Raptors’ defence, bench shot-making return to throttle Heat

For most of the Toronto Raptors’ 104-96 win over the Miami Heat, the two squads played something of a mirror match. Both teams played exquisite defence, clogging the paint off the ball, picking up the ball fairly high, rotating well to take away the advantages such interiority can open, and forcing as many turnovers as possible. Both teams struggled to find anything in the paint; they each ended the first half with 10 paint points, Toronto’s second-lowest total of the season and the lowest for Miami. With both defences grinding away like clogged gears, much of the game devolved into difficult-shot contests. Miami hit more of those early, but the Raptors found their way to offence. Largely via the work of Brandon Ingram, the tough-shot gods slowly started to turn in Toronto’s favour. And Toronto’s bench increasingly tightened the screws until the final buzzer sounded.

Initially, the run came, as all viewers must have expected, from the deeply slumping Gradey Dick.

He enters the game and gets vertical on the glass to steal a contested offensive rebound. He back tips the ball away from his Norman Powell and dashes out into the open court, finishing and-1 after receiving the touchdown pass. Misses a runner on the next possession, grabs the rebound, misses, loses on the glass this time to the gigantic Kel’el Ware, but then steals the ball from him for fun. Toronto ends up with a triple. A flyby Dick closeout prompts a drive, a bad pass, another Miami Heat turnover. Dick peel switches to the corner to defang a drive.

And then, of course, he cashes an uncontested triple to beat the first-quarter buzzer after Jamal Shead stampede cuts to open the shot.

All in all, Toronto weathered some poor offence and some hot Miami 3-point shooting to lead after the first quarter.

The Heat are not to be dominated, though. The second quarter saw the Heat turn to their funktastic zone against Toronto’s Barnes-plus-bench (featuring Immanuel Quickley) group, which saw Toronto plunge back into the depths of the offensive basement. Drives went nowhere, and the Raptors ended possessions with players like Ja’Kobe Walter or Dick having to shoot over the top with no rhythm, no paint touches, and no space. The Heat churned a run.

Shead dragged Toronto back into the game. He found Barnes in the middle of the zone for a jumper, drove for a laydown pass to Sandro Mamukelashvili, then hit a triple after a brilliant Scottie Barnes pass across the court after drawing two defenders.

Toronto found some much-needed rest and somehow found its resilience, too. Over the past few weeks without RJ Barrett, a run like that could easily have spelled the end of the game. But the Raptors didn’t let go of the rope. Toronto’s defence never lost its teeth, even when the Heat hit tough shots, scavenged their way to free throws, and smothered Toronto’s own offence. Toronto’s rest since its miserable NBA Cup loss seems to have meant more to Toronto’s mental recovery than its physical one.

There were more pitfalls, more offensive swoons. Toronto didn’t rediscover dominance. But it didn’t quit, either.

At one point, Bam Adebayo caught the ball in the post against Collin Murray-Boyles. He wanted the rookie, ached to isolate against him. Confident. He pivoted, hesi ripped, darted to the baseline, and completely blew past Murray-Boyles. Considering he was only six feet from the rim when he started the move, he was instantly in the air for the dunk. But so too was Murray-Boyles, flying from behind to erase the shot from. A few possessions later in transition he threw a bounce pass across the paint for a Raptors layup. Later, he caught the ball as the trail man and drove for a layup, then stripped the ball in the paint for a steal, leading to a Dick triple.

Outside of Ingram’s heroics, these were the plays that formed the patches of Toronto’s game quilt. Murray-Boyles’ play a metaphor, a diamond in the coal mine.

After closing the third quarter with some sloppy possessions, the Barnes-plus-bench group (featuring Quickley) that in the second quarter pooped the bed did a pretty good job of cleaning up after themselves in the fourth. Dick got some stops, Mamukelashvili hit some shots, and Quickley got inside the paint off some nice Barnes feeds. Barnes gave up a blowby … only to chase down Davion Mitchell and block him from behind. Quickley missed a triple … only to grab his own rebound and dime Shead for a 3-pointer of his own.

Even after building a 10-point fourth-quarter lead, the Raptors couldn’t have it easy. They started throwing the ball all over the gym and asking Ingram to save them with buzzer-beater heaves that often ended as turnovers or airballs. But Barnes added another chase-down block (adding to his NBA lead in clutch blocks, per Blake Murphy). The youngest Raptor on the floor (by far), Shead added a clutch floater to settle down his team’s panicky offence. Barnes swooped in for an offensive rebound, muscled in an and-1, and thus sealed the game.

Toronto wasn’t perfect. For long stretches, it wasn’t even good. But it never let go of the rope, and it always found answers when the Heat asked questions.

For the last weeks without Barrett, too often those two qualities have been absent. Too often the team has quit a game after facing adversity. Too often the bench hasn’t risen to the occasion, or starters haven’t found their way into it after starting slow. None of that was the case here. Few Raptors may have played their best games, but neither did any fail to contribute in one way or another. The bench found its way to won minutes. The shooters hit shots, even after initial misses. The defence threshed and sawed and choked the Heat for 48 minutes. The Raptors aren’t going to be perfect without Barrett. But they can win games.

Rest did Toronto well. Now for Darko Rajakovic and his squad, it’s time for the Raptors to prove that this level of consistency can maintain, even if the team isn’t able to access its top-end speed without Barrett. Fortunately, he will be back soon. For the first time in weeks, the Raptors finally see some light at the end of the tunnel.