It happens only moments into the Toronto Raptors’ game against the Indiana Pacers. Scottie Barnes sets a screen for Fred VanVleet, and Barnes’ defender, Myles Turner, camps deep in the paint. He is halfway across the court, paying no attention to Barnes. Barnes ambles over to Gary Trent jr., sets another screen. Turner doesn’t move. Trent seems shocked, tosses a slow pass to Barnes.
This is a turning point. Barnes is being flagrantly disrespected. Some players would catch the ball, turn, and drive directly into the defender’s chest, come hell or high water, to prove a point. Some would shoot an open jumper. Some would step behind the 3-point arc to shoot an open jumper. Most would be thrown completely off their games to see a playoff-style adjustment on the second offensive possession of a Monday evening game in January. But Barnes does nothing of the sort.
The 21-year-old simply dribbles towards Trent for a dribble handoff, not needing to hurry, with Turner sure not to move. Trent uses the pseudo-screen and fires an open pull-up jumper, the defense overreacting and fouling him.
The play becomes something of a plant-your-flag moment in the quarter. The Pacers are simply not going to guard Barnes outside of the paint, and he is simply not going to force things.
The Raptors use Barnes as a handoff or ball-screen hub on the next possession, and the next one. They have easy two-on-ones whenever they want them. Open jumpers. Open drives.
In between taunting the Pacers without the ball, he mixes in a transition push, flinging a no-look pass — harkening to the last Diary of Genius entry for Barnes — to Trent for a triple.
There are other side effects. Because he is unguarded, he can fly in for offensive rebounds and keep plays alive. But mostly, he plays molasses slow and Sudoku methodical, and it works. The Raptors score 33 points in the first quarter. Barnes collects four assists, most in the frame on either team.
Ballhandlers waltz into uncontested midrange jumpers. If they’re not there on first glance, the handler simply resets to Barnes, who zooms into another screen, and starts the process all over again. It’s repeated punches to the chin, half by Barnes’ maturity and patience, and half by the Pacers just kind of walking into it.
Siakam especially eats well. He hits two triples, a midrange layup, and an actual layup. But Trent gets his fair share as well. Fred VanVleet misses some open ones (a theme in the game), but Barnes is equal opportunity in his benevolence, using his lack of defender to create easy points for teammates.
In the second quarter, Barnes catches a pass on the wing and, seeing no teammate running towards him for the handoff, decides to launch a triple. He cashes it, rendering the Draymond Green approach from the first quarter comical, although not pointless (considering its success).
The Raptors opt, at points, to add some flair to the relatively simple handoff. At one point, Barnes stands at the top of the key as an outlet after setting a ball screen and moseys to set another for Fred VanVleet. The latter rejects the screen and drives baseline, circling under the rim (called Nashing, as Steve Nash made the play so dangerous in his day). Barnes diagnoses the play and seals directly under the rim; VanVleet throws perhaps the shortest post entry pass of all time for an easy post move.
The Raptors go away from the play in the third quarter, as Barnes sets few on-ball screens or handoff screens. The Pacers start to play him a little higher, and he moseys away from the ball towards the dunker spot. The Raptors let Siakam attack out of the post, and Barnes cuts for dunks and attacks the offensive glass for putbacks. All well and good.
In the fourth quarter, the Raptors supercharge the pace of the Barnes handoff. While he had been playing slow, taking his time without a defender rushing him, the Pacers now push into his jersey. Barnes adjusts his speed and now makes rapid decisions against mismatches. The Pacers have to double, and the process creates plenty of open shots for the Raptors as a result.
They don’t end up in points, of course, but the process is good. And it reveals an important lesson: Barnes is going to outthink opponents when he’s dialed in.
He hasn’t always outexecuted defenders this season, particularly when seams for drives don’t open up. But he’s too smart to be outschemed. How many 21-year-old sophomores, in the middle of a perhaps-disappointing-if-your-expectations-were-absurd season, would shoot so rarely against such a defense?
I can’t really think of any. Barnes is as patient as they come, and he leverages the defense against the defenders. As previously mentioned, Draymond Green does the same for the Golden State Warriors, but he’s 32 years old with money in the bank and awards on the shelf. He was not doing this stuff at 21. Barnes is.
The game drifts away from the Raptors. Extremely poor individual defensive performances from Malachi Flynn and Thad Young especially let the Pacers build a lead they never deserve, and poor shotmaking from VanVleet lets the Pacers keep it. The Raptors let a game slip away.
But Barnes is perhaps the first star of the game. He finishes with 23 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists. (He scores 17 of those points in the second half, as Indiana changes its approach with Barnes, so he changes his means of beating it.) He is deadly scoring in the post, as a driver, as a cutter, and an offensive rebounder. That’s normal stuff. But for long swathes of the game, Barnes is deadliest without the ball in his hands, shooting (and, yes, he hilariously made his first attempt from deep) be damned.
The Raptors and Pacers both treated this game like a playoff matchup, in some ways. They both cross-matched for much of the contest, which doesn’t always happen in the regular season. (Cross-matching is when teams don’t defend opponents with the same players being defended by those opponents.) Toronto started with Anunoby guarding Tyrese Haliburton and VanVleet guarding Hield, which makes a lot of sense but probably has more complexity behind the decision than teams usually offer in the regular season. The Raptors play almost all their starters 40 minutes (which, yes, normal for the Raptors, but still a playoff thing in general). And of course there is strategic change throughout the contest.
The Raptors lose their playoff dress rehearsal, which is important. But Barnes is the star of the show. Equally important. He does it for much of the game by using his brain, rather than his soft touch or scoring prowess or enormous athleticism or any of his other skills. He turns his would-be shooting weakness into a superpower that creates open shots for teammates out of thin air. And, not to bury an important point at the end here, but he does it all while playing some of the best and cleanest defense of his career.
Toronto may continue taking one step forward and two steps back. But Barnes, genius that he is, keeps taking two steps forward with every step back. If you can muster the patience and maturity that Barnes showed against the Pacers, it’s possible to see how his long-term footwork might be more important than his team’s short-term dance steps.
