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It will be interesting to see how Toronto’s rotation works when (if?) O.G. Anunoby and the rest are all available (the injury list continues to grow). In the first two games Jakob Poeltl has already been utilized in some lineups that would make a football coach proud as they truly were of the “jumbo” variety.
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Poeltl started against the Pistons on Super Bowl Sunday alongside his likely backup, Precious Achiuwa, along with Pascal Siakam. That’s one of the biggest, most defensively terrorizing front court we’ve seen in a long time. In Poeltl’s first appearance he came off the bench for Achiuwa in another interesting look that featured only one guard (Gary Trent Jr.) with Siakam basically playing point guard with Trent beside him and Poeltl in the middle, flanked by Achiuwa and Chris Boucher (call that the length and athleticism for days lineup).
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Obviously Poeltl is still getting used to things and that will be a process. He’s an extremely smart player, but he’s going to foul a lot until some practice time has provided needed help. Poeltl didn’t foul out once in San Antonio this season, but has nearly done it twice so far as a Raptor.
Nick Nurse and fill-in head coach Adrian Griffin have been trying to see what works and we’ll likely see more of it, especially as regular starters shuffle in and out of the lineup. The Poeltl-Fred VanVleet-Siakam-Scottie Barnes group was lights out in 21 minutes together over the two games. Long-term Siakam isn’t going to hit most of his three-point attempts as he did, so spacing should be an issue, but it looked great early.
- Per TSN, “In the last 2 games, Raptors’ opponents were held to 90 points on 43.2 FG% in 42 minutes with Jakob Poeltl on the court.” They shot 59.8% when Poeltl sat.
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- If Achiuwa and Trent join Anunoby on the bench due to injuries when Orlando visits on Tuesday, would guess Thad Young would start alongside Poeltl, Siakam, VanVleet and Barnes. Or, they could zag and let newly re-signed shooter Joe Wieskamp provide some spacing.
- Boucher is really moving well lately. His energy is a huge help off the bench. I think the Raptors prefer using him as a reserve, which is why I suggested Young would slot in as the fill-in starter if needed.
- Orlando is much better than its record indicates and has been a thorn in Toronto’s side, but the Raptors need to make a pre-all-star statement that they are serious now about playing together and getting results. The front office backed them, now they need to let their play do the talking. The first two games of the Poeltl 2.0 Era have been mostly ugly. The Utah loss was brutal and they made it way too difficult against the awful Pistons. It’s easy to look ahead to a rest on a beach somewhere, but it’s time to step up.
THREE STARS VS. PISTONS
1 Pascal Siakam
2 Fred VanVleet
3 Bojan Bogdanovic
Honourable mention: Jakob Poeltl, Precious Achiuwa, Alec Burks, Scottie Barnes, Chris Boucher
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