Quick Reaction: Raptors 127, Sixers 109

Along with Scottie, RJ set the tone for the team maintaining a chip-on-his-shoulder aggression throughout the game. He applied pressure defensively from the getgo. He missed a short-range jumper in the first half, then made up for it with nice pass to my Mogbo in the paint. Good to see how upset he was throwing a bad pass to Battle on the right wing. Showed great body language going over to him, giving him the “my bad” high five. The only knock on his game was turnovers. He threw another bad pass in transition, which led to a corner 3 by Butler on the other end.

When the best player at the pick-up game has a good attitude, it trickles down to the rest of the team and the overall mood just stays positive. Scottie had to deal with the Sixers’ sixth man in stripes – he was frustrated with the perceived missed foul calls, most evidently when Edwards likely fouled him on the baseline drive. Scottie not getting T-ed up by Evan Scott shows he kept his frustrations in check. Mediocre stats, but helped initiate the Raps’ offense.

Robinson is sometimes left so wide open, it seems blatantly disrespectful. But hitting a triple in the first half made his defender bite on a pump fake in the third quarter, which led to a paint touch, a pass to Scottie on the wing, and a corner 3 by Walter.

Walter had three impressive plays that stood out. The first: going coast-to-coast, where he froze his defender with a behind-the-back crossover, changed pace on the lay-up, and easily scored. The second: saving the ball from going out of bounds on the baseline, getting the ball back, and splashing the corner 3 in the fourth quarter. The third: he drew a charge from Lonnie Walker as he came to tag. I don’t have the stats on hand with me, but it seems like Walter’s taking a charge per game.

Shead was a two-way threat this game. Offensively, he scored in a myriad of ways. He put his man in a long jail sentence in the first half and scored. He showed his signature floater in the second, and even hit a off-the-dribble triple using a Mogbo pick. Defensively, Shead was the prodigious defender he was known for in college. He applied pressure, most notably in the first half when he stunted and picked off a pass, which forced the Sixers to foul him and put him at the line.

At best, Mogbo had a couple of two-handed highlight reel dunks and his stats look ok. At worst, he’s very much a work in progress. He threw a Jakob-like fake DHO and tried to attack the basket from the above the break to no avail. Then, he tried to create from the same spot and threw a pass completely out of bounds. There were at least two other passes he attempted to Agbaji. One, a give-and-go attempt and the other, he tried to playmake rolling as a screener, but threw it out of bounds. His stats hide these mistakes, but Mogbo is really benefiting from being able to get these offensive reps in real PT.

Some of what Agbaji could have created were taken away from Mogbo’s turnovers, but Agbaji barely stood out in the 25 minutes he played. He seemed to have been a non-factor this game.

The Raptors swung the ball clockwise around the perimeter, initiated by Scottie. The ball ended up right into Swider’s hands on the right wing. Splash. And he made his second triple of a nice RJ between-his-legs pass. He’ll need to continue scoring these to survive in the league.

Battle got his three-point shooting back this game and had a solid performance on both ends of the court! He threw a nice post-entry pass into Robinson in the second half and had great closeout to the corner in the first half.

Solid decision to play RJ and Scottie at the start of the third and fourth quarter. Up 20 points, he left the role players to close out the game with 6:25 left in the game. Another solid decision to take a timeout after Walker’s pass led to a easy bucket by Hood-Schifino.