Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
Raptors Weather Hornets Storm with Another Character-Building Win
These are character-building games.
The Toronto Raptors are young. Take Goran Dragic off the team and the average of this team is among the youngest in the NBA. That much was clear early in the season when the Raptors seemed to throw away their fair share of games with youthful mistakes. They'd jump ahead by double digits only to lose a close one. On other nights, they'd rally late but couldn't quite get over the hump or drop an easy one to the Detroit Pistons or Oklahoma City Thunder.
Finally, they're figuring it out. They're not perfect, far from it, but they're learning. They showed it Monday night as they watched a 23-point lead nearly vanish when the Charlotte Hornets came storming back in the second half. A month ago, Toronto would have folded. This time, though, the Raptors punched back to clinch a 116-101 victory, their sixth straight.
"I'm happy that they seem to be, first and foremost playing all the way through regardless of what happened or what's happened," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said following practice Sunday. "They just continue to kind of keep playing with I think pretty good composure and decision making."
Everything went Toronto's way in the first half. The Raptors looked unstoppable with Pascal Siakam playing at an All-Star level, Gary Trent Jr. nailing shots, and Fred VanVleet making the Hornets pay from deep. It eas easy, too easy.
In the NBA, though, teams rarely rollover.
The Hornets opened the third quarter on a 9-0 run and minutes later pulled within three.
The difference these days is Toronto has figured out how to win the tough ones. The lethargic defense that plagued the Raptors in the third tightened up, the offense opened up with Siakam and VanVleet running the shot, and Chris Boucher continued to star off the bench with timely rebounds and quality defense.
"I think there's a million ways to win a game, I always say, and you’ve got to find different ways each and every night you get a W in this league. It's always different," Nurse said post-game.
The Raptors are finding ways to win. They've done it in come-from-behind fashion, they've done it with bench production, with offensive firepower, and lockdown defensive. On Monday, they showed they can counterpunch.
"We’ve been in a number of scenarios where we’ve been down 10, up 10 and a lot of those games have come down to the end and we’ve handled them with I think we, you said poise, composure, whatever, very well," Nurse said.
Siakam Has Another Statement Game
Hours before tipoff Monday night the NBA announced LaMelo Ball was heading to the All-Star Game as an injury replacement for Kevin Durant over Siakam among others.
Oops.
Siakam once again starred on both ends of the court, lighting it up offensively and highlighting the night with a chase-down block on Terry Rozier. He finished the night with 24 points, 11 rebounds, and eight assists, a tad better than Ball's 15 points, four rebounds, and nine assists on 26.3% shooting.
"It’s been a rough couple years but I just feel healthy," said Siakam who earned Player of the Week Honors pre-game. "My shoulder’s feeling better, my body is feeling good and physically and mentally, just being in a good place and just continue to do the things that I know I can do every single night."
Boucher's Impact Continues
Last season may have been Boucher's most impressive from a box score perspective, but what he's been doing lately has pushed his play to a new level. He's fully bought into his role as a high-energy bench big and has figured out his fit defensively. He's no longer selling out to stop three-point shooters with ill-advised closeouts. Instead, he's locked in.
"I always say that you're never gonna do it five out of five nights. Nobody plays good every night. But where do you fall on that? And I would say Chris was like a two or three out of five guy. Now he's become almost a four out of five guy," Nurse said. "He impacts the game positively four out of five nights and that's just come from a lot of different development areas for him."
Just a few months ago, he appeared to be on his last legs in Toronto, an obvious trade candidate should any team see value in him ahead of the trade deadline. Now, he's become a key cog in Toronto's well-oiled machine.
"I should have been doing that a long time ago," Boucher said. "So I'll say that but never too late to do the right thing and figure out your game."
Up Next: Oklahoma City Thunder
The Raptors will look to make it seven in a row Wednesday night when they take on the Oklahoma City Thunder at 8 p.m. ET.
