Toronto Raptors Media Availability | Postgame at Los Angeles Clippers | January 10, 2024

Toronto Raptors Media Availability | Postgame at Los Angeles Clippers | January 10, 2024

Dark last night talking about you as one of the future faces of the league and sticking up for his team and sticking up for you and the whistles how does it make you feel uh it makes me feel great I think it makes our team feel great as

Well um just know we got a coach that’s going to stand behind our back no matter what uh you know he’s he doesn’t care you know he’s going to tell it how it is um so it feels great and I know that our coach is behind our back and suppor us

No matter what playing alongside what have you learned about quickley and RJ in the short time you’ve been together but you seem to be developing something pretty good uh those guys you know they’re unselfish um you know they’re playing hard each and every single game locking into our game plans you know

They’re helping out really well uh you know those guys can score the ball really well they’re playing great on defens end and you know we’re getting some we’re getting our flow really well you were matched up with Kawai quite a bit and vice versa and what was

That experience like like and and what did you take away from from him what do you take away from him as a player uh you know he’s very strong and you know he knows how to get to his spots really well uh he’s very efficient with every

Move he does uh so just being able to just go right to his spots not waste wasting a lot of dribbles um but you know trying to find a mismatch and um attack that from there I mean you guys have I would say different styles but

You kind of look at him and go there’s things from the way he approaches it and the success he’s had that you can draw on uh I definitely love how the way that he guards the ball def fence and how physical and strong is just not allow

People to back him down and be able to just get to the paint use his body really well uh you know I think that defense that he plays is something like had a similar teammate that had the same type of Defense um but yeah you can just see that out there on the

Floor how valuable is it to have a guy with that obviously V pres in your locker room but then to have them there kind of ready to go whenever they needed as you guys needed without yakob there that was amazing um these two games you know he hasn’t played in I don’t know

How long but you know he just goes out there and playing hard effort uh playing really well defensively as well uh so his presence out there is beyond the roof of what he’s doing um you know he’s really helping us a lot uh talking communicating uh even when we’re

Switching you know he’s guard him really well uh so he’s been really helpful for USM and kind of you know taken the most of the minutes that he’s G so far uh he’s been coming in um been playing really well extending the floor stretching the floor out uh being that

Presence where you know picking pop tipe byy rols uh trying to get on the glass playing hard talking on defense you know it’s still an adjustment for him he’s still learning our system and what we want from him but you know he’s doing really well in it coach said that before

The game that the Clippers are putting together a championship caliber type team and you guys tonight really competed well against them and have lots of similar numbers outside the result of course do you guys feel like your compete level as a collective has just risen in the past even this past road

Trip um you know I I feel like as soon as we always compete I feel like that’s our thing we’re always going to compete we’re always going to feel like we got a chance to win that game uh these guys they made some tough shots this game uh

Closing out rotated uh making those those threes getting some offensive rebounds that we probably should have got as well but you know they have a great team uh they have the roster is just unbelievable so you know we did really well uh we had a chance to win

This game a few mistakes but you know just didn’t going away you got one more game of course coming up against Utah but what has been the biggest take way on the road so far uh we St together no matter what we’re competing each and every single night and we’re staying

Together I feel like that’s just our main thing that we’re sticking with pie are in uh yes uh um I thought that that we really competed against a really really good team uh um our guys gave 110% of of their abilities today and uh

We stayed in the game all the way to the end uh couple of missed opportunities to do better job with with rotations to take away a couple of layups and uh couple of opportunities for us when he had created the easy shots round the rim

That did not go our way it just uh swayed that the you know the game in in the other way but I thought that we did really good job today competing from the start of the game and giving it all the best small back car with both uh quick

And Dennis out there what does that give you uh two ball handlers uh as you could see a lot of times uh quickly was bringing the ball he was running offense Dennis is uh used to playing off the ball he he did it a big part of his

Career he he’s really good in slipping out and creating some advantages there to to open up driving Lanes uh and um I think they they have very good connection there on the court as well they they always talk to each other trying to figure out ways how how to

Help the team um it was good for us tonight to see uh some of the Trap defense against quickly and it’s it’s really going to help us to to develop that part of his game and and our game as a team plays many minutes tonight career high points rebounds he doesn’t do an

Awful lot but he does a lot of stuff right that’s a very fair assessment Jon is I just think that he’s all around good player you know he he has a good Court Vision uh uh I think he’s is really good uh three-point shooter um and defensively he’s he’s actually doing

Better and more than I expected uh so he he’s he’s really proving that Bel he belongs in this league and I’m really satisfied with him wrap up guys sure Darko why is RJ look so comfortable here in his six seven games um maybe better question for him

On on that one but uh I think that he’s playing very efficient basketball I think that he really embraced the ball movement four assists uh tonight again uh and as a team we had 31 assists again I think that he’s really trying to make the right play and when you do that you

Get awarded from your teammates and teammates are really finding him in good situations when he’s open and he’s really good downhill driver

Players and Coach speak with the media following the Raptors’ 126-120 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday.

0:00 Scottie Barnes
4:09 Darko Rajakovic

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