RAPTORS BLOG: It’s best to forget about Trail Blazers game, but workload remains an issue, despite what anyone says

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Hopefully many of you watched the football game instead of Raptors-Trail Blazers. But if you did tune it, at least they brought some entertainment in the final 20 minutes of the game or so. Because what came first was ugly. Like, as ugly as it gets. Throw in the lack of atmosphere, the weather, and, well, the least said about Sunday night the better.

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The defence wasn’t there (Portland dished out a season-best 31 assists, even though All-NBA point guard Damian Lillard was out and even though two of the starters combined to miss 19 of 28 shot attempts.

Early on it felt a bit like one of those Noon starts of Raptors lore. You know, the ones where one (or both) teams were anything but engaged in the opening quarter or two. It was like a classic Mike Tyson fight at first. The Raptors hit the mat before they really knew what hit them. It was 7-0, then 25-4, all in the first quarter. You won’t see that very often.

And somehow it got worse, with the Raptors falling behind by 34 points. As Pascal Siakam noted, credit the Raptors for not packing it in. They’ve made wild comebacks before (the game against Dallas a few years ago comes to mind, for example) and Siakam was again the best player on the court, but it wasn’t to be.

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I’m not buying the takes from elsewhere that the massive minutes load on the starters is not negatively impacting their play. Other than Siakam of course, who is absolutely balling. Yes, Scottie Barnes had one of his best games the other night, but he’s also had a bunch of others where he missed lots of shots and looked tired. OG Anunoby has not looked like himself in either of the last two games at both ends of the floor.

And Fred VanVleet, the NBA’s leader in minutes, is 11-for-41 from three over his last three games.

As Sportsnet’s Chris Black pointed out on Twitter, VanVleet has averaged 41.5 minutes per game since Jan. 11, the highest-average by any player in a 7-game span over the last three seasons.

The players might be fine with the workload, they love to play and trust one of the best medical staffs in the NBA, but that doesn’t mean it’s optimal and will lead to the results anyone wants. No matter what anyone claims publicly.

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FORMER RAPTOR OF THE NIGHT:

DeMar DeRozan:

An ugly Chicago loss against Orlando wasn’t DeMar’s fault. He had 41 points, hit 15-of-21 shots and 11-of-13 free throw attempts. His teammates shot 18-for-55 (33%). They’re going to miss Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso a lot on defence, but without Zach LaVine, the offence is quite problematic, no matter what DeRozan does.

By the way, somewhat surprisingly, that was his first 40-point game since 2018. He’s the only player to get there without hitting a three-pointer since 2015 other than Giannis Antetokounmpo, Russell Westbrook, LaMarcus Aldridge and Ben Simmons, per StatMuse.

CANADIAN OF THE NIGHT:

With Jamal Murray out, who is the best Canadian in the NBA? Hamilton’s Shae Gilgeous-Alexander has always been the obvious answer, and he’s averaged 27.3 points, 6.9 assists and 5.7 rebounds over the last 11 games, but Oklahoma City is only 1-10 in those games. That’s what happens when you have almost no help. It’s not Shai’s fault. He’s been great.

But RJ Barrett is also making a case. Barrett had 28 points, 14 rebounds and 6 assists in a win over the Los Angeles Clippers.

In January, Barrett has averaged 22.9 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game and has shot 44.3% from the field, including a surprising 43.5% from three-point range (on 2.5 makes per game). He’s only hit 69% of his free throw attempts in January, but hit all 7 against the Clippers.

THREE STARS

1 Pascal Siakam

2 CJ McCollum

3 Nassir Little