Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports
Scottie Barnes Shows Out as Raptors Outwork Celtics
This is what the 2021 Toronto Raptors are supposed to look like.
It's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be clean. But this Raptors team is going to outwork and out grind teams on a nightly basis. Just ask the Boston Celtics, who got a lesson in hustle Friday night as Toronto ran away with a 115-83 victory in TD Garden.
Superstar Scottie
Scottie Barnes bounced back from a lackluster opening night performance by putting on a show in Game 2. It was a coming out party for the 20-year-old forward who showed off just about every skill you could want from in an über versatile forward.
"He looked like he was much better at tempo today," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. "He played with more composure coming up the floor, he waited for his moment, and took it to the rim or when they played off him, he took some jump shots."
He hit pull-up mid-range jumpers like an NBA veteran, grabbed offensive rebounds over bigs with two or three inches on him, and even mixed in an above-the-break three-pointer he swished with ease.
"If they give me something that’s open, I’m gonna take it, of course," Barnes said. "If they leave me open, I’m gonna shoot it, no hesitation.”
He finished the game with his first career double-double, scoring a game-high 25 points, grabbing 13 rebounds, and throwing a B-E-A-utiful no-look pass for one of his two assists.
No Shooting, No Problem
The Raptors seem to have found a solution to their inability to create in the half-court. They may shoot something like 40% from the floor this season, but, boy oh boy, they're going to take a ton of shots.
It's really just a simple math equation they've decided to take advantage of. It doesn't really matter how well you shoot if you can just take way more shots than your opponent. So Toronto has gone all-in on forcing turnovers and grabbing offensive rebounds. It's how they survived shooting 42% from the floor on Friday night, especially early. They simply outworked the Celtics, taking 18 more shot attempts than Boston, forcing 25 turnovers en route to 27 points off turnovers, and snaring 21 offensive rebounds to create 21 second-chance points.
"Well, miss a lot of shots. There's a lot of them available is one part of the formula and then just crash [the glass], just sending more bodies," said Nurse, who laughed about all those offensive rebounds off missed shots. "I also think that we made a concerted effort to take it to the rim and even though we weren't finishing much, especially early in the game, we were getting a lot of those misses back, getting two or three cracks and still sometimes not coming away with anything, but the will was being seen by our guys."
It may not look pretty on most nights, but if the Raptors can continue to simply outshoot teams by that kind of margin, as they've now done in both the first game of the season and the second, they should have some success.
Starters Swap?
Coming into the game Nurse said he was going with the same starters as Game 1. The official Raptors Twitter account even tweeted out a starting lineup with Goran Dragic in it. But when the ball was thrown up on Friday, Dragic was on the bench and Gary Trent Jr. was starting.
"I was thinking about it a bunch and just decided to kind of pull the trigger on it and go for it and obviously we played really well, Nurse said. "It made Gary more comfortable to be out there and kind of feed off the other guys and it made Goran just more comfortable running the second unit."
Trent’s scoring opportunities came a little bit more natural in the starting unit and Dragic helped lead a second unit that erase an early seven-point Celtics lead.
More important than Trent’s scoring, though, is the progress he continues to make defensively. He's been a pest with his hands so far this season, repeatedly poking balls loose, deflecting passes, and creating turnovers.
"I think that we like to try to be aggressive on the ball and I think maybe that's a little different for him," Nurse said. "I think because it’s taken some time to get him up but now I think he's finding out now he's got really quick hands."
Trent finished the game with 20 points on 7-for-13 shooting with four steals.
Highlight of the Night
Fred VanVleet seems to have a pretty short memory. Just seconds after seeing his 25-foot three-pointer blocked by Robert Williams III, the 6-foot-1(ish) VanVleet took two steps back and nailed a 27-footer over the 6-foot-9 Williams.
As VanVleet ran back on defense he couldn't help but crack a smile.
Up Next: Dallas Mavericks
Luka Donic and company are coming to town as the Raptors return home Saturday night to take on the Dallas Mavericks at 7:30 p.m. ET.
