The regular season can become a slog during the winter months. The holiday season comes along with a slate of games in short succession that is testing for all teams, let alone one that is missing four rotation players. Many of these matchups become ugly, forgettable affairs. For a team like Toronto, whose core now has reached the pinnacle of championship basketball, a key skill that is required in order to plunder through the meat of the regular season unscathed is to indeed quickly forget those ugly games.
On Saturday the Raptors did just that, bouncing back from their worst offensive game of the season with a courageous 121-102 victory in Brooklyn.
“Just got to keep playing,” Kyle Lowry said after Toronto’s come from behind victory. “That’s what we we do. We believe in the work that we put in.”
It was by no means a vintage Raptors performance. In fact, on multiple occasions the Nets were on the verge of busting the game wide-open, even leading Toronto by 16 points with a little under four minutes remaining in the first half. It was the Raptors gummy offence that was once again the main culprit behind their early deficit, and yet again it was their scrappiness and zombie-like ability to stay alive and within touching distance that brought them back into the game.
“Guys took pride, stopped feeling sorry for ourselves and executed. Guys took pride in their roles and it’s that simple,” said Fred VanVleet, who topped the night with a scorching 29-point, 11 assist display. “It’s hard, man. It’s hard to win in the NBA. It’s not easy. You gotta go and earn that ****. I think that that’s something that we gotta keep reminding ourselves to do.”
Brooklyn controlled much of the play to begin the game, yet their carelessness with the ball gave Toronto a fighting chance. The Raptors forced 16 turnovers in the first half for 20 points, allowing them to rediscover their transition game which sparked so much of their early season success.
“We couldn’t handle their pressure. We could not handle their swarming defence,” said Nets coach Kenny Atkinson.
Then Toronto, facing that 16-point deficit, played quality offensive basketball for the first time in the last six quarters. O.G. Anunoby flashed in the heart of the Nets zone defence (something they turned to with regularity after Miami’s prior success against Toronto) and dished a beautiful assist to Serge Ibaka waiting in the dunker spot. The next possession VanVleet torpedoed down the floor in transition to find Patrick McCaw for an easy layup. Then following another mind-numbing turnover from Jarrett Allen, Lowry sensed the momentum shift and marked his arrival in the game with a trademark pull-up three. After a deft VanVleet floater, Brooklyn continued to implode courtesy of Taurean Prince carelessly flinging the ball towards his bench. With the ball back in his hands, VanVleet nailed a cross-court pass to Anunoby for a three-pointer which suddenly brought the score to 48-52 at halftime.
“There was a lot of silliness it seemed like for us, falling over, kicking the ball around in the first fifteen minutes of the game. Then after that we looked really, really well organized,” said Nick Nurse. “From the four minute mark of the second onwards, we really got down to playing. We were into the ball, we were making catches tough, everything was pretty tough.”
The second half can only be described as absolute dominance from Toronto’s diminutive backcourt. After combining for only 13 points in the first half, VanVleet and Lowry exploded for 42 points in the second, including 10 assists and eight three-pointers. One potential catalyst for Lowry’s dominance to close the game may have been Jarrett Allen after the two got tangled up early in the third quarter.
Kyle Lowry was throwing his weight around all night. When Jarrett Allen, who after having his arm violently pulled by the Raptors guard glared at him, Lowry twice told Allen ”what are you going to do?” Apparently, nothing.
— Frank Isola (@TheFrankIsola) January 5, 2020
Lowry may have denied that the altercation lit a fire under his big old caboose (despite scoring 20 of his 26 points after that moment), but his backcourt partner didn’t seem to agree.
“I think that tonight he definitely flipped a switch there in the second half,” said VanVleet. “You can definitely see the difference when he’s poked a little bit.”
With the victory Toronto now sit firmly in fourth place of the Eastern Conference standings, just a game and a half back of Miami. With a very favourable schedule coming up for the next ten games, plus Toronto’s undefeated record versus sub .500 teams this season, Brooklyn may have just poked the bear at just the right time.
