Raptors starters go cold from the field against Hawks as winning streak snapped at three

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The winning streak and the homestand ended simultaneously for the Raptors leaving the team no more sure of where they stand than they were six games ago when this extended stay in Toronto began.

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With Saturday’s 114-103 loss to the Atlanta Hawks, the Raptors finish the homestand at 3-3 and now head out for road games in New York, Milwaukee and Minnesota.

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After taking care of business against the Charlotte Hornets in back-to-back games, the Hawks were going always going to be a step up in opposition talent.

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They didn’t disappoint led by their backcourt of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray.

What wasn’t so expected was the way the Raptors starting five, outside of Scottie Barnes and O.G. Anunoby struggled shooting the ball.

The shooting woes had at least been held to a minimum over the three-game winning streak starting with that win over Portland.

But on Saturday night all of Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet and Gary Trent Jr. struggled to find the range.

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VanVleet, who has been In a special shooting hell all of his own for much of this season, was just 1-for-9 through the first 3.5 quarters leading to a light minutes night and a little more run for Malachi Flynn.

VanVleet didn’t even see the floor in the fourth quarter with the game still very much up for grabs until Siakam fouled out with 2:48 remaining. He finished with just three points in 26 minutes.

Gary Trent Jr., recently on one of the longer heaters of the season, was just 2-for-7 in a short night for him as well.

Siakam, the most consistent Raptor this year in terms of scoring, started as slow as his two struggling teammates, and while he found his stroke for a short period of time it wasn’t near enough to offset the lack of production from the starters overall. Siakam finished with 15 points in 34 minutes before fouling out.

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At the other end Young and Murray got just about anything they wanted the entire first half.

They combined for 35 points between them on 12-of-16 shooting in the first half alone before finishing a combined 19-for-34 for 56 points, 29 of them from Young.

Normally the Raptors can rely on their ball-hawking defence to keep things close when the shots aren’t falling but the best the Raptors could do was match the times the Hawks turned them over.

For the half Atlanta shot just under 60% while the Raptors were just under 45%.

Toronto’s defence got a little stingier in the second half to bring that number down just under 52%.

On the plus side for the evening was a Raptors bench once again led by the duo of Precious Achiuwa and Chris Boucher.

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That duo combined for 26 points to help Toronto win the battle of the benches. Atlanta got 13 from AJ Griffin, son of Raptors assistant Adrian Griffin, but outside of that and nine from Jalen Johnson got little else from its reserves.

Toronto put itself in an early hole starting the game just 1-for-13 before a 10-0 run got them at least back into the game.

OWED ONE, ONE WOULD THINK

The last time these two teams met the Raptors were missing Pascal Siakam but walked into Atlanta and coughed up a game they should have won.

The Hawks won it 124-122 in overtime on a buzzer-beating wide open lay-in by Griffin, on a botched play by the Raptors.

Nurse had to re-live that letdown when he was watching film leading up to the return match

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“It did stick in my craw a little bit today as I re-watched the tapes,” he said. “But it wasn’t jut the blown layup a the buzzer (by Scottie Barnes) or the tip on that last shot or the weired play at the end that AJ made where we ran past everybody and let him lay it in.

“There was a whole bunch of quirky, super-quirky things down the stretch of that regulation that happen once in a while in this league,” Nurse said. “I think it’s one of those where you’ve got the game won and seven things happen – if one of ‘em doesn’t you probably still win – and all seven happened that night.”

And if all that didn’t rile up the Raptors, the memory of Trae Young waving bye-bye to the Toronto bench after the Griffin lay-up to win it, well, let’s just say there were ample sources of motivation going into this particular game for the home side.