Transcription
The Raptors are last in percentage of their plays that come in the half court. They're first in percentage of their plays that come in transition by far. So, if I look at their pace, they must be top of the league in pace, right? No, they're 12th in the NBA in pace at only 102 possessions per game. That's because when they play in the half court, when they aren't able to run and get a shot early, either in transition or semi-transition, then they slow things down. Then they get to play through some of the strengths of the guys that they have on their team like Brandon Ingram who can go into the post and score at a really high efficiency. And so they can slow things down and play in the half court. And guess what? They're super efficient when they do play in the half court. They're playing in this really cool kind of hybrid style that you're not used to seeing. And it's just really exciting. And I really hope it's sustainable cuz they're such a fun team to watch in this way.
This is Hot Hand Theory. This is a podcast where we talk about the NBA and break things down from an analytical perspective. I'm your co-host, XJ. As always, I'm joined by my brilliant co-host, Jeff. And Jeff, we are watching a legit team come together right before our very eyes. The Toronto Raptors are one of the hottest teams in basketball and a really I mean besides being one of the hottest teams in basketball, winning by a lot, winning a ton unexpectedly, doing very well against the spread like another team we've talked about in the Western Conference, the Phoenix Suns. Um, but this is a super fun team to watch. Just the way that they play, the way they get up and down the court, it's really incredible.
This is a team that you and I have both watched really, really closely since the IQ and RJ trade, and they've made some acquisitions and decisions that really could have gone a multitude of ways. And and I would say the juryy's still out on that, speaking namely of the acquisition of Brandon Ingram, but regardless of that, they've been able to make it work. And it's been really incredible the fact that they've been able to make it make this situation work where there may be some synergistic clashing that could be happening. The starting lineup's always been kind of questionable of how well they can work together, but the bench has been tremendous. The style of play is tremendous. The individual players are all playing well within what their capacities are. And this team is winning and beating teams and winning in spite of any clashing of styles that they may have. How are they doing this? Because they're super fun to watch. And they've just been taking the East by storm right now.
>> Yeah, taking the East by storm is kind of an understatement. If you look uh coming up, they've got I mean, this could be a team that we're looking at down the road at near the top of the East just based on who they play and how they're playing. you asked how they're doing it and we could look at any of the individual players. We could look at the two, three, fourman uh lineup synergy, but I just want to give a quick shout out to their head coach Darko just for you. You mentioned the style of play. You mentioned the clash the the potential clashing synergy. And I do think that there's a chance, a good chance that there is like this inevitable fork in the road where they kind of have to make a couple of decisions about um who fits the roster, who elevates the other players on the roster, which of their best players can be their best selves simultaneously on the court together. But they're trying to make it work. And if you were going to make it work in the short term, you would build a system where all the differing differing mouths to feed would feel a part of the program as much as possible. And that's why when you look at stuff like secondary assists, passes made, potential assists. See the Raptors at the top of the league in near the top of the league in all these categories. See the fact that they're top five in assists while also being bottom five in turnovers. bottom five being good, like the least amount of turnovers. They are doing something where they're all they're almost all primary initiators at differing times when they push the ball up the court based on where the advantage is. And on any particular night, anyone can get theirs. And you really get that sense like, yes, Scotty Barnes is the head of the snake. He is the most important player on this roster, but even he doesn't come with any sort of like ego or demand for high usage. There are nights when Ingram, Quickley, RJ, they have it going and Barnes is still there tying the defense together. And truth be told, XJ, I don't know if you'll think this is too much, but I think Scotty Barnes has been one of the best defenders in the league so far this season. And I think he's just been remarkable on that end. and he's done so whether he's had the offense going or not. When Quickley came back from injury last March and he and Barnes finally got to see the court together, their defense was near the top of the league. And we're going to talk about Quickly later in the show, but cuz I think he's one of the most misunderstood players in the league, I do think that they have the potential to be a really really good defense and they haven't even been that so far this season. Their offense has kind of carried the day and if they get their ducks in a row, I think the best iteration of this team is one that does most of its damage defensively and does just enough offensively to to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The fact that they're actually doing it the other way around is so encouraging because I I think it's only a matter of time before the defense turns it around.
>> Yeah. So, I mean, it's interesting you talk about the defense like uh so obviously it's early in the season and we see different um data points from different websites and all those kinds of things. According to Clean the Glass, which is the data source that I typically use for offensive and defensive ratings, it has them at seventh in the NBA defensively um already at this point and holding teams to the 10th uh best uh or worst for opponents effective field goal percentage in the league. So they're they're they're doing well enough defensively and if according to what you're saying you believe they can be even better than than they've been so far. So that means that the ceiling for this team is is extremely high. Extremely high. And I don't think and to be honest, I didn't come into the season thinking that again because of some of the mismatching of styles that we've seen from their starters. But Darko has done a tremendous job of moderating that and playing different lineups and different rotations, having different uh, you know, staggering those those four starters that they have and and putting them out there as two at a time, three at a time. Um, and then mixing them in with the bench who have all played really tremendously well. The ben the bench has been such a tremendous strength for the Raptors. What I really love about the way that they deploy the team is that for Darko, it's like it's like it's not just, oh, push push push like we think because a lot of times we think of like a fast break team as like, you know, oh, they're going to like push the ball every down the court every single time and and they're going to play uptempo. They're going to have tons of possessions per game. And that is true for the Raptors to an extent, but I'm going to read some I'm going to share some data that sort of feels like it doesn't work together. And I'm going to explain why I think it does work. The Raptors are last in percentage of their plays that come in the half court. 74.9%. So basically threequarters of their plays come in the half court. This is this is a very low amount for the NBA. They're first in percentage of their plays that come in transition by far. They are first in frequency of transition um plays off of live rebounds by far. It's not even close for that between them and second place. So they are running and running and running, right? So that's what it sounds like. Okay. Well, it's very clear what their identity is. So if I look at their pace, they must be at, you know, they must be top of the league in pace, right? No, they're 12th in the NBA in pace at only 102 possessions per game. How do we square those two data points that seem like they don't mesh with one another? They're extremely fast break oriented, by far the most fast break oriented team in the league, yet their pace is only sort of middle of the road. That's because when they play in the half court, when they aren't able to run and get a shot early, either in transition or semi-transition, then they slow things down. Then they get to play through some of the strengths of the guys that they have on their team like Brandon Ingram who can go into the post and score at a really high efficiency like RJ Barrett who can create rim attempts out of thin air. One of the few guys in the league who can do so at such a high rate and so they can slow things down and play in the half court. And guess what? They're super efficient when they do play in the half court. They're sixth in points per play in the half court in the NBA despite playing in the half court very infrequently because they're running up and down so much. So they have this this mixture of playing fast-paced basketball, playing in transition, scoring at will in that way, but then if they need to slow things down, they're also hyper efficient because they can maximize the strengths that they have on their team. despite Brandon Ingram playing in this way and being hyperefficient in post-ups, like I said, he's also playing at the lowest isolation rate of his entire career. So, this is a player who's bought in and says, "Yeah, I I you don't we don't have to play through me until it's time to play through me." And that's when things slow down. If things aren't slowing down, we see Quickly and we see Barnes and we see all their guys get get to the rim and get easy shots or or or spray out for threes. They're playing in this really cool kind of hybrid style that you're not used to seeing and it's just really exciting and and I really hope it's sustainable cuz they're such a fun team to watch in this way.
>> And that brings it back to the egalitarian system that's in place because I think it's easier for a guy like Brandon Ingram to buy in when he can feel even in the possessions when he's not touching the ball like he's a part of the primary action like he's not just spacing out in the corner. One thing you and I often lamented in New Orleans was that he and Zion didn't have better synergy together, more interactive synergy. And I think a part of that was that it was tough for Ingram to feel like he was involved in his offball possessions because Zion carried such a large weight with him in terms of not not just his usage, but the types of possessions he he likes to initiate. It's just different than what's going on with in Toronto when you'll see quickly dri dribble the ball across half court, flip it to Purle, go and set a screen for Ingram, get set a pin down, then Ingram will go get the hand off and flip to Barnes. It's like everyone is a part of this thing and it doesn't always obviously because only one person can shoot the shot. It doesn't always end with a shot uh for each particular player on any particular possession, but it does feel like everyone is involved uh quite often. And to just put the cherry on top with this coaching thing, cuz I think you made such a good point about uh how they balance pushing the ball in transition versus the times they are in half court. I think they really have looked at this roster and leveraged the particular skill sets of the roster. And to be honest, that's why Brandon Ingram may have been a really important signing because if you look at before Ingram came, Quickley and Barnes, their two best players, I would say they sh while they're very very additive to one another and high synergy as a tandem and the data backs that up tremendously. I think the one thing they share in common where there's some redundancy is they kind of both struggle in these endgame situations when the when it does slow down like that quickly for all of his strengths as a mover and a spacer and an offball defender sometimes you've seen him struggle late in these games initiating offense and creating his own shot. He he's never been even though he he is this year he's never been a particularly great attacker of the rim. He's got that floater. He's kind of small, so it's, you know, when they're allowed to play more physical, it's just tougher for him to create more shot. And then you've got Barnes who's like kind of figuring it out as a as an onball initiator. Never really fully embraced being the screener, even though I do think I've seen some good things there. And so Ingram kind of is just filling that gap. And you saw it again the Hornets. It's like they need a bucket. They go to Ingram their last two possessions down the court. He gets the he gets he scores himself. And then he also sets up RJ cutting to the hoop. So it's just like Ingram actually fits really really well with the style that they want to play. And I think that both of us would have said knowing that Darko wants to play this motion offense this in this egalitarian system. We both would have said, "Oh boy, Brandon Ingram, he's that's not his type." And kudos to him for really really buying in.
>> Yeah, it's a great point. And uh I definitely did not did not see him buying it in this way. Um and and like you said, I think it's really cool because a a couple things we would have said before the season. A um you know, tough to imagine Brandon Ingram buying into this style of of play. And B, they're not going to be good unless Brandon Ingram is shooting, you know, a ton of threes and and making a ton of threes. He's not shooting a ton of threes and he ain't making a ton of threes. He's shooting like 28% on the season or something like that from 3A. It might have gone up after his most recent game, but like to me it's it's almost like sorcery. It's like how are they doing this? Like you watch the games and you're just like trying to figure it out. Uh we've talked about we've hit on some of the points that they do really really well, but it seems like every game you look up at the score and it's like they've held their team the their opponent to a low score and they've scored a a large amount of points and it's like man, how are they doing it? I think a big way that they're doing it is with their bench and we kind of talked to the uh to their bench a little bit, but um I want to say that uh Mamu Kellishes Wheelie is one of my favorite players in the NBA at this point. like and and I'm sure I'm not alone. A lot of guys in Toron a lot of people in Toronto may feel that way, but he is like surprisingly good defensively first of all. Like he can guard quick quicker kind of bigs or wings often times like we've seen him throw him at Giannis a few and on a few occasions has been really cool to watch. And then obviously his ability to space in my opinion he sort of works much better with the starters than Yaka Purle does. And I I mean that's might be their second most played or second or third most played lineup, the starters and and Mamu, but uh I'd like to see them play a lot more because it really allows for the spacing dynamic and they sort of get the best of both worlds. He's not a terrible rim protector. He's done decently well at that so far this season. And obviously Yaka Pearl is a really really good player, like don't get me wrong, by any stretch. I just like what Mamu brings a lot. And um to go along with him, we're talking about the rest of the bench. Jamal Shed is is super underrated, really good, shooting the lights out, can create off the dribble. Um you know, Grady Dick, who you know, I've been a fan of for a while, and he we were talking about this before we jumped on. He's only playing 16 or 17 minutes per game. I'd really love to see him get out there and play some more. His shot is so critical for this team. Um Colin Murray Boils, who we already see what he's got. They they they got a really really really good player. Um and who knows what his ceiling is going to be. He's only 20 years old and he's already a contributor. It's pretty crazy. Even Jameson Battle when he's able to play, this guy is shooting like like 70% on the season from three when he plays. It's just in there as a sniper, which adds a lot of spacing and and and elements. And so, you know, and obviously there's more guys who get minutes on the team, but yeah, the their bench has been so good. And I think it all comes full circle to what you talked about with this egalitarian style. Literally anyone on their team is a threat at any given point in time when they're pushing in transition. And then when things slow down, they have a couple of main guys that they go to and those guys have been hyper efficient in those situations. So, they've been able to find this really strong balance of egalitarian, everybody has an opportunity, everybody has the ball at different points, they're all locked in defensively, and then things slow down, and it's like, let's go to our guys who can create out of thin air. It's really working right now. And and and it's it's it's amazing to see
>> X Mamukes and Barnes when they when they share the court together, the Raptors defensive rating is 99.6 six in just in over a 100 minutes, you know, like that's again we're we're dealing with small samples here. That's I mean that's like what the Bulls had with Tibs 10 years ago and like what the Heat had when LeBron was in Miami when they were leading the league in defense rating. I'd be surprised if that held. But I think this plays into the sneaky synergy of the roster in the sense of if you look at Mamuka's the history of his impact and how he's been as a player, he's pretty much tread water or been good as a defender when he's played power forward and not been good at all as a center. Um, and you know, part of that's limited minutes, part of that is learning to play the position. I believe he's improved as a defensive center and that's what I've seen on the court. But also, you put him with Scotty Barnes, that might just hide some of his weaknesses as a defender because Barnes is an elite room protector.
>> And so, these are the types of things that we're talking about here. And you brought up Grady Dick. He's another one whose passive impact is just tremendous on a team like this because even though he's only playing 16 minutes a game, he doesn't need to touch the ball ever. He gives them an element that is besides Quickley incredibly rare on this roster. Like the way he moves, he and Quickley somehow somehow actually he and Quickley are both the best shooters on the team and the best movers and the best screeners as guards. like the way they run go, the way they just create chaos with ghost screens, the way they're just always on the move, their their feel for court mapping when there is just an overload on one side, they just slightly shift to the weak side to to make it make the court mapping more neutral. They just Dick and Quickly are just both really really good at that. And more than anything, I think that's what they're figuring out is that like they need to with this roster that has limitations and redundancies, they need to find the the places where multiple of their players on the court together are the best versions of themselves. And that's another area where Darko is thriving because he's not setting his ways right now with these rotations. He's trying stuff. You brought it up. You brought the stag. You brought up the staggering earlier. Sometimes he's going two and two. He's leaving Barnes & Quickly out there. He's leaving Barnes & Ingram. He's trying everything. He's throwing at the wall and seeing what sticks. And they have this great flawed versatile roster. This is what you need to do. This is what the start of the season's for. And I think if you're a Raptors fan, you can foresee a world where you get to the All-Star break and you're even better because you can shoot better with Brandon Ingram. The chemistry can get better. they can start to figure out what lineups are working better. And by the time you get to February, it's like, "All right, we figured out what's work, what what what works. Let's do that a higher percentage of the time."
Yeah, it what you're saying really makes me think a lot about the Cleveland Cavaliers in so far as you can sometimes have a roster that doesn't feel like it works perfectly together. It's not naturally or organically synergistic. You know, with the Cavs, you're talking about two small guards who both ideally would have the ball in their hands, two bigs who would both ideally be playing at the five. And there are ways you can make it work. So, one way you can make it work is through staggering. You have those guys play in different lineups and then you get this this clone effect where it's like, well, we have the effect of Jared Allen and the effect of Evan Mobley on the game at all times. And in sometimes they're in their most ideal role for themselves and sometimes they're not, but they're always having a positive impact on the team. And the Raptors have been able to do something very similar. So you have staggering as one way. And another way is just by skill development and buyin, like players being willing to play in different styles that often times as NBA fans, even coaches, we don't give them credit for that. But we don't give them credit for we we look at these players as like well Brandon Ingram plays like this and this is how Brandon Ingram plays and if Brandon Ingram goes to LA, if he goes to New Orleans, if he goes to Toronto, this is how he's going to play. And it's like, well, no. Brandon Ingram is a highly skilled basketball player that can play in different ways depending on the way he's incentivized, the way he's coached, the the the the way the team wins or not. Like all these things influence the way that a player plays. They're not just stuck in one way of playing. We look at somebody like Evan Mobley who suddenly is attacking off the dribble and increasing his skill set in that way. And that creates a different dynamic that wouldn't have existed otherwise. And we would say, "Ah, Mobly and Allen, how does that work together?" And it's all of a sudden you have this different dimension that you wouldn't think the players really great at. The the coaches incentivize it. All of a sudden, oh, those guys seem to work great together. So, these things can change really, really quickly. Speaking of quickly, you said uh you did say quickly and dick. I I thought you missed an opportunity to just go quick and dick. But um speaking of Emanuel Quickley, I I want you to just talk for a little bit on Emanuel Quickley and what he brings to the to the game. Um one of your favorite players to watch in the NBA. I know. One thing I want to say about him is like my favorite thing about his role on this team and there's so many things you could say. Um he when he quickly is on the court, the frequency of transition plays off of live rebounds is by far the highest on a team plus 10.1%. So they run off of live rebounds. 10.1% more when Emanuel Quickley's on the floor. That's an outrageous number and it just speaks to what he is been charged to do and what is he what he is doing at an elite level right now in terms of guiding this team to being to having the identity that they have. And so we can talk about Scotty Barnes being the best player on the team. We can talk about Brandon Ingram being the best individual scorer on the team. We can talk about all those things. Emanuel Quickley has been the pulse of the team. Emanuel Quickley is what is driving the identity of the team. If we're talking about this pushing the ball, getting quick shots, getting easy plays in transition, flying all around the court, keeping the ball moving, keeping the ball hopping around, this egalitarian offense. Emanuel Quickley has been the heart and soul in that way. And so, um, you know, that's the biggest thing that stands out to me about him. But I I I'd love for you to talk about Quickly for a little bit.
>> Yeah. And I feel like you just missed you missed one thing there because just so many great points about what Quickley brings to the Raptors. I mean, he's always been looking to push his entire career and I think that R.J. Barrett specifically benefits a lot from that because R.J. will race out and that's where R.J.'s at his best in transition. You know, we've seen he's a great finisher. Like you said, he creates rim pressure seemingly out of thin air. Give him a head of steam and an advantage, you're in trouble as a defense. But I think the the the one thing you missed about how he encapsulates this Raptor's team is that malleability that we were emphasizing for the first half of the episode. He encapsulates it like, and this is what's missed a lot in in basketball analysis in my opinion, is so many people they see a possession, a game, and they look at the things that happen when a player is dominating the ball. They see the things that happen when a player is guarding the ball. Oh, this guy got toasted. Oh, man. He just doesn't have like the bag that another guy gets. Basketball occurs over hundreds and thousands of possessions every single season. And this is why sometimes what you see with your eyes does not match what the data is is saying to us. And what the data is saying to us and has always said to us about Emanuel Quickley is that across these thousands of possessions, he is helping your team in more ways than your eyes can see. And it's always been the case. And as long as he is the person that he is with his, you know, his IQ, his processing, pun intended there, his his athleticism, this is how it's always going to be because it's not just how he passes. It's not just, you know, it's not just his floater. It's not just his pull-up three. It's the way he moves off the ball. It's the way he can help elevate a Scotty Barnes or Brandon Ingram when it's their turn to have the ball. It's the way that when RJ Barrett, you know, maybe misses a rotation or somebody misses a rotation, Emanuel Quickley is there pre-rotating to stunt that and and take away the advantage that was created. Let the other defender get back into the play. He remains he was in New York and he remains one of the most impactful offball defenders as a guard in the entire NBA. He is always looking sometimes to the detriment of the team's defense because the other guys don't anticipate it. He is always looking to uh uh pick out a mistake that his team makes and and fix it. That is what he he sees as his job. I think Darko started to lean into that more. think he really gets that's where Quickley's at his best and it makes him a really nice tandem with Scotty Barnes who's just incredible defensively. The two of them are just sort of chaotic in the best way defensively. Like you think you have an edge on them, you don't. And I just think that not enough basketball fans truly appreciate that what Quickley does can't be summarized by like his bag or the way he creates shots or I'm not saying he's a perfect player. He's far from a perfect player, but I think that you see the way Quickley's talked about and you see like, oh, we just got to get like a more true point guard. We got to get and I actually think he's the perfect point guard for this team construction because he's almost like a chameleon. He can mold himself and remain impactful in any type of way that your offense or your defense requires. And you can't say that about many other players. You just can't. There are guy XJ brought it up. Yes, these guys are extremely talented and Brandon Ingram, you can't just put him in a box. He can figure out another way to play basketball. But this is a relative conversation and guys have particular strengths. Guys have more limited strengths. And if you take a guy like say a Brandon Ingram and say, "We're not going to give you the ball ever. You got to figure it out as a spacer and a shooter and a defender." You're not maximizing him. But the thing about Quickly is you don't really have to do anything to maximize him because he will find a way. And that sort of connects their other best players in a way that not many other starting guards could do.
Yeah, that that was that was definitely beautifully said. Um I before we before we close out the episode, I do want to touch on one thing that I noticed just kind of like watching them, you get this sense and then looking into the data a little bit. I it feels like it's confirmed and I'm really curious what Raptors fans think about this, but there is a little bit of, you know, concern about sustainability in my opinion here. Um, and that largely comes from some of the three-point shooting that they've seen from opponents. So, they are currently um elite in three-point defensive accuracy. So, the teams are shooting 32% against them from three. Sometimes that can be a result of defense. Often times, it's hard for that to be as a result of defense, like teams shooting that poorly from three. So, we dig a little bit deeper. um opponents are 20th in their wide openen three-point percentage against the Raptors and last in their open three-point percentage against the Raptors. So, we look at wide open and open threes as typically teams miss those as a result of variance more more often than it is as a result of defense. And so, some of that to me is going to kind of regulate and and regress to the mean. And so that's going to hurt their defense as well as the fact that they are fourth, currently fourth in mid-range uh accuracy and they take a lot of mid-range shots. Um, a lot of that comes down to Brandon Ingram shooting some insane number from the mid-range on insane volume and we know he's a great mid-range shooter. Um, but I don't think he is a 55%, you know, mid-range shooter on high volume. So, some of those things in my opinion have to regress. But again, you know, with Brandon Ingram, his three-point shooting should is going to improve. So that there there's some offsetting factors there. But those are just some things that stand out to me just thinking about this team moving forward. Can they maintain this? Can they be a real threat in the Eastern Conference to be a top six seed and and do some damage in the playoffs? Maybe get past a first round, get into a second round situation and push a team. What's going to determine that to me is if some of these three-point shooting numbers kind of regress and regulate or if they just like maintain.
>> I think that's an area where I mean teams are going to start making more threes. Like we know this we we know this to be true that wide open and open threes the rate at which your opponents make those are almost entirely dictated by shot luck and variance. But to sort of spin it in a more positive way, this is also an area where improved chemistry and them learning to play together maybe makes it so those opportunities happen less frequently. And I'm not saying it'll cancel out, but I do think that the the regression that is expected to come from opponents shooting these open and wide open shots could be offset or mitigated a little bit by just this improved chemistry and these guys learning to play together.
Yeah, that's a great answer and that's definitely what Raptors fans want to hear and need to root for because if that is the case, if that if there is some offsetting that happens there and this is a legit team in the Eastern Conference that is not going away anytime soon. Uh if this is your first time listening to Highand Theory, we'd love for you to subscribe. We cover every team in the NBA in an in-depth way just like we did here and love watching the NBA, complete NBA junkies. So, we'd love for you to subscribe and be here with us. Uh drop a comment. We respond to every single comment we ever get on this channel because we love to engage with the audience and learn new things from you all as hopefully you learn some things from us and it's a mutual exchange as opposed to a one-way exchange. So, please drop a comment if you'd like. And for Jeff, I'm XJ and this has been Hotand Theory.