You’ve just gotten a new puppy. He’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen, and he’s running around your apartment exploring every corner with an investigative sniff. He chases a ball across the room and prances back towards you with it in his mouth. This is the wide-open corner 3 of dog ownership.
Later he settles in on the couch and his eyes flutter as he stretches and settles in to fall asleep. You would freeze time if you could. This is a layup.
But to have these wonderful, sacred moments, you also must clean up excretions from every mat and blanket in the place. Slinking into contested pull-up mid-range jumpers and launching from 30 feet in transition is necessary. It ain’t always easy.
Amidst their hot streak, the Toronto Raptors have become a team that increasingly takes and makes hard shots. This is important for two reasons: because shots going in the basket scores the Raptors points and because making those difficult attempts opens up the floor for others. In other words, they do what’s necessary in order to unlock the sacred spaces of the floor. Making tough shots is one of the keys to meaningful success. And they’re doing it largely thanks to two players: Brandon Ingram and Immanuel Quickley.
Ingram and Quickley were both vaunted shot makers in their respective areas of the floor before this season started, but their ability to bang spectacular jumpers had yet to be utilized to its full potential. Ingram made an All-Star team and got eliminated in a couple first-round playoff series. Quickley was a gunner off the bench for some good New York Knicks teams. But the pair’s abilities have the potential for so much more.
During his last full season in 2023-24, Ingram was a top-15 pull-up shooter amongst the league’s highest volume players by effective field goal percentage, ahead of Jayson Tatum, DeMar DeRozan and Anthony Edwards. So far this season he ranks third, behind only Stephen Curry and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Quickley has had similar success shooting 3s off the dribble – his 37.9 percent is top ten in efficiency over the past two seasons, sandwiched in between the likes of Darius Garland and Stephen Curry (minimum 300 attempts).
So, it makes sense that with both Ingram and Quickley healthy, the Raptors’ pull-up prowess has improved greatly this season. In 2024-25, the Raptors ranked 29th in made pull-ups overall and were last in pull-up 3s. This season they’re up to 10th in made pulls and 24th in 3s. They are first in percentage for pull-up jumpers both overall (45.2 percent) and from 3 (41.3 percent).
Ingram is the primary driving force here. He’s shooting 52.4 percent on 114 attempts, the 11th-most in the league, and all but 14 of them have come from inside the arc. He accounts for a third of the Raptors’ pull-up jumpers. This is his game. He casually pivots and fades into his release, pirouettes one direction and jerks back the other and methodically probes through defenders with slow, sure steps to find his spot.
Still, Ingram has done well fitting into Toronto’s system. They often run him off wide pin downs/staggers, or Iverson cuts to get him attacking while moving into open space. An option screen where he can either come off a cross screen in the paint for a post-up or curl off a pin down is another favourite. From there, Ingram gets into his bag, shooting over the top of defenders like nobody else in the league thus far this season. Of course, he can also generate this kind of shot with no action, and the Raptors being able to throw Ingram the ball late in the shot clock and have him pull a rabbit out of a hat is indispensable. Being able to blend the two – creation within the offence and bailing it out when it stalls – is why he’s been so integral.
Ingram has knocked down fading turnarounds over the outstretched arms of Defensive Player of the Year winners Evan Mobley and Jaren Jackson Jr. and settled into jumpers over seven-foot-two big Kristaps Porzingis. He’s navigated through multiple help defenders and digs, still reaching his spot. And he’s unhurried while doing it. It’s truly remarkable poise and shot making.
And as remarkable as Ingram’s been pulling up in the mid-range, Quickley has been equally impressive lately on deep pulls.
After a concerningly cold start, the jittery guard has done an about face and been red-hot for the last seven games, hitting at a 46.3 percent clip on nearly eight 3-point attempts per game. During that span he’s 9-of-19 on pull-up 3s (47.4 percent). Quickley’s pull-up 3-point volume is also feeding a Raptors’ offence that’s staved for it – he’s taking and making over a third of their pull-up treys. They would certainly be last in deep pulls again this year without him.
As we can see in the film, most of these shots are coming in transition, and these are great. But the two crucial 3s hit off ball screens at the end of the most recent 76ers game are perhaps even more important. Jakob Poeltl can reliably carve out gobs of space with his screens, and these shots should be available more frequently than in transition. And the more Quickley pulls up off screens successfully, the more aggressive defences will get with their coverage, potentially opening offence elsewhere. (For example: Playmaking downhill when chased over screens, back cuts on ball denials.) Considering the rate at which he’s made these shots both recently and historically, he should be taking even more of them.
All around, Quickley’s appeared less hesitant to let it fly in transition and off screens. It’s putting points on the board, changing the way defences react and emboldening him to create a little more in the halfcourt.
Since Ingram and Quickley are liable to bang a pull-up from anywhere either inside or outside the arc respectively, they attract tons of defensive attention in these spots. This gravity pulls defenders towards them and away from their teammates, opening up the easier shots.
Andrew Nembhard has his hands on Quickley at halfcourt and goes over the screen, allowing him to draw the big on the drive and set up the sure-handed Poeltl. Ingram’s pull draws help from Gradey Dick’s defender one pass away on the strong side, and he bangs the triple. The most obvious examples are the two Ingram pinch-post actions that drew double teams in clutch time the last two games – the bucket-cut Barrett finish against the Hornets and the pass out to Quickley for 3 against the 76ers. Barrett punched it on a near identical possession midway through the Sixers game as well. Both of Barrett’s cuts happen first because Ingram draws the double and second because Quickley’s defender doesn’t want to leave him open at the 3-point line.
Last season there was consternation over Scottie Barnes taking more pull-up middies. It was understandable, considering his efficiency plummeted, and his physicality lends itself to play types that better utilize his power game. Barnes is still taking mid-range pulls this season, but they’re much more in the flow of the offence, when the defence sags off and lives with the shot, rather than the primary objective. He’s beaten zone defence with them on occasion. Considering Barnes led the Raptors in pull-up attempts last year and shot very poorly on them, the shift in who is taking those shots and when has undoubtedly helped juice the efficiency to its league-leading standing.
Last season the Raptors took a ton of easy shots and couldn’t make enough of them. Now they’re middling when it comes to the quality of their shot diet (they’ve fallen from fourth to 15th in Cleaning the Glass’s location effective field goal percentage, which gives teams the eFG percentage they would have if they shot league average from each location on the court). Yet their actual eFG percentage – easily the more important of the two numbers – has risen from 23rd (52.6 percent) to sixth (57.0 percent). This is because they’re both making more difficult shot types, and the easier shots are being taken by better players.
Ingram is taking tough contested middies instead of Barnes, and in turn, Barnes is scoring more on easier play types like cuts and in transition instead of players like Ochai Agbaji. Toronto has become a model of the cascading benefits of role definition. Quickley’s health allows him to take more pull-up 3s, which means Dick is taking fewer and getting easier corner looks. The addition of Ingram, and Quickley being both healthy and willing to let it fly, is sorting the Raptors’ offensive hierarchy into more suitable roles, as Raptors Republic’s Samson Folk prognosticated after Ingram was acquired at the trade deadline last season.
Remarkable shot makers are also simply fun to watch. I certainly enjoyed combing through Ingram and Quickley’s pull-ups and putting together the highlights. It’s a nice break from cleaning up after a puppy.
After years of watching basketball destitute of highlight-reel jumpers, captivating wins, and meaningful pushes up the standings, let’s enjoy the show the Raptors are putting on and the quality hoops it empowers. Savour it, because it’s fleeting. Like that moment when the puppy is finally quiet, cuddling with you on the couch.
