Toronto Raptors Media Availability | Postgame vs Boston Celtics | January 15, 2024

Toronto Raptors Media Availability | Postgame vs Boston Celtics | January 15, 2024

Tonight you uh really battled christs and um Al on a lot of possessions uh I know that this team is you know nominally playing you at shooting guard um how important is it for everyone to be able to sort of switch everyone on defense and and fight the big guys um you

Know we’re uh we’re fighting for sure you know what I mean uh we’re we’re fighting we’re playing hard you know uh we’re fighting we’re we’re doing the things doing the things we’re supposed to do you know day by day um played obviously a really good team even though

Jaylen was out um you know we had guys out too and I think that we we played hard and it was a close game you know throughout the whole night looks like you and uh Jon have developed some quick chemistry play well off of each other he

Found you on a couple plays today what is it about him that that’s big makes him easy to play with I mean he he could really popping and you could really pass you know what I mean so he’s uh he’s sending the screens and then it’s if

They stop the initial action it’s easy to just throw it to him and kind of move and he can find you is it to hang around so weird with the three-point shooting for the whole team no I mean you know we we stuck to the game plan

They they made some shots I mean they’re a very good team you know they’re going to make they’re going to make some shots so uh like I said I thought I think that we we played hard I think we played together um there was you know some

Tough stretches for us I think end of the third or end of the third beginning of the fourth but we were able to you know fight and rally and and and come back so seems like you really love a big who flips the screen yeah I mean they they try to they

Try to go under or they try to uh sendi right so you know just flip the screen and we we could play how nice is it to be back here and maybe get settled chance to get settled a bit after going on the road again I’m

Still not settled yet but I will be hopefully soon but uh no um just happy being home you know happy being home have my family being able to you know come to all the games and stuff it’s uh it’s really Cool yeah yeah what do you guys what do you think that was one of your better defensive efforts as a team uh the past I guess since you’ve been here obious Boston’s pretty high scoring offense but you guys after the first quarter held him down pretty good um probably a little bit of

Famili familiarity uh uh the uh the Scout the game plan was really good from the coaches and I think we did a pretty good job of of trying to do do what they wanted uh and then just you know like familiarity uh as you continue to play with the same

Players you get better and better and uh chemistry-wise you get better and better and things like that so uh did okay it got to be a little bit better though so this is super specific but I looked at some numbers coming into the game and when guys set back screens and

Flex screens uh you’re the most efficient player in the league since you came to tronto um how important is it as a shooter to hit guys as a screener before you go get the ball um screening is very important part of the game uh uh not only for yourself

But to try to get your teammates open so especially the guys we have like Scotty and Pascal to try to free them up and get easy buckets I think it’s it’s pretty big for our offense and because they’re such great offensive players it kind of frees me up so it’s not

Necessarily just myself but having great teammates around me that can score makes it easier for me uh this game was pretty close even though as a team you struggle from uh three-point range what’s that say that you can hang with you know the best uh the team with the best record in the

NBA yeah um we don’t really want pat on the backs for hanging around I think we got to try to continue to make strid each and every day to make that next step uh to get these wins we’ve been hanging around with every team and uh

That’s not what we want to be known for we want to be known for winning so uh whatever it takes to try to continue to get better each and every day we have to do and find ways to learn from each game and to where we win these type of games

Dark was saying before the game like since yak’s been out that defensive rebounding has really taken a tumble I I think you kind of held him to five offensive rebounds you had six defensive rebounds yourself like was it a point of emphasis to really as a group to to kind

Of get the ball first before sprinting out yeah um they the coaching staff was preaching that to us as far as that uh the rebounding part and the Celtics obviously crash everybody uh so we wanted to rebound and run cuz that’s when you crash everybody that’s where

You’re vulnerable is is a fast break so we try to do a little bit of that today for sure now that you’re kind of starting to settle in maybe to the team and stuff have you noticed anything different about maybe your routine now that you’re coming on as a starter

Primarily now as opposed to your role before coming off with the bench yeah my routine is a lot different everything is different uh from uh coming in the game and uh trying to make sure that everybody has a feel and touches the ball a little bit you know so everybody can feel in

Rhythm and everybody’s uh active uh offensively and defensively cuz when you know when guys are feeling the ball they get stops they fly around and things like that uh to uh the time that I get on the court I’m the last person to shoot so everything’s different um uh as

Far as you know starting not starting but just try to have the same mindset you know when I come in and uh find my teammates find spots to be be aggressive and you know try to help the team on defense and and try to get wins and do

You notice anything about what you’re doing off the court now that you know that you have this larger role on this team um I think for me I try to I’m pretty much the same as far as my mentality uh is and that’s basically just try to find ways each day to get

Better um that’s pretty much really all you can do in this league is if you get better each and every single day you you take time to you know per try to perfect your craft uh you you’ll find ways to get better the offense has been going so

Well on the coach trip didn’t really materialize tonight did they did their Zone sort of take you out of sink a little bit it’s uh uh it’s like you you guys bring up that we don’t play defense we start playing defense where offense is great then then our offense is

Struggling um yeah I mean we shot four from uh 32 from the three-point line uh tonight I thought that looks that we were getting for good looks the ball did not go in even like uh inside the paint around the rim especially like first and second quarter I thought thought we were

Getting to the right spots we we did not get uh we did not make those uh them playing Zone uh get us a little bit out of sync then we found the offense against it to get wide open shots and we just did not make those those shots um

Defensively I thought that uh that we did uh a lot of good stuff there um we kept Jason tatm to 19 points and uh did we kept this this team to 105 tonight I thought that that defense was was pretty solid we kept them only to to five offensive rebounds which was big

Emphasis keeping them of the glass as well um we just did not have enough uh far power offensively tonight Dr jont had bad did on foring looked very very good are you getting what you need out of those two guys in Yak ABS they they’re doing their best and I’m really

Proud of the effort of of the both guys they here uh both of them they played solid minutes we played Scotty as well at position five I thought they did Scotty minutes on um guarding tatm majority of the night was they were really good minutes especially defensively there so pretty solid I know

It was John his biggest night in terms of what he’s done for you over this last little stretch but what has impressed you about um in terms of uh getting up the speed on what you guys do I mean uh he’s smart player like even in the first

Half he had couple of uh good decisions there and uh he had uh three assists all of those came uh early and we were playing around him he was able to find the fine guys he has just good feel on offensive end and I I’ll I’ll repeat the

Same thing I really believe that he’s really good three-point shooter the ball did not go in uh tonight and I thought that he had couple more shots but he’s feeling like he does not feel comfortable enough to take those shots because he wants to find his teammates

And not to come off as as a selfish player um but uh but he’s that he’s a connector and he’s good three-point shooter he he just played really um good pick and roll craft with RJ tonight uh flipping a lot of screens that RJ sort

Of got into the lane on um we always say it takes a lot of time for pick and roll Partners to learn each other but it seems like they’ve done it immediately um how have they become so good at reading each other’s funky Tendencies there um I think that what uh jant does

Really good job of there is just like you said he finds a good angle uh how to free up RJ and to free up uh uh quickly and what he does also is is he setting those screens higher up the floor when he does that it opens up just more room

For for all of those attacks and now it’s to the team like he did most of the night he did rolling tonight I want him also to be able to pick and pop and when he pick and Pops I want team be to be aware what’s going on on the floor

Because if your five man is constantly rolling your spacing is is one way if five men pick and Pops now you need to have slash cuts and you need to have a little bit different actions on the weak side and takes time when you have a

Player of that can do both just to read read each other Qui night offensively for both Scotty and Pascal how much of that was kind of the way that they approached them defensively and and how much of that was them just need to be more aggressive I mean uh Scotty is the

Best when when he’s in that attack mode uh and uh I thought that he he played with lot of lot of energy on defensive end tonight and I’m not sure if they took away from some aggressiveness on offensive event he turned it on there in the fourth quarter he was getting to the

Rim he was scoring he just needs to find a way how to be both how to be good and Elite defensively um and how at the same time to affect affect offense we tried to run some actions to towards him and he was trying to find a find open man but he’s

The best when he finds the flow inside the game when he’s running when he’s offensive rebounding when he goes into random post ups and punishes M mismatches what do you take from they the best record in the league but you guys have played them pretty close

Through the four games I mean what do you take from just the four matchups as a whole well uh for them they they have a lot of offensive weapons it just looks like that Derek white just keeps making some timely shots over and over um you know they are definitely

Contender uh for a reason and they they have a good record us playing close games three out of four times just like you said I think it says a lot about resiliency of our group and and potential that we have on this team with with our guys getting more experience in

Those games and we’re going to have very good film off of this what was good what we need to do better offensively defensively I think it’s going to help us next time we see them Emanuel has talked about studying Drew holiday on the defensive end how can he get there

Like how how does he get to he he needs to eat a lot he needs to to lift a lot and he needs to continue listen to listen coaches and then to study film

Player and Coach speak with the media following the Raptors 105-96 loss to the Boston Celtics on Monday.

00:00 – RJ Barrett
02:32 – Immanuel Quickley
06:30 – Darko Rajakovic

#Raptors #TorontoRaptors