Author: mook557hotmailcom

Ideally the hurdles would have come earlier in the scrimmage schedule. Read More

GANTER: Raptors’ final scrimmage not their finest hour — Toronto Sun

deally the hurdles would have come earlier in the scrimmage schedule.

But after two solid games with the odd issue to deal with, the Raptors closed out the scrimmage portion of the NBA re-start with their worst of three performances in a 117-106 loss to the Phoenix Suns.

GANTER: Raptors’ final scrimmage not their finest hour

On Saturday, the games count for real and the competition only gets tougher with the LeBron James-led Los Angeles Lakers providing the opposition.

A repeat of Tuesday’s turnover-prone offence and lackadaisical defence is going to get the Raptors off on the wrong foot.

In truth, this was a team that looked and played like they were done with these tune-up games.

Through three quarters, much of that with the starters on the floor, the Raptors turned the ball over 18 times. And it wasn’t as if it was just one guy having a bad game. The giveaways were contagious with Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, Kyle Lowry, OG Anunoby and Norm Powell all committing three turnovers each.

But the Suns were allowed to do just about whatever they wanted and scored more than 30 points a quarter in the three quarters the starters were still in the game, a claim very few opponents can make against a Raptors team that hangs its hat on its defence.

All in all, it was a very un-Raptors-like performance.

“Well, we certainly didn’t do anything very well,” head coach Nick Nurse said. “It’s a combination of us not being super engaged or energetic and them playing very well. Give them a lot of credit, I thought they had us back on our heels all night. We turned it over — geez, we must have had eight turnovers in the backcourt, which is just strange; you have one or two of those every two months, you know what I mean, normally. So just, not very engaged and that’s it.”

Perhaps the best thing about the night from a Toronto perspective was that it marked the end of the meaningless scrimmages.

Nurse seemed to be in complete agreement with that.

“I think I’m glad there isn’t any more of these, right?,” he said. “I think we’ve gone one too far with these you know what I mean? Certainly (based on) our mindset or the way we played tonight.

“But it’s OK,” he continued. “Listen, we again didn’t have a lot of great, engaged play tonight, and it showed up in transition defence and contesting shots and missed assignments and things like that. But it’s so meaningless that you can kind of wash it away pretty quick and hopefully we’ll have (the players’) attention here for a few days of practice which I’m sure we will and we’ll get some things ironed out and then we get to see come Saturday night what the deal is.”

Nurse knows his team better than anyone else and he pointed out they tend to have one of those games once in a while where they get all the bad habits and poor play out of the way and then normally rebound in a very big way.

Powell, one of just a few Raptors who will look back on this game and find anything they want to take from it, was very clear just how long he thought the stench of this one would last.

“Right after the game ended,” he responded to a question about how long it would take this team to flush this one. “We’ll obviously talk about it and about how we can improve and get better but we take it for what it is and move on to the next one.

“It’s real come Saturday so we can’t focus too much on this one. We’ll take the learning (lessons) that we can and see how we can get better for the actual seeding games and get ready for the real deal.”

THE FEW BRIGHT SPOTS

It starts with Marc Gasol in this one. Nurse stretched him out to almost twenty minutes and he looked as engaged as anyone on the court wearing Raptors colours.

Gasol had five points and nine boards, but it was his energy and bounce that caught Nurse’s eye.https://www.youtube.com/embed/CTYRMukWGeM?embed_config={%27relatedChannels%27:%20[],%27autonav%27:true}&autoplay=0&playsinline=1

Powell was an offensive standout as after a couple of games of not seeing his shot drop, he seemed to find the range.

The combo guard/forward was 6-for-11 from the field and made two of his three attempts from beyond the arc for a 14-point night.

Two-way guard Paul Watson also got some love from his coach in this one. The seldom-used Watson played just over 10 minutes and had seven points.

“He was good, man,” Nurse said. “I just liked his energy, he as attacking, I thought he played with good confidence. I liked him a lot tonight. I think he’s got some size, got some speed, he looks like he’s certainly not afraid out there. He looked good, a good bright spot and a good chance to see him.”

QUICK HITS

Mississauga native Oshae Brissett, the Raptors’ other two-way player on the roster, was a no-go for Tuesday’s final scrimmage after he got banged up a little earlier in the week. He joined Pat McCaw, who remains out with an undisclosed issue that Nurse said he expects McCaw will wind up playing through … Nurse was not aware of any other setbacks in the game from an injury perspective, although he noted Terence Davis took a hard fall and was a little sore. He didn’t believe that would be a lingering injury.