Raptors Looking For Development as Scottie Barnes-less Phase Begins With Victory Over Hornets
It’s time to step up.
That’s the message the Toronto Raptors received from head coach Darko Rajaković in the wake of Scottie Barnes’ left hand fracture. It remains unclear how long Barnes will be out for. He’s seeing a specialist, and it sounds like season-ending surgery has not been ruled out. But for now, there’ll be opportunities to go around, plenty of them.
Maybe that’s the silver lining to this Barnes injury for Toronto. Sure, there’ll be more losses and plenty of disappointing basketball over the final 21 games. An ugly 111-106 victory over the Charlotte Hornets was just the latest example. But maybe from this muck, Toronto will find something.
Take Immanuel Quickley’s aggressiveness, for example. Without Barnes, Quickley is now the offensive engine for the Raptors, and he was treated as such. The Hornets keyed on Quickley, sending extra pressure his way, but it didn’t seem to frustrate him too much.
"Make the right play every time down the floor. That's the message that I was sending him," Rajaković said of Quickley who had 22 points, 11 assists, and seven rebounds Sunday night. "I thought that he had a couple of really good reads. I felt that a couple of times he could do a little bit better, but I'm loving that he's in this position that he's going to have so much more to handle."
The 24-year-old worked the pick-and-roll with Jakob Poeltl early and looked in control most of the night. But Poeltl existed with a left pinky dislocation in the second quarter and his presence was certainly missed.
Toronto went nearly four minutes without a score in the fourth quarter as the Hornets came storming back thanks to an 11-0 run.
A Davis Bertans three-pointer gave Charlotte a lead with a minute to go, but Quickley wouldn’t go away. He got deep in the paint for pair of free throws to recapture the lead for Toronto.
In the final seconds, Quickley was perfect. He nailed all six of his free throws and a steal from from Gary Trent Jr. allowed Toronto to escape near disaster.
"Anytime somebody that plays 40 minutes a night is not in the game, I think everything changes but you try to keep it the same as much as you can," Quickley said. "Scottie probably gets me like four open shots a games, makes my job really easy, but everybody came in, chipped, and played with great effort. So that's what we're going to need."
Ochai Agbaji’s role grew the most in Barnes’ absence Sunday night. He was thrust into the starting lineup and played heavy minutes as Toronto’s top defensive stopper. It was a night of mixed reviews, though, as Agbaji was certainly more involved in the offense, but not with ideal results.
He gave Toronto a double-digit lead in the third quarter, blocking a Miles Bridges layup attempt before taking it end-to-end for a crafty layup of his own. But his efficiency, especially from deep, wasn’t good enough. He racked up 13 points on 6-for-20 shooting and converted just one of his seven three-point attempts.
"I think the best thing to do is not putting pressure on yourself," Agbaji said. "Easier said than done, obviously. But to just trust in (Rajakovic). Trust in him that, whatever you do out there, he fully supports you."
Jordan Nwora looked a little better, at least offensively. He’ll see rotation minutes with Barnes out and should be an offensive spark plug off the bench as he was Sunday, chipping in 11 points on 5-for-8 shooting. The issue with Nwora has been on the other end where he still needs to earn Rajaković’s trust.
But at this point, this is what Toronto is looking for.
"I talked to those guys individually before the game and what I told them is like they're gonna have expanded role and minutes and I told them that I'm not gonna make any conclusions based on one game good or bad," Rajaković said.
The organization is hoping these extra opportunities can lead to development for those who’ll join Barnes whenever this rebuild turns back into competitive basketball.
“We cannot get too high or too low after a game. We've got to continue developing those guys,” Rajaković said pre-game. “It doesn't matter how they perform in a single game. We got to give them an opportunity to bounce back from a bad performance or to learn from it. Or if they play well, to take it to another level. It has to be a lot of patience over here with them.”
If Sunday was any indication of what’s to come, there may have to be quite a bit of patience over the next month and a half.
Poeltl Update
Initial testing on Poeltl's pinky have come back clean without any fractures, but he was still undergoing further investigation post-game, Rajaković said.
Up Next: New Orleans Pelicans
The Raptors will wrap up their homestand Tuesday night when the New Orleans Pelicans come to town for a 7:30 p.m. ET tipoff at Scotiabank Arena.
