With an extremely depleted roster last night, The Toronto Raptors were faced with an uphill battle before the game even began. Missing two starters and several key rotation players and facing one of the top teams in the western conference would be an arduous task for Toronto at full strength, so imagine the difficulties they faced without the likes of RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley. Although the game ended in a 112-101 defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves there is much to be happy about from the Raptors.
Despite facing large deficits at various points throughout the game, the players as a collective never stopped pushing and fighting to stay in this game. Gradey Dick scored a career high 25 points and his offensive abilities continue to blossom, and Ochai Agbaji scored 19 points and continues to show off his improved finishing. There was a clear gap in the talent on the floor between the two teams and Toronto never let that discourage them.
Dick’s put the ball in the basket in a multitude of ways last night. He set ghost screens and popped to the top of the key for a three, he ran full speed off of a flare screen to find himself open for another triple. He filled the lane in the fastbreak well and snuck out to the three point line. It wasn’t only his shooting that was huge from Dick last night, it was what he did below the three-point line as well. Dick used his shooting gravity and attacked closeout to get into the lane for floaters, and mid range shots. Dick has shown that he is more than capable of attacking a closeout in the past, but the frequency that he was doing it last night was very encouraging. Dick hit many difficult shots last night, often having to put a lot of arc on them to get them to go over the defenders’ contests, but he made it look easy. On a night where Toronto needed someone to step up in order to have a shot at winning, Dick did that without question.
Agbaji also stepped up last night and once again showed off his promise on the offensive end, particularly as a finisher. Darko Rajakovic ran some sets for Agbaji that would get him going downhill, and Agbaji took full advantage of that. Multiple times Jakob Poetl would hand the ball off to Agbaji and he would turn the corner and get to the rim and finish. He had a high finish over Rudy Gobert which was no easy task, but Agbaji did it. His three point shooting was also good, as he went 3-5 from the three-point line, it was all catch and shoot attempts, but knocking these down consistently will be very important for Agbaji’s career.
Julius Randle gave Toronto a lot of issues defensively last night, Randle battered and rammed his way to the rim no matter who was defending him. Bumping and bruising anyone who dared to try to impede his path to the cup. Anthony Edwards peppered Toronto with a myriad of three pointers, several of which were pull-up threes out of the pick n’ roll. Turnovers were also a big reason why Toronto found themselves with a large deficit throughout the game. Minnesota’s defense shrunk the floor, and made it very difficult for Scottie Barnes to create much at times.
There is no shame in losing to a contender on the second night of a back to back without Quickley, Barrett, Kelly Olynyk, and Bruce Brown, but give credit to these Toronto Raptors for constantly battling throughout the game. It would have been easy to mail it in after initially going down 18, but they never turned it off and made Minnesota really fight for their win. Next game is Monday against the Denver Nuggets, and hopefully some of the calvary is back.
