVleet’s triumph.
The Toronto Raptors have a habit of making home games against the Heat into Bildungsromans for individual players. VanVleet earned his protagonist story last season. On Nov. 16, it was O.G. Anunoby’s turn to come of age, to earn his Bar Mitzvah, against his former vet and leader in Lowry. Lowry played a vintage game, doing his best to ruin Anunoby’s night just as he did VanVleet’s the year prior. Anunoby showed enormous chutzpah in leading Toronto to a 112-104 win.
It’s amazing how quickly the theoretical can become the actual in the NBA. The amount of work behind the scenes is staggering when compared to the relatively diminutive amount of actual, in-game time on the court. There are hours of work for every minute that counts, from film work from coaches to skill work with coaches to shooting practice alone in the gym. And Anunoby has been experiencing extraordinary process on his drives for a long time:
“He’s probably getting a lot more chances at [driving], that’s probably makes it seem [better]. And, again, I think he needs the chances,” said Nurse after Anunoby’s game against the Houston Rockets on November 9. “I think there’s a level up he can make, by either springing up immediately for the shot or understanding how many people are around him and somehow getting it out of there a little more cleanly, and finishing a little bit better.”
Anunoby scored 27 points against the Rockets, then a season high. But the results of his drives deep into the depths of the paint did not entirely translate to success in those instances. He was scoring his points in other ways. Prior to his game against the Heat, Anunoby was shooting 36.5 percent on drives, right in line with his career-low mark from last season and a bottom-10 mark in the league among players averaging 7 or more drives per game. But the process was so much improved compared to Anunoby in prior years that eventually, the shoe had to drop. There is too much time and energy spent behind the scenes for the main production not to follow in the footsteps of the approach.
He shot 4-for-5 against the Heat with zero turnovers while driving. He also gathered one assist, a drop-off bounce pass across the lane, and two free throws.
“I think he’s gone to more power and balance than he has than skill,” said Nurse after Anunoby’s mammoth game against Miami. “I think he was doing a lot of euro stepping and trying to avoid [defenders], and I think he’s just going in there and gotten big and strong, and I think it’s enabled him to get clearance. He’s a really good two-foot jumper, as we know, and I think it’s gives him a better chance to see out [for passes] as well. And he made a huge play out to kind of seal the game.”
Anunoby broke his previous season high, scoring 32. The means in which he did his scoring were just as impressive as his final scoring tally. Most indicatively, he broke his career high in 2-pointers made, shattering his former high of 9 with 12 against Miami. He only attempted three 3-pointers; this version of Anunoby, both empowered by opportunity and necessity with Pascal Siakam out of the lineup, is doing more inside the arc than he ever has. And it’s working.
Anunoby is attempting his fewest triples per game since 2019-20. For many years he has been one of Toronto’s most crucial floor spacers. He still is, but he’s just more crucial in other ways at the moment. Toronto has lacked rim pressure for years, and it has especially lacked rim pressure in recent games without Siakam. For all the shooting woes, the rim situation is more dire, so Anunoby has been conscripted to attack the paint for the undermanned Raptors.
For now, other guys can cobble together shooting. Dalano Banton attempted six triples, Juancho Hernangomez two, and Scottie Barnes two of his own. They didn’t shoot well at all, but they did enough to keep the defense from packing the paint. Nobody else on the roster currently can power through the lane and finish through traffic like Anunoby.
The diversity of his scoring was preposterous. He cut backdoor for multiple lob dunks. He grabbed defensive rebounds and romped to the rim for layups. He threw a drop-step move in the post to score on an inside-hand scoop layup (when defended by Lowry, no less). He dribbled into the middle of the lane and hit floating push shots. He hit stepback jumpers in the midrange, one stepping back going right, another stepping back to the left. He finished 13-of-18 from the floor.
Perhaps most impressive, Anunoby chained together set plays, building on his success from one play and layering reads on top of the earlier foundation. He curled tight around a wide pindown, headed downhill, and scored on a layup. On the next play, he jetted up from the corner to use another wide pindown, but the defense didn’t let him use the screen. Anunoby processed it immediately and shot over to screen for VanVleet on the ball, his pindown screener following to turn Anunoby’s on-ball screen into staggered action. VanVleet flowed with the action and hit a pullup triple.
“I thought Fred had a really good game,” said Nurse. “He found a couple of sets on his own there where he got O.G. kind of curling down the lane, and he kept going to that.”
Nurse was surely speaking of the wide pins that turned into consecutive baskets. That’s the next step for scorers like Anunoby: not just finding success on disparate events, but manipulating things on the floor to create openings, then using that opening to manipulate the next event to create a different opening, and taking advantage of that in a different way.
Superstars do that perhaps 40 or 50 times a game, in varied and diverse ways. Anunoby is of course not a superstar, but he’s taking baby steps in that direction. He’s improving at so much at once, in the micro and the macro. He’s finishing better on self-created shots at the rim, striding better, dribbling better, finishing his drives better via cleaner energy transfer from horizontal movement into vertical leaps. He’s reading the game better, manipulating defenses better. Each element flows into the next.
Anunoby already does so much. He does virtually everything on the court for these hobbled Raptors. He’s creating for himself and others, from every area of the court. He’s perhaps the best defender in the league right now. He’s succeeding at everything, too; it’s not just limp responsibility, but jobs well done in each regard.
What does that mean for Anunoby when the team eventually returns to healthy? He will certainly lose some of his on-ball responsibility and take more triples, settle for drives through less crowded paints, layups against fewer defenders. Things will become significantly easier for him. At the moment, he’s Toronto’s primary option on the offensive end. Eventually, he will become the second option, sometimes third or even fourth. If his skills continue to translate, though, his role change will be a huge boon for Toronto. The best teams have players overqualified for their roles up and down the roster. The Raptors lack those high-efficiency players. But this Anunoby would be one of the best third or fourth scoring options in the league, if he does end up there. On top of keeping Toronto winning without Siakam, Anunoby is starting to address perhaps the team’s largest weakness.
