The double confrontation in Florida between Orlando and Toronto turned out badly for the Canadians. While the Magic advanced with the dunce cap of the Eastern Conference on their heads, the Raptors fell back into their ways, with a struggling offense and recurring concerns about the 3-point shot.
The first match won by Orlando 113-109 had already not been reassuring in the exercise (10/35), the second (111-99) was distressing with a sad 24% of address, 6/25 behind the bow. The worst thing is that the Raptors took care of the ball yesterday with only 9 lost balls, and they also defended well enough to cause 18 opposing “turnovers”. But these 18 lost balls only generated 23 points behind…
“When we cause so many lost balls, we have to score more. That’s 18 chances to come back on them, and to end up with just over a point per recovered possession, that’s not enough.”, lamented the coachNick Nurse.
When nothing goes right…
The latter has certainly had to deal with a roster battered by injuries since the start of the season, but the return of Pascal Siakam was supposed to start the machine definitively.
That night, the Cameroonian quickly found himself out of harm’s way because of the faults. Premature exits from “main creator” of the team did not help the mission of the Raptors coach, who must also deal with his shooters currently in the hard.
“We’re having a hard time sooting right now. OG had issues with his shooting hand, which probably affected him. Freddy (VanVleet) is clearly not in osmosis with his shooting at the moment. And we rely a lot on these two guys, with Gary (Trent Jr). We just have to find a way to start putting some on again.”
To top it all off, OG Anunoby is suffering from another hip injury which kept him out of action tonight. If we add to that the new game without attacking Scottie Barnes (3/13 shooting) and Fred VanVleet (4/11), that’s actually a lot. For the Toronto point guard, it doesn’t take much for the wheel to turn again in his team’s favor and change the dynamic in which his people are currently trapped.
“We need to see some of those shots come in. Otherwise, the opponent becomes more and more aggressive, and gains confidence if you fail them. And that’s what we saw tonight. It is not a defeat that we take lightly, with regard to the standards we want to display. But they have played better than us two games in a row. They should be congratulated.”he said, thus denying any sense of panic.
For the Raptors, who now have a negative balance sheet, the opposition should also go up a notch in the next three home games, against Sacramento, Brooklyn, then Golden State.
| Shots | Bounces | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | GM | Minimum | Shots | 3 points | LF | Off | Def | Early | pd | bp | Int | CT | party | Points |
| Pascal Siakam | 17 | 35.0 | 48.4 | 31.4 | 76.5 | 1.8 | 7.0 | 8.8 | 7.1 | 2.4 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 3.2 | 24.9 |
| Og Anunoby | 26 | 36.7 | 47.5 | 33.1 | 83.3 | 1.4 | 4.5 | 5.8 | 2.1 | 2.5 | 2.4 | 0.8 | 3.0 | 19.0 |
| Gary Trent, Jr. | 24 | 31.6 | 42.7 | 33.5 | 77.8 | 0.5 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 1.6 | 0.1 | 1.5 | 17.2 |
| Fred Vanvleet | 21 | 36.6 | 36.0 | 32.6 | 84.6 | 0.5 | 3.0 | 3.5 | 6.4 | 1.9 | 1.7 | 0.5 | 2.6 | 17.0 |
| Scottie Barnes | 24 | 33.3 | 44.4 | 32.2 | 69.4 | 1.8 | 5.2 | 7.0 | 4.6 | 2.4 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 1.8 | 13.9 |
| chris butcher | 23 | 23.2 | 45.5 | 29.0 | 74.1 | 2.3 | 3.8 | 6.1 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.9 | 2.5 | 11.4 |
| Precious Achiuwa | 12 | 20.4 | 39.1 | 17.9 | 84.8 | 2.0 | 5.0 | 7.0 | 1.3 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 0.6 | 1.6 | 8.8 |
| Malachi Flynn | 16 | 10.9 | 43.2 | 48.6 | 90.9 | 0.2 | 1.0 | 1.2 | 1.1 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.6 | 5.8 |
| Otto Porter | 8 | 18.3 | 50.0 | 35.3 | 100.0 | 0.8 | 1.6 | 2.4 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 1.4 | 0.0 | 0.9 | 5.5 |
| Dalano Banton | 20 | 10.2 | 41.7 | 31.7 | 87.5 | 0.5 | 1.1 | 1.6 | 1.2 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 1.1 | 5.4 |
| Thaddeus Young | 24 | 16.9 | 53.0 | 22.2 | 85.7 | 1.7 | 2.1 | 3.8 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 1.0 | 0.1 | 1.8 | 5.1 |
| Juancho Hernangomez | 16 | 16.9 | 51.8 | 34.5 | 42.9 | 0.8 | 3.3 | 4.1 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 1.3 | 4.4 |
| Christian Koloko | 27 | 16.7 | 44.6 | 0.0 | 65.1 | 1.6 | 1.8 | 3.4 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 2.8 | 3.8 |
| Ron Harper | 2 | 3.9 | 50.0 | 66.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 3.0 |
| Khem Birsh | 15 | 7.7 | 64.0 | 50.0 | 80.0 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 1.3 | 2.5 |
| Jeff Dowtin | 9 | 7.4 | 50.0 | 25.0 | 100.0 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 2.2 |
| Justin Champagnie | 3 | 3.6 | 100.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 2.0 |
