Dave Feschuk: Winning road trip shows what Raptors can do. And why they still need a trade or two
As a 13-year NBA veteran, the former Raptor knows a few things about the machinations of player movement.— was only Green’s second appearance of this his 13th professional season. After spending the bulk of the year rehabbing from knee surgery, Green provided six points in 19 minutes off the bench for the home side.
Indeed, Toronto’s list of weaknesses has been well documented. To name just a couple, they’re short on perimeter shooting, which helped explain why the Raptors ranked 28th in both three-point accuracy and true shooting percentage heading into Sunday. And their half-court offence is crying out for more penetration and all-around playmaking.
So Sunday’s win, if it was anything, was a reminder that the Raptors can still conjure the kind of game-turning defensive effort that’s been their trademark in more prosperous seasons under Nurse. In handing the Grizzlies their eighth loss in nine games, the Raptors forced 20 turnovers and crashed the offensive glass for 21 second-chance points, while reeling off 23 more field-goal attempts than the Grizzlies.
Maybe the same could be said of this team, which slogged through plenty of subpar nights before improving to 4-3 on the road trip with Sunday’s rousing win, which was buoyed by energetic performances off the bench by Chris Boucher and Thaddeus Young . “There’s 34, 32, 36 minutes of really good defence,” Nurse said. “We just need to kind of keep extending that out a little bit to be a little bit more of who we want to be.”
Nurse, mind you, prevented Bane from adding to that total with a successful coach’s challenge on a shooting foul that would have put Bane on the free-throw line and the Raptors ahead 104-103 with 17 seconds left in regulation. Call reversed, Pascal Siakam made a couple of free throws and the Raptors got a stop to cap it.
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