Another game, another heart-breaking loss for the Toronto Raptors.
Monday night’s 121-119 defeat at Denver to start a road trip was Toronto’s fourth straight loss by six points or fewer (after getting drubbed by 30 on opening night and by 11 following a win), including a second by just two points against Denver. So, they’re close, but still far away, which is about as ideal as things can get this season if they continue that way.
Here are some takeaways:
What more can be said about Gradey Dick? We mentioned his major strides ahead of Monday’s game, including how he leads all sophomores in scoring, and Dick went out and hit half his shots, including four more three-pointers to get him up to 38.3% for the season following a slow start from deep. He’s up to 21.6 points per game, including 27 a night on the road (with four more road outings still to come on this trip). In addition to his three-point prowess, Dick leads all NBA players in mid-range shooting percentage. Opponents appear nervous when he gets the ball. They fly out at him, allowing him to make plays. He’s also travelled more distance than all but 18 players, and everyone ahead of him on the list play a lot more minutes than Dick.
There’s still a lot to learn:
No team has been worse late in games than the Raptors. Darko Rajakovic seems to be letting them try to figure things out on their own, declining to call timeouts late on a couple of occasions now and RJ Barrett got a decent look (and might have been fouled by Russell Westbrook), but if they keep losing fourth quarter leads and coming up short the mood is likely going to shift. Morale and confidence will drop. Getting Scottie Barnes and Immanuel Quickley back soon should help the Raptors hold on to advantages (and it’s a credit to the players they are generating those leads without their best players).
Good news on that front:
Rajakovic told reporters in Denver that Barnes will not require surgery for his fractured right orbital bone, which means he should return up to five games quicker than he would have had surgery been required. Barnes will be re-evaluated in two weeks (after missing seven more games). Quickley has not played since a hard fall in the opener and the team is being cautious, but he should be back soon. Veteran Kelly Olynyk has been doing on-court work, but it’s unclear when he’ll be able to play. Bruce Brown’s status was supposed to be updated a few weeks ago based on the original announcement of his knee surgery, but it’s been crickets on that front.
Mitchell takes positive steps:
Davion Mitchell’s biggest issues as a fill-in starter have been three-point shooting troubles and more importantly, way too many turnovers. Mitchell went 2-for-7 from three, a slight improvement, but the major positive was zero turnovers against eight assists. Toronto actually took care of the ball quite well, Barrett and Dick aside (Barrett had five turnovers, Dick four, all other Raptors combined for only four) and forced Nikola Jokic into seven turnovers (though he did manage a triple-double). Mitchell can be effective even if he doesn’t hit three-point shots if he can run the team without many mistakes and also get into the paint, which he did four times, scoring on three of those occasions. Backup Jamal Shead also played well, hitting his only three-point attempt, plus two more shots inside, while compiling three assists and no turnovers.
AROUND THE RIM
Dick had three steals and two blocked shots. He already has five blocks after blocking only two in 60 games as a rookie. Dick has nine steals over his last four games after picking up only two in the first four games of the season … Denver trailed by 11 with 5:45 left after rallying at Toronto last week to force overtime in another eventual win … Poeltl fouled out after another strong effort against the great Jokic. Denver outscored Toronto 14-8 after Poeltl’s exit and free throws were 38-18 in Denver’s favour … Had Jokic collected one more rebound against Minnesota on Friday he’d have triple-doubles in four straight games.
@WolstatSun