If Sunday’s Raptors-Celtics game was about as dull and uninspiring as an exhibition can get, the sequel was pretty much the opposite. Boston had its stars back on Tuesday in Toronto, but instead of going up by 34 points as it had at home with its second and third stringers, the team fell behind by 24 as Scottie Barnes and Gradey Dick went off for Toronto.
The entertainment continued the rest of the evening as Boston wiped out a 19-point Toronto lead with a great second quarter, and battled the rest of the way in an air-tight game the Raptors eventually won 119-118 despite a wild finish that included three lead changes inside the final minute.
Barnes hit five three-pointers, something he’s only done in three career regular season games and fell a rebound short of Toronto’s first pre-season triple-double. Dick had 27 points, one more than Barnes, while Jakob Poeltl had 15 points and 16 rebounds. Jayson Tatum paced Boston with 24, Derrick White had 23, Jaylen Brown 19.
The Raptors led by 10 when the teams gave most of the starters the rest of the night off, but the Celtics again rallied.
Here are some takeaways from Toronto’s only home game of the pre-season:
YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU’LL GET
Toronto entered the game hitting just over a third of its three-point attempts in the pre-season, closer to the bottom of the league then to the top. But then the Raptors went and fired in 10 three-pointers in the first quarter on 14 attempts. It matched a franchise record for makes in a quarter and was quite unexpected. Barnes and Dick combined to go 7-for-9, while Davion Mitchell and Ochai Agbaji, a combined 1-for-10 coming in, both nailed one.
Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic had said before the game he was hoping his team would take more threes after they “skipped open shots” in the previous two games. “We’ve got to do a better job of recognizing those situations and shooting with confidence,” Rajakovic had said. That’s what happened in the first quarter, but shooting tends to even out, and Toronto failed to hit even one three in the second quarter, missing all eight attempts. That allowed the Celtics to storm back. Boston shot 8-for-15 on three-pointers in the second on the way to scoring 40 points. That included three treys from Tatum, who has revamped his shot a bit after struggling in the playoffs and the Olympics from beyond the arc.
WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS
Already missing a host of players, including starters Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett and key reserves Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown and Ja’Kobe Walter, the Raptors lost one of their most intriguing performers in the pre-season. Rookie point guard Jamal Shead, who is battling with Davion Mitchell for minutes behind Quickley, left early in the second quarter with left hamstring tightness.
Shead had been the first reserve called upon by Darko Rajakovic in the game and had brought his usual defensive intensity, but missed all three shot attempts, including a three-pointer. Shead hit two more free throws before leaving, improving to 13-for-14 from the line.
Earlier, Rajakovic had praised Shead for his energy, motor and for being “relentless” defensively. “He never stops. He continues fighting, and it allows us to create steals and opportunities for us to run a transition.”
Mitchell picked a good time to play his best basketball of the exhibition season. He superbly picked out his teammates, handing out eight assists, a few of the spectacular variety and provided his usual solid defence (check out the sequence to start the fourth quarter by Mitchell for a good example). The surprise was Mitchell starting 3-for-4 on three-pointers.
Mitchell could shift back to the bench as soon as Friday, when the pre-season ends in Brooklyn. Quickley was cleared for full contact for shootaround on Tuesday morning and depending on how he reacts to two more days of practice, could play.
TOP BILLING
The best Raptors on the night were Barnes (all-around impact in an impressive bounce-back); Dick (it wasn’t just the outside shooting, he also did well inside and constantly made cuts to get himself open, while also playing far better defensively than he had in Boston); Mitchell (he did everything well, to put it simply); and Ochai Agbaji, who had tough defensive assignments but was up to the task, while also showing more offensively than he has previously. Jakob Poeltl, celebrating his 29th birthday, continued his strong pre-season. He’s been the most consistently good Raptor in the exhibitions so far, looking sharp on both ends of the floor