Transcription
The Raptors lose to the Celtics in an all-important game where their stars did not show up. Let's go to the film room.
The only thing that's originally felt is that, and I, I've studied older films and try to figure out how I got that impression. I always get these right when we're cutting. The unique thing about film is an art.
All right, y'all. So, the Raptors uh played a pretty competitive game through three quarters. Did not finish it out in the fourth quarter against the Celtics uh and lost by 14 points. It was much closer than that throughout this game, but where they fell was their three top scorers in Brandon Ingram and Scotty Barnes and RJ Barrett uh truthfully just did not show up in this game. RJ Barrett had uh he was six of 17 in this one for 15 points. That's a little inflated with some garbage time scoring. Scotty Barnes, five of 14 with 10 points. Again, inflated with some garbage time scoring. Brandon Ingram, six of 13, 15 points. Uh he had three big buckets in the fourth quarter, but outside of that, not much.
Um, why, why did the Raptors starters struggle? Their stars struggle offensively in this game. I truthfully think it comes down to a combination of spacing and shooting. Without Emanuel Quickley, the Raptors just don't have enough good shooters to put a player above the break that is enough of a threat to draw attention. And so in situations like this where Brandon Ingram is the main ball handler creating uh, they have Jamal Shed above the break, right? And he's way above the break here. Um, but that doesn't matter. Like there's no attention to be had here because also on the floor is Colinary Boils who's not that much of a shooter, isn't a shooter. Scotty Barnes, who isn't a shooter, and the one shooter that they have is Mamu, who's spaced out to the weak side. Just not a lot of options spacing wise for Brandon Ingram to operate. And so as you see here, you know, everybody is kind of pinched in not allowing BI to get into this driving lane. He can turn and maybe operate in this area of the floor. Maybe that will provide a little bit better spacing. But nonetheless, this guy above the break, Jamal Shed, and I'm not pointing out Jamal specifically, but he tends to be the guy here above the break in some of these situations, enables this guy to send help from above the break, making it a lot easier for uh defenses to guard the Raptors and their stars. And so BI knocks down this mid-range jump shot. He's been asked to knock down a lot of tough mid-range looks all season, but that is the key when it comes to spacing.
Very similar situation in this game this time for RJ Barrett. They run, you know, pin down into a dribble handoff between Yakob and RJ. And as we can see again, spacing uh and this time the the culprit here, if you will, is Scotty Barnes above the break. Not much of a shooter. Yaka Purle rolling to the basket as part of this DHO. They've got Jacobe Walter, good shooter on the weak side. Brandon Ingram, good shooter, especially off the catch, on the strong side as a help. So the the the tag defenders won't be there, but the guy above the break will gladly help out and tag. And so J Jason Tatum is going to tag Yaka Purle here, making it easier for Kada to guard Purle. Um and then on the other side, the Celtics can just swarm RJ. And now R.J. is put in a really tough position where you see there's four players keyed in on him. Tatum just scoops in for this steal. Celtics are running.
Similar situation here. So RJ Barrett call Murray Boils pick and roll and again he gets into the middle of the floor. Uh but this time you know Sam Hower helps from the weak side. Once again if you look the the weak side help in Jason Tatum is allowed to roam off of Scotty Barnes as a shooter. And so not a lot of playmaking opportunities here for RJ Barrett. He can't the the window isn't there for him to call him Murray Boils. Really the only pass he can make is outside to see uh to Mamu and nothing gets created here. He tries to draw a foul. Can't do it.
Now Scotty Barnes on the ball. And again, teams are going to go under on these screens with Scotty Barnes. That's one of the main issues with having him be your lead ball handler. For all the talk about Scotty Barnes as PG, this is one of the drawbacks of that. Having him be your point guard means teams go under. Teams switch these pick and rolls comfortably. And so Scotty um and now if we look at the spacing here once again a quick note Jamal shed above the break here so Pton Pritchard can dig in on these situations because Colin Murray Boils is here on the dunker spot. AJ Lawson shaking out to the weak side. Mamu and AJ good shooters on the weak side. decent enough spacing, but again, this is a bailout situation where Scotty can't take advantage of Nicolola Vuchic on him and settles into this mid-range jump shot. Again, uh, you know, from watching Scotty Barnes last year and this year, I have talked about it at Nazium like that mid-range jump shot is a good counter. When it's the thing that he relies on, it's no longer a counter. It's overdependence on that thing.
And you know, if we look at it here once again, some poor spacing for the Raptors. Brandon Ingram, uh, and basically three and a half bad shooters. RJ Bear did not have a good shooting game in this one, but nonetheless, uh, has been an okay enough shooter compared to some of the rest of the guys on this uh, lineup right now. So, as you see here, every single person, every single Celtics player is pinched in on Brandon Ingram and this opportunity in the middle of the floor because they don't care about Jamal Shed above the break. They don't care about Scotty Barnes in the corner. None of these things are threats. Brandon Ingram in the middle of the floor is absolutely a threat. And so he has no choice but to make this pass to Scotty Barnes. And Scotty has struggled from three this season, does not knock down this corner. And the other thing is like, you know, Scotty has to do a better job of taking advantage against these one-on-one situations where uh, you know, he's being guarded by Baylor Shyman who spent most of his time uh last season in the G-League. like you have to take advantage of these opportunities and go one-on-one.
And as we talked about with spacing, this time they do have a spacer above the break in Mamu. And still Jordan Walsh is here ready to split the difference. Still there's not that much of a playmaking opportunity. The Raptors have some pretty good spacing around Scotty here. Uh, you know, of course Colin Murray Boils is in that dunker spot, AJ Lawson in the weak side, Jacobe Walter on the strong side. Like that's pretty good spacing for Scotty to operate. He just needs to take advantage of the smaller, weaker defender on him. And that's the bad for the Toronto Raptors in this game where I truthfully thought they played a pretty good game for three quarters. Uh, it's just that the Raptors are not good enough, folks.
As we welcome you inside the film room, uh, only a few more regular season games left to play for your Toronto Raptors. They lose to the Boston Celtics. And as I mentioned, uh, a strugglesome game for the trio of Brandon Ingram, Scotty Barnes, and RJ Barrett. I think a lot of the conversation after this one will be about Scotty and, uh, you know, truthfully, his lack of scoring, his lack of ability to score in this game. Uh, he has he has been dealing with some injuries here. So, obviously, let's throw that out there for people who will very quickly come to rush and defend him. Uh, it's it's not a case of defending him or being against him or anything like that. Analyzing Scotty Barnes as a player is just something we have to take for like the the brass tax of the situation is that Scotty Barnes isn't known for his scoring. Scotty Barnes is not a scorer. Um, that is the area of his game. And if you've been watching this show for the last three weeks in this whole absence of Emanuel Quickley and the development of Scotty Barnes PG dialogue, um, I have continuously lamented that Scotty Barnes will be as good of a playmaker as he is a scorer. And so if he ever develops his scoring, then we will see his playmaking truly shine. Because outside of that, uh, teams will key in on him in a way to force him to score. uh, they will stay home on shooters in situations uh where you just saw and ultimately I think it's one of those things where um, you know, he's such a great defender, very good passer uh, but needs to be set up in certain situations and this team desperately is missing a point guard. This team is desperately missing a secondary ball handler is Emanuel Quickley that IQ is having a really really great season for this team. uh, he would have helped with some of this above the break spacing that I was mentioning. Allow Brandon Ingram, allow RJ Barrett, allow Scotty Barnes to have a little bit more space in their isolation scoring opportunities. Nonetheless though, Scotty Barnes isn't a scorer, you know, and and I think it's an issue for the Raptors that, you know, the guy that they're building around franchise-wise isn't a score. So, you have to baked into the future of this team and building around your organization even beyond this season, you have to find guys who can score for you. That's why they traded for Brandon Ingram is to alleviate some of the scoring pressure off of Barnes. Um, and Ingram, for his part, I think has done has had moments where he's been very good, especially to start the season. Went through stretches where he was not hitting any of his shots in that mid-range area. um, has had moments against really good teams, you know, the Knicks and and the Celtics earlier this season where he's had big performances, but ultimately the the like the need to be it's kind of weird, man. Scotty Barnes is a good playmaker. Brandon Ingram is a pretty good scoreer. If you could fusion two dance those two guys together and put them into one wing player, that would be a pretty damn good player, [laughter] you know.
Um, and maybe maybe like we overindex on mid-range jump shots and the shot diet that they have in general. Like if you think about what the Raptors are, they're not a good three-point shooting team. They're not good in terms of quantity or percentage. And so they rely on a shot diet that is mostly mid-range jump shots. How do you battle against a team like the Boston Celtics that can in their sleep shoot the ball well? And did the Celtics shoot the ball well today? No, they didn't. They shot eight of 28 from three and yet they won this game by 14. They have other options to go to. They have Peyton Pritchard who can score off the bounce. They have Jaylen Brown who's been a very, very good isolation player and mid-range score this season. Jason Tatum is obviously back and playing some great hope hoops, too. So, they have so many scoring options at their disposal. Meanwhile, the Raptors don't have the spacing to enhance their stars and also their stars are probably not good enough to overcompensate for that lack of spacing.
I'll give you guys another non-rafteraptors example. Like Kate Cunningham, one of the knocks on him to start his career over the first couple of seasons with Detroit where where the Pistons were a god-awful team, you know, it was like Cade doesn't have the roster to do what he needs to. He needs spacing. And some NBA pundits were like, "Well, you know, he can if he's good enough, he will figure it out, you know." And Kade Kade had moments. Kade had like he put up good box score numbers, but the turnovers were still high. The field goal percentage was still high. And the Pistons went out and got shooters. They got secondary scorers. And Tobias Harris, uh, Jaylen Duran obviously developed. They got good defenders. And now the Pistons are one of the best teams in the NBA. And Kade Cunningham's numbers, for his part, have improved because they have built a roster that have enhanced the things that Cade is good at. Alleviated the pressure off of the things that Cade is not necessarily great at. So, it goes handinand like Scotty Barnes for this season has had an awesome year. He is likely in contention to be an AllNBA player. I I would probably have him in one of those two final spots for third team AllNBA. you know, I did my list like a day or two ago and he was in there and so I like he has had an incredible year. Brandon Ingram turned into an all-star this year and they did that I think in spite of a roster that is not uh enhancing their abilities when it comes to the three-point shooting and the ball handling and the shot creation around them. Now, of course, all of these players have their flaws. You know, Brandon Ingram with his playmaking, Scotty Barnes with his scoring, RJ Barrett with his defense and inconsistency as a three-point shooter, etc., etc. Yaka Purle was terrible in this game as well. All of these players have flaws. You have to find ways to mitigate those flaws as a front office. You have to find ways to mitigate those flaws. You have to find ways to enhance what those guys are good at. And right now, the the lack of shot creation and spacing, as I illustrated in those five or six plays that I just showed you guys, it really inhibits this team stars and their ability to do what they need to. We've seen moments and times in certain matchups where they can over uh overpower that, like be be great in spite of the bad spacing. We've seen great offensive performances from Scotty Barnes this season. We've seen great offensive performances from both BI and RJ this season, but certain matchups will not allow you to do that. The Celtics are a championship level team. They have wing defenders and uh point of attack defenders and helpside defenders and a big big guy in Kada who can alleviate and make things hard for you, who can alleviate some of the stress off of what those guys can create. So that's basically the gist. And to summarize all of that is that the Raptors are quite not are are not quite good enough. They just aren't good enough. Um especially against these teams. They're now 1 and 10 against the rest of the top three in the Eastern Conference. If you add the Cleveland Cavaliers, they've beat the Cavs three times this year, but obviously that was before the James Harden trade. Um this this Raptors team, it feels like we know how the end of their season will will play out. they will, you know, depending on how the next four or five games shake out, four games will shake out for the Raptors. They will either be the six seed or they will be in the playing tournament, uh, playing a single elimination game against one of the Hornets or the Magic. Um, they might win that playing game, they might lose that playing game. They're probably going to end up playing either the Celtics or the Pistons or the Knicks in the first round. And they have not been able to beat those teams. They've only beat the Pistons once out of all of those teams. So, we know what we're headed for. We know what we're what the Raptors specifically, I should say, are headed for. It's going to be a first round out. Probably not going to be a very competitive series.
The the thing you have to look forward to is what can we take away from this season? And I know it's early to jump into that conversation because we will have a summer of being able to jump into that conversation. But, um, I think the one thing you can take away from from this season, and I know it's crazy to say this on a on a on a day in which Scotty Barnes did not play his best basketball, but I think you can take away that Scotty Barnes is an all NBA type player. And through his defense, through his playmaking, and through the sheer ability to win minutes, you know, like you look up and down the Raptor season, the Raptors do much better when Scotty is on the floor. He wins his minutes, and that's important in the NBA. it's important to the regular season. So, um, Scotty Barnes, I think, uh, reaffirmed to a lot of people where his standing is in the NBA. I think even leaguewide, consensus is now in favor of Scotty Barnes, uh, and the type of player that he's become, especially defensively.
Now, outside of that, I think win-wise, you can say, you know, Brandon Ingram has had a healthy season. He obviously turned into an all-star. We will see if the Raptors um want to kind of like continue that part partnership with BI after this summer. RJ Barrett is obviously an expiring salary. He's been I think like a very good bright spot for this Raptors team and he's obviously a hometown guy. It it would be cool to see him stay, but I feel like contract negotiations end up being the the I guess impass here for the Raptors and him. Uh, and ultimately, you know, they're already dealing with a cap crunch with Yaka Purle's money and Emanuel Quickley's money. These are things that you guys all know, but they need to have wins on the margins, and I think the Raptors do have two wins on the margins this season that they can look at in Jacobe Walter and in Colin Murray Boils. They have nailed those draft picks in my opinion. to think of Jacobe Walter who was the 19th pick in his draft um is now looking at I think probably next year being potentially a starter like a a full-time starter in the NBA as the 19th overall pick. That's pretty great. and he's had a really good second season, especially the second half of the year where he came into this year being 10th, 11th man in the rotation, and has constantly fought his way to now being, you know, probably fully healthy, the sixth man of this team. Uh, and, you know, with Emanuel quickly out, him being the starter, uh, alongside RJ Barrett, Jacobe Walter was the best player on the floor tonight for the Raptors. Uh, Jacobe poured in 16 points. That's a team high. He knocked down six of his nine shots, knocked down four of his five threes. He was part of the Raptors being able to help uh turn the Celtics over, and that was one thing that I think helped the Raptors stay in this game through three quarters. They were doing an excellent job defensively of forcing the Celtics into turnovers. They were doing a great job of running off of makes of the Celtics. And I think overall uh if there is a playoff series in this between these two teams, that's the way that they can try and beat get a couple of games off of the Celtics. It's how is our defense going to muck up this game as much as possible. And truthfully, I think through three quarters, the Raptors did a really good job of mucking up this game. They made the Celtics play into their style of basketball. A big part of that was Jacobe Walter. A big part of that was Colin Murray Boils.
Let's break down some of their plays. I just like Colin Murray Boils being able to finish through traffic. Uh looks like he's more comfortable and aggressive. This is an interesting touch from CNB. I haven't seen him do this. It's like this nice little floater/push shot from the free throw line. I would like to see him explore that more. Now Shad and CB flow into a pick and roll and he just slips and gets up for this dunk. More dunking for Colin is always good. And of course, defensively, CNB does his thing one-on-one against Jaylen Brown. Forces the turnover, gets the steal. Great hands, great activity. And then on the other side, finishes in traffic. Raptors switch one to five when him and Scotty are on the floor together. This time it's Tatum versus CMBB. Uh, and he kind of contains this drive from Tatum. Pokes it out using his hand. Great defense again.
Now, Jacobe Walter. And Jacobe was excellent in this game in a few different areas. Uh, I thought he did a great job of knocking down his three-point shots, of course. Uh, above the break shooting, as we mentioned earlier in this show, is very important to the Raptors. Knocking these down consistently really opens up the floor. Now, pick and roll situation where the Raptors are involving uh, two of their non-shooters. And again, the weak side defense tags in. Jacobe being able to knock down these heavily contested threes is essential for the Raptors because you're not going to get a lot of quality looks because of the spacing and so knocking down these threes is crucial. Now set play here, you know, Celtics are reading the pin down into a dribble handoff. He just fakes back door. Great pass by CMBB and the finish. And now this time, you know, pin down into a dribble handoff. He attacks, gets into his floater. That's really impressive. And also that's the next step for him in his career is being able to if the defense is overplaying you, put the down ball down on the floor and make a play. And shooting off of movement is awesome as well. Two pin downs. He pulls up off of them above the break on target. Beautiful shooting from Jacobe in this. And that was awesome. Like that is a big win for the Raptors that those two players are playing like they are. those two players are going to be legitimate rotation players for you. Uh maybe even eventually starters for you. Now you know like all right between Scotty, between CNB, between Jacobe, you have like something there that you can build off of. Whether that's assets to be able to trade, whether that is building blocks to build on top of, the choice is the Toronto Raptors this off season. Uh but nonetheless, like you know, even after a loss like this where it feels like all hope is lost for this particular season for the Raptors, it kind of is in line with what I imagined coming into this season. I said like 44 to 47 wins. And the Raptors are right now at I believe 43 and 35. Uh let me check. Yeah, 43 and 35. They're the seven seed. You know, I imagine they're going to be at like 44 or 45 wins this season. Pretty much in line with what I expected coming into the year. Uh what I did not expect versus what I did expect probably ends up being a completely different video itself. But in terms of the outcome, pretty in line with what I expected it to be. And I didn't expect the Raptors to be uh winning a first round playoff series. I I just didn't see that or I didn't envision that for them this season.
Anyways, I think it's kind of in line with where I thought this team would progress to. Now, that being said, um the ceiling of this group, I think, really just depends on what the what the front office does this summer to build or maybe even tear down what they currently have. A lot of conversation, a lot of time to discuss that though, and I won't get into that too much right now. You guys know that the facts, you you know the facts, you know the situation at hand. Um, and we will have months and months of time to discuss that. But now, as things currently stand, the Raptors are in a playoff battle. They play the Miami Heat two times this week, the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets to finish off their season. Let's see if they can, you know, kind of get the courage to finish off this season on a strong note. We'll see what happens, folks.
As always, make sure to like, comment, subscribe, do the things you guys usually do to make sure this gets out to other people. We appreciate you guys as always. See you later.