Morning Coffee - Nov. 13, 2024
Morning Coffee - Nov. 13, 2024
Gradey still thriving | Barrett slowing down | NBA Cup starts with a dud
Gradey Dick explodes for career high in Raptors NBA Cup loss - Raptors Republic
With a lot of shots available, Dick has taken the opportunity thrust upon him and exploded onto the scene repeatedly. Much has been said about his resiliency as a shot maker (and shot taker) — bouncing around screens, running almost more than anyone in the NBA, creating exhaustion in those who watch him — but he has proven he has the “score over half of his teams points in a half” type of resiliency and gumption.
The Raptors, who were consistently turned away from the basket by Brook Lopez (who loomed larger than life) and shot a collective 10-30 from the floor for 21 points if you remove Dick’s contributions. Coming into this game, Dick has been one of the best players in the NBA at attacking closeouts, but I’m not sure anyone was expecting him to get downhill so often and with so much vigor that he would repeatedly run roughshod into the towering Lopez for 14 free throw attempts in a half (and surely some bruises in the morning).
He also ran Giannis Antetokounmpo sideline to sideline off a simple handoff, pumped, pivoted, and found Jakob Poeltl for an easy dump down bucket. Dick took Andre Jackson Jr. for a ride that included two big throw ahead dribbles, one slick hang dribble, and his patented fall away baseline jumper. He pulled up with reckless abandon from 29 feet off of a Davion Mitchell handoff. The Raptors young star popped off to the tune of 22 first half points, and did so while being a top priority for the Bucks defense. Really impressive stuff.
“It’s cup night, so there’s a lot more on the line.” Dick said at halftime. “I think we all move, we all cut, we don’t let it get stagnant and it forces them to react to us. That helps open up gaps and shots.”
Wise words from the Raptors movement czar.
Of course the first bucket of the second half would be a Dick 3-pointer after relocating, and kicked off a torrid run of play that saw the Raptors erase an 11-point deficit in less than 2-and-a-half minutes of play. Five points from Dick, a step-back triple from RJ Barrett, and 6 seconds of full court pressure from Mitchell netted a steal and a cross court feed to Ochai Agbaji for a corner triple. Of course the Bucks had a run in them to respond, and it was largely built off of the overwhelming excellence of Antetokounmpo, but that’s basketball! Basketball!!
Interested in more of how Dick made things happen on offense? Well, he delivered the assist for the highlight of Bruno Fernando’s career. An empty-side pick n’ roll where the Bucks overextended their two-man screen coverage, letting Dick slide the pocket pass between them and Fernando detonated on Antetokounmpo for a highlight dunk. He also hit a tween-step-back pull-up triple against a close contest.
Quick Reaction: Raptors 85 , Bucks 99 - Raptors Republic
A - G. Dick38 MIN, 32 PTS, 5 REB, 3 AST, 1 STL, 7-20 FG, 4-10 3FG, 14-16 FT, 0 BLK, 3 TO, -2 +/-
What else can I say, the Raptors’ leading score this season (so far), and he just continues to impress. He’s constantly moving and did a fantastic job tonight of attacking the Bucks basket and drawing fouls tonight. Aside from not getting the victory, he did everything right tonight.
Raptors Takeaways: Getting harder to find bright spots after 0-5 road trip - Sportsnet
Barrett’s return to Toronto has been mostly positive. He played some of the best basketball of his career at the end of last season, leading Toronto in scoring and doing it with an impressive level of efficiency (55-per-cent shooting from the floor and 39 per cent from three) that had eluded him for the most part while with the Knicks.
Even after missing most of training camp and the first three games of the regular season with a shoulder injury, Barrett looked like his new game was built to last. In his first four starts this year he put up 28.9 points, 5.8 rebounds and 7.3 assists while shooting 49.4 per cent from the floor and 46.2 per cent from three. Star-J indeed.
But it only made sense that without Quickley and Barnes, defences would be able to load up on Barrett and truly test him. In the short term, it’s been a struggle. Coming into Tuesday night, he was scoring just 17.5 points a game while shooting 35.7 per cent from the floor and 19.2 per cent from three over his last four games. The five assists (his average in that span) were nice, but the four turnovers not so much.
It was more of the same against the Bucks on Tuesday as Barrett finished with seven points and five turnovers while shooting 3-of-14 from the floor.
There’s a stubbornness to Barrett that is admirable, but when the turnovers mount and the decisions get iffy – no, trying to drive into 14 feet and 500 pounds of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez at once is not a good decision – he can look miles from the player he’s shown most often as a Raptor. Slumps are nothing new to Barrett – his month-by-month shooting splits can look like a roller-coaster. Hopefully his next stage of development will be to keep this skid short.
Raptors Bucks takeaways: Non-stop injuries wearing down Barrett, others? - Toronto Sun
RJ Barrett was averaging 33.3 minutes prior to Tuesday, which isn’t unusual for him since it’s exactly his career average, but, he’s never been tasked with being a No. 1 scoring option and a top play-making threat while playing those kind of minutes. Even at Duke Barrett wasn’t required to do what Rajakovic is asking of him. Not to mention Rajakovic has said all year he wants Barrett to give a top effort on defence as well. Barrett shot just 3-for-14 against the Bucks and is now slumping.
Dick, like Agbaji and Barrett, is also a candidate to burn out under the strain of having to make up for all of the absences. Dick has played about 30% of the total minutes as he did in his entire rookie season. We are only three weeks into the season. And he’s already had some rough games following his fantastic start as the minutes piled up. Obviously he looked just fine on Tuesday as he was probably the best player on the court.
Starting centre Jakob Poeltl, missing Olynyk, in particular, had never averaged over 30 minutes a night until this season (he was under 20 a game in his first four years in the NBA before San Antonio, and then Toronto a second time around gave him more time). He has to guard the biggest and strongest players on the court and cover tons of ground. It will catch up with him if the cavalry doesn’t arrive soon.
Meanwhile, Davion Mitchell went from averaging 27.7 minutes as a rookie, to 18.1 and then 15.3 as his time in Sacramento wore down, but is nearly doubling last year’s average because Quickley has missed so many games. Like Agbaji, Mitchell has major asks at both ends of the floor and is having to adjust to a lot more minutes than he expected. Like several Raptors, Mitchell looked like he didn’t have much left to end this trip, scoring one point on two shots on Tuesday.
The Raptors beat the Raptors on a miserable night in Milwaukee - Toronto Star
It’s another shot to a banged-up team that fell to 2-10 on the season, and 0-7 on the road, with a 99-85 pasting administered by the Milwaukee Bucks.
Gradey Dick, with a career-high 32 points, was about the only positive as the Raptors played the first of their NBA Cup in-season tournament games.
The Raptors were solely responsible for their own demise. They committed 22 turnovers, leading to 28 Milwaukee points. They watched the Bucks turn 13 offensive rebounds into 21 points. It wasn’t so much the Bucks beating the Raptors as it was the Raptors beating the Raptors.
Aside from an 11-0 run in the opening minutes of the third quarter that got them into a tie, the Raptors were not competitive most of the night. The Bucks, hardly world-beaters at 3-8 now, almost frittered away a 21-point lead but hung on when the Raptors made a belated run.
The loss of Quickley, who was injured in the fourth quarter of a loss to the Lakers on Sunday, keeps the team’s major bits broken up, as they have been for months.
Scottie Barnes, RJ Barrett and Quickley have not played a minute together this season and won’t for weeks. Through a series of injuries and family tragedies, the last time the three played in a game together was March 1.
And since Quickley still needs to be re-evaluated and Barnes is at least a couple of weeks from even practising after suffering a fractured orbital bone in his eye, it’s likely going to be early December before the team can hope its top three players will be on the court at the same time.
Gradey Dick Sets Career High & Other Takeaways From Raptors Loss to Bucks - Sports Illustrated
The 20-year-old sophomore is no longer the 16-year-old boy the Raptors joked he looked like last season. That's not to say he looks so remarkably different physically, but the way he's playing is night and day compared to last season.
For one, he stood in against Giannis Antetokounmpo who drove with a full head of steam right into Dick who drew the charge in the first quarter. It was the kind of play that showed Dick's improved defensive positioning and the toughness he's playing with this season.
On the other end, Dick was phenomenal, dropping a career-high 32 points in 38 minutes. He took advantage of the Bucks trying to run him off the three-point line and used that extra attention to draw fouls near the hoop. In the first half alone, Dick went to the line for 14 attempts, cashing in 12 from the charity stripe. He had 22 of Toronto's 43 points before the break, carrying Toronto's otherwise sluggish offense to competence.
Dick's development this season has been the biggest reason for optimism this year. He crossed over Andre Jackson Jr. before nailing a fadeaway jumper on the right baseline and later stepped into a 25-foot three-pointer without hesitation. When the Raptors get healthy this season — if the Raptors get healthy this season — Dick's emergence as a floor-spacer who can contort opposing defense is going to help Toronto's offense a ton.
Short-handed Raptors sent packing by Antetokounmpo's slumping Bucks - Toronto Sun
Toronto had trailed by five after a quarter despite holding the Bucks to 33.3% shooting from the field.
Dick’s two three-pointers were the only ones by the Raptors in the opening 24 minutes on only six attempts. Meanwhile, the Bucks, even without Lillard, were letting it fly, getting up 31 treys and making nine.
The Raptors gave up 17 points off 14 turnovers. They also coughed up 12 second-chance points. Milwaukee took 18 more shots in the first half.
Dick also took a charge on Antetokounmpo in the opening minute.
Starting centre Jakob Poeltl and fellow big men Chris Boucher and Bruno Fernando provided some pop to help Dick, but that was about it for Toronto in the first half.
But Toronto went on an 11-0 run to start the third quarter to tie the game, briefly making the game interesting, before Milwaukee regained its composure and went on a 22-5 run to pull away.
The game marked the end of a season-long five-game road trip, though the team will start a four-game trip in less than two weeks.
Toronto’s second NBA Cup game comes Friday at home against the Detroit Pistons. Other games will be against Indiana and Miami. All 30 teams were randomly drawn into groups of five within their conference based on win-loss records from the 2023-24 regular season. Eight teams advance to the knockout round.
NBA Power Rankings: Cavaliers, Warriors lead pack; something nice about all 30 teams - The Athletic
This week: 30
Last week: 29
In the last week: L at Kings, L at Clippers, L at Lakers
Offensive rating: 112.7 (14th)
Defensive rating: 120.0 (30th)
Say Something Nice: Their offense is nice to look at.
No team has more losses than the Raptors right now, and they’re the only team in the league without a road win. No team is worse defensively. But only three teams average more assists per game than Darko Rajaković’s Raptors, only two teams pass the ball more, and no team is more reliant on paint points. That also means that no team attempts a lower percentage of their shots from 3 than Toronto. If nothing else, the Raptors have a brand that just requires the right talent getting healthy.