CHICAGO – Meaningful basketball.
It was easy to take it for granted when the Toronto Raptors were an Eastern Conference playoff machine, qualifying for the post-season in eight of nine seasons beginning in 2013-14. It’s been slim pickings since. The Raptors did squeeze out an ultimately unsatisfying appearance in the Play-In Tournament in 2023, but since then?
Seasons of 25 and 30 wins as part of an on-the-fly rebuild.
There remain questions about the long-term rewards of the path the Raptors have chosen, but coming out of the all-star break with games that need to be won is objectively preferable to waiting to see how many ping pong balls can be gathered up in advance of the draft lottery.
“I think it’s amazing. We’ve got a great opportunity at hand. We’ve just got to take full advantage of it,” said Raptors all-star Scottie Barnes, fresh from spending the weekend representing the Raptors in Los Angeles at the NBA’s mid-season gala. “(But) we’ve got to turn it up a notch, including our defence. That’s where it all starts. We’ve got to really toughen things up and try to make it hard for (the opposition). This is when you’ve got to start getting everything right so you’re ready for (the playoffs).”
But meaningful basketball doesn’t necessarily mean beautiful basketball.
The Raptors did what was necessary in their first game in eight days following the all-star break: they won, dispatching the new-look Chicago Bulls 110-101, but it was not a game they’ll remember for any other reason than the result.
When a team forces 20 turnovers and makes a season-high 14 steals while taking 14 more shots than their opponents, the hope would be they wouldn’t be up by just two with just 2:12 to play, especially when they were up by nine with 4:32 to play, or by 14 late in the third quarter.
But that’s what happened at the United Center. It was a continuation of a theme as the Raptors loose shooting (42.2 per cent from the floor and 7-of-23 from three) nearly undid a generally high level of effort defensively.
“I thought we did a really, really good job there with our hand activity and keeping them in front, really setting the tone for the whole game,” said Rajakovic. “… Usually this first game, and we talked about it before the game, is (about) finding the rhythm a little bit, getting the rust off. But what I’m proud of is our guys, they stayed the course during the whole game. We knew we were supposed to convert a little bit more, (but) we kept finding ways to compete and came out with a very important win for us.”
A significant factor on that front was the play of Brandon Ingram, who delivered a proper effort with 31 points, eight rebounds and six assists. It wasn’t flawless — he was 11-of-26 from the floor — but he was determined to play through any rust or sluggishness, and the Raptors were fortunate he did.
“I just had that mentality to be aggressive,” said Ingram. “I know from previous years how it is coming off all-star break. Guys come in a little rusty, so I thought it was important for me to go out and just be aggressive whether the shot was going in or not.”
His two biggest plays came in the final minutes. After the Bulls late 7-0 spurt had cut the Raptors lead to two, Ingram found Collin Murray-Boyles at the basket with about six inches and 50 pounds on Bulls guard Anfernee Simons. The burly rookie was fouled, scored and made the free throw to extend Toronto’s lead back to five. Next trip down, Ingram called his own number and hit an 18-footer that pushed Toronto’s lead to seven with 35 seconds left and iced the game.
“It’s a huge luxury for me as a coach to have (Ingram) in those situations. He’s just not getting rattled,” said Rajakovic. “He gets to the spot on the floor and reads the game really well. If he has a good shot, he’s gonna take it. But he also did a good job in that game with six assists. He did a good job of finding open people. That’s a great example, how he found CMB under the rim for a layup.”
If we’re nitpicking, the Raptors shouldn’t have been in that tough against a Bulls team that is rebuilding on the fly. Chicago made seven trades at the deadline and features seven new players on their roster since Feb. 5th, most of them guards. As well, the Bulls were reintegrating Josh Giddey and Jalen Smith after injury absences and were without head coach Billy Donovan due to the death of his father.
The Bulls looked like a team being remade in motion as they coughed up nine first-quarter turnovers. But the Raptors’ own state of discombobulation meant that they were only up by two even though they had 10 more field goal attempts. But the math only works if the shots go in, and Toronto converted just 10 of their 25 first-quarter shots and failed to hit a three. And it wasn’t like they weren’t prone to treating the ball like something hot and slippery.
The most absurd sequence of the early going came when the Raptors forced a Bulls eight-second violation only to have Immanuel Quickley (14 points) miss a wide-open elbow jumper. Toronto then forced another turnover when Jamal Shead (four points, four assists and two steals) intercepted a post entry, only to have Barnes (14 points, nine rebounds, five assists and three steals, but six turnovers) promptly throw the ball cross-court and out-of-bounds after the Raptors got the ball up the floor.
Next, the Raptors Ja’Kobe Walter (14 points, three steals) stole the ensuing inbounds pass, and while it was probably a bad idea for him to try and dunk over Bulls centre Jalen Smith, he got two free throws for the effort. Encouraged, Walter made another steal, got fouled and hit those freebies, too. But then Shead turned it over, and Smith went the other way for a fastbreak dunk.
Still, the Raptors were able to persevere through it enough to take a 53-45 lead into the half and eventually hold Chicago off for the win. The victory improved their record to 33-23, good for fifth place in the Eastern Conference, and while they remain two games behind fourth-place Cleveland, they are now 2.5 games up on sixth-place Philadelphia.
Those are all good things, if Toronto’s overall performance against the Bulls wasn’t all good.
Three-point Grange:
1. Murray-Boyles with the start: With Jakob Poeltl back in good health, it was somewhat surprising that Rajakovic started Murray-Boyles (11 points, six rebounds) at centre but the explanation made sense: “Going into this game, we were thinking (Guerschon) Yabusele or (Jalen) Smith were starting. We knew the best thing to do [against centres that spread the floor] was switching more. I talked to Jak, so he was completely fine coming off the bench. (With) Nick Richards was coming off the bench,” said Rajakovic. “We were trying to match him up with those minutes (against a more traditional centre). And also, I’m really intrigued to see what it looks like with Jamal (Shead) on the floor and some of the other guys in the second unit.” In just his second game back after missing nearly two months, Poeltl managed just one field goal attempt and didn’t grab a rebound in 16 minutes, but seemed to be moving fluidly and without restriction, so there’s that.
2. What was that all about? RJ Barrett (13 points, six rebounds, three assists on 3-of-10 shooting) got hit with a well-deserved fragrant foul after giving Bulls centre Richards a firm elbow to the stomach while coming around a screen in the first quarter. I asked Barrett about it afterwards and was surprised that it wasn’t in retaliation for anything Richards had done, but more in frustration that the referees hadn’t been making calls to Barrett’s satisfaction. “They started making calls after that, right?” he said. He added that there were no hard feelings between him and the big Bulls centre, who have known each other since they were teenagers playing on the World Team together at the Nike Hoop Summit in 2017.
3. Mamu boo-boo: Sandro Mamukelashvili ended up playing against Chicago despite being listed as questionable before the game due to a bruised rib he suffered when he got caught by a stray elbow from Detroit Pistons guard Daniss Jenkins. He told me that it has settled down considerably over the past week, but he spent the first four or five days of the all-star break finding it uncomfortable to breathe, cough or roll over in bed. The good news is it will only be likely to bother him for another month or so …. The big Georgian finished with seven points and three rebounds in 16 minutes off the bench.
