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There just isn’t a lot to say after a rough first two games of this road trip for the Raptors. Already minus top player Pascal Siakam and the player everyone expected to either start or be the top big man option off the bench, Precious Achiuwa, the Raptors had all-star Fred VanVleet either battling through an illness and nowhere close to his usual self (against Oklahoma City) or not at all (against Indiana).
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Add in other members of the team also quietly battling illness and it was the most forgettable night of the season in Oklahoma City, other than marvelling at the brilliance of the NBA’s best Canadian player, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (and that was a “quiet” night for Gilgeous-Alexander, who absolutely went off against fellow Canuck R.J. Barrett’s New York Knicks on Sunday).
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On both nights Canadians carved up the Raptors, including one-time Raptor and Raptors 905 player Oshae Brissett, who sparked a surprising Pacers team that is vastly exceeding expectations (Canadians Bennedict Mathurin and Andrew Nembhard were pretty good as well). Everywhere you look you tend to find impact Canadian players these days.
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Speaking of which, one of the few positives from the two games was the re-emergence of Montreal’s Chris Boucher after a bit of a mini-slump. Boucher had been excellent to start the season until the lull. He brought it against Oklahoma City with 20 points and 12 rebounds, including 10 free throw attempts, the fourth most he’s attempted in a game.
Then Boucher had 19 and 7 off the bench on a whopping 17 shot attempts against the Pacers.
Toronto needs to take care of business against Dwane Casey’s 3-10 Detroit Pistons on Monday. Detroit will be missing its top player, former No. 1 overall selection Cade Cunningham, who has a shin injury.
Some more thoughts:
- Perhaps the only other bright spot was Malachi Flynn showing signs of life after Dalano Banton seemingly played his way out of Nick Nurse’s good graces. Flynn looked confident in both games, especially taking it to the hoop. His jumper was falling against the Thunder, but not against the Pacers.
- Credit to Banton too for responding to one of his worst games with far better work the next night. Banton still needs to improve his decision-making, and it’s early, but the Raptors will take 33% shooting from three and 80% work at the free throw line from the second-year player.
- The ugly: Take away Flynn and Juancho Hernangomez’s three-point success once the game was out of hand against the Thunder (a combined five makes on seven shots) and the Raptors shot 6-23 from three. Take away VanVleet and it was 3-16.
- They followed it up by going just 7-35 from three the next evening. So much for that early placement amongst the league’s leaders in three-point accuracy. Toronto’s now 17th and falling fast. Only three teams have shot worse from outside over the last nine games than Toronto (including Detroit! Expect a lot of bricks on Monday). You can also expect a lot of free throws: Detroit attempts the most per game in the NBA (Granted, that’s mostly with Cunningham playing) and Toronto the sixth-most (again, obviously a different story if VanVleet joins Siakam on the sidelines).
THREE STARS:
1 Buddy Hield
2 O.G Anunoby
3 Bennedict Mathurin
THREE STARS VS. THUNDER
1 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
2 Chris Boucher
3 Eugene Omoruyi
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