John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
Raptors Continue to Show Progress, Handling their Business Against Shorthanded T-Wolves
It wasn’t all that long ago that the Toronto Raptors couldn’t even handle the easy ones.
Just two months ago, Toronto dropped three straight games against the Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton-less Milwaukee Bucks, Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert-less Minnesota Timberwolves, and Jayson Tatum-less Boston Celtics. To call it the most embarrassing stretch of the season for the Raptors would minimize all the other devastating losses, but it's certainly in contention.
For now, though, Toronto has put an end to the silly losses.
No Towns and Anthony Edwards for the Timberwolves made Saturday’s 122-107 victory over Minnesota an easy one, at least relatively speaking. For the second straight game, the Raptors took care of business, knocking off another sub-.500 team, extending their winning streak to three straight, and inching closer to something resembling consistently good basketball.
Fred VanVleet showed no fear going at Gobert in the early going. He continued to flash his much-improved inside scoring, getting Toronto started with a pair of dipsey-doodle inside moves that faked out the Timberwolves’ defense and led to two early buckets in the paint. He started the night 4-for-4 in the paint, scoring 10 of Toronto’s first 19 points, and dropping 22 in the first half en route to a 28-point performance with seven assists.
Jakob Poeltl struggled a little bit early against Gobert and battled foul trouble for most of the night, but everything he gave up against the Timberwolves’ big came right back at the other end, scoring 12 of his 14 points in the first half. Minnesota had no answers for Poeltl’s post moves early and a great dish by Gary Trent Jr. to Poeltl in the paint put the Raptors up eight in the first quarter.
For as good as Toronto’s offense looked, the defense couldn’t reliably get stops against a Timberwolves team missing key players. Naz Reid came kept Minnesota around with 22 points off the bench, as the Raptors’ second unit to struggled early.
It wasn’t until O.G. Anunoby and Pascal Siakam took over in the second quarter that the Raptors began to pull away. Siakam converted an and-1 with his go-to spin move and nailed a three-pointer out of the pick-and-roll with Christian Koloko who returned from a nose fracture dawning a see-through mask. Anunoby nailed a pair of threes including a buzzer-beater off a spectacular over-the-head and behind-the-back pass from Scottie Barnes in the final seconds of the half.
Minnesota wouldn’t go away, though. A dreadful start to the third quarter that saw Toronto shot 1-for-8 in the early minutes allowed the Timberwolves to come storming back. The Timberwolves shifted Jaden McDaniels onto VanVleet to slow down Toronto’s lead guard and it kept the Raptors out of sync offensively. Save for a kick-out three from Trent and an impressive one-handed slam from Barnes, Toronto couldn’t get anything going.
But Siakam wouldn’t let up, flipping the script on Minnesota who had taken a three-point lead by scoring nine straight Raptors’ points late in the third. He single-handedly kept Toronto afloat with 10 of his 27 points, eventually finding Chris Boucher for a kick-out three as the Raptors crept ahead by double digits once again.
Trent put the final nail in the coffin for Minnesota, nailing a three-pointer in the final three minutes to put Toronto up 19 points before both teams emptied their benches. He led all Raptors' bench players with 19 points on 8-for-14 shooting.
With the victory, Toronto pulls just a half-game back of the Atlanta Hawks for the eighth seed in the conference.
Up Next: Milwaukee Bucks
The Raptors will have a quick turnaround Sunday night when they head to Milwaukee for a date with Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks at 8 p.m. ET.
