Toronto Raptors defense perks up, but threes don’t fall in tough 105-96 loss to Boston Celtics

Toronto Raptors defense perks up, but threes don’t fall in tough 105-96 loss to Boston Celtics

On your Tuesday episode of lock on Raptors the Toronto Raptors get swept out of the season series by the Boston Celtics with a noble 10596 loss we’ll dig into the defense which actually looked credible last night for the first time in quite some time and of course

The parade of bricks that they threw up from Deep all that coming up on today’s show thanks for hanging you are locked on Raptors your daily Toronto Raptors podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every every Day hey what’s going on and welcome to another episode of lockon raptors part of the lockon podcast Network your team every day it is Tuesday January the 16th and I’m your host Shawn Woodley I’m coming to Toronto Raptors now for 10 seasons on various platforms you can

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Course a pickup Legend in Milton Ontario he is the author of pros and Claw a wonderful newsletter on the Toronto Raptors it’s Assad Alie at swar lasers on that website that’s not so good Assad how’s it going man uh it’s it’s going all right you know we had a we had a bit

Of a game yesterday uh speaking of sickos it was definitely one for the sickos yesterday but you know we’re we’re ready here to talk about it I guess yeah we’re gonna dig into the Raptors 105 96 loss to the Celtics uh yeah I feel like any any time someone

Digs in to watch the Boston Celtics they’re doing some sort of self harm they’re a miserable team to watch I’m sorry they’re incredible they’re a machine they’re probably going to win the NBA title and they play the most Bland uh like analytics brained basketball you’ll ever see with the most

Whitebred boring superstar in the NBA I’m sorry but the Celtics continue to irritate me and they irritate me a lot when the Raptors play good defense and just can’t scrape it over the Finish Line because of a really really bad reg regression to the mean wave of three-point shooting uh which we will

Get into we’ll talk about the offense a little bit but I do think Assad look we’re at the point now the Toronto Raptors they’re 15 and 25 they’re not really falling below 12th in the Eastern Conference they are very much seemingly going to be in a battle between the Nets

The Hawks and the Bulls for the last two playin spots from here to the end of the season I don’t think it’s all that high stakes I really think the onc court process stuff and watching the sort of jelling of the new guys is the single most important thing to take away and

Enjoy from this season so we’re not going to start in a negative note despite the loss we’re going to talk about defense because Assad the Raptors actually played some last night against the Celtics uh the Celtics scored is 105 points they’re held to an 89.8 offensive rating in the half court

Uh of course they’re a very good offensive team one of the best and the Raptors did a pretty good job of shutting off the faucet uh we’ll start there we’ll get into the other stuff we got good bad whom coming up later but Assad impressions of the defense Darko

Rakovich talked before the game about kind of changing up the coverage a little bit think we saw some new stuff um what were your impressions of the defense in this game how did the Raptors manage to have one of their better defensive efforts in months well like there’s always like

Attention to detail stuff like in terms of like you know making sure you’re switching cleanly and communicating um there the Celtics are a little bit easier to deal with in the sense that they don’t necessarily have as many downhill attackers like Derrick White’s their main downhill guy um Jason Tatum

Can get downhill but a lot of the times against the Raptors they were able to lock him up um topside and the Raptors just have the type of personnel to deal with um those kind of wings um where you saw a lot of the Deb damage that Tatum

Did in last night’s game was coming off a screens off ball on a back cut and then getting loose and then getting downhill um but he had to make his decisions a lot faster U the Raptors also were very help heavy last night um obviously they had to with christs

Because they don’t have yaka perto so anytime christops got the ball they were a lot more aggressive sending help um and then rotating which is something we saw last season as well from this Raptor team so it’s not necessarily something that’s new U makes sense given their

Strengths as being you know a long team that can get into passing lanes and then Force some turnovers and that’s kind of where they found some of their success um early in the game especially in the third quarter when they kind of open up a lead was they were getting stops

Turning them over and getting back out and breaking on the but I think the biggest the biggest real like like those are all things in the defense that you can always improve with it’s effort related stuff detail related stuff but the biggest one was actually the rebounding where they very much put

The focus in gang rebound against the Celtics team that does like to crash um Emanuel quickly pointed out in his postgame um that you know they knew that the Celtics team liked to crash so their biggest thing was get the rebound and then get out in transition because you

Can hurt them early in transition if you do that so the team did a great job on the glass I think uh what they only the Celtics as a team only had five offensive rebounds yeah which like five offensive rebounds is you know not like

It’s not a great amount like for a team that gets a lot of B offensive rebounds and for a raptor team that’s been giving up like double digit offensive rebounds nightly it’s uh it’s definitely like a big difference for them uh the Raptors have been getting hurt on the offensive

Glass basically since the trade even before the trade that was basically where the weak point to started and it’s why the yaka purle units always look a little bit better because there’s just a little bit more defensive rebounding and probably the biggest element of the rebounding was you know Scotty Barnes

Has 11 defensive rebounds he’s a little bit closer to the net um in today’s coverages he played a little bit at the five tonight as well and it helps stabilize the Raptor defense when you have you know big guys in the paint rebounding and I think long term that is

Probably where um they’re going to find success defensively of course like there may be you know development stuff that they want to do with Scotty on the perimeter and stuff like that obviously but I think we do have a large sample knowing that when you have Scotty Barnes out there and you

Want to be a good defensive unit you want to get him closer to the basket yeah I think even last night his best defensive moments came as like a backline rim protector as has been the case for the majority of his career except for that one game where he chased

Steph Curry around really effectively um it’s been a struggle and actually will get into his struggles on the perimeter against Jason Tatum in particular a little bit later on at least in my uh good bad H we’ll get into that but yeah I think the defensive rebounding points

A really important one like this team you know it’s less dependent on defensive rebounds to like run effective offense than it used to be obviously because the offense can uh score out outside of transition now which is a beautiful thing but obviously last night the Celtics did a pretty damn good job

Locking them up uh a offensive rating in the fourth percentile per clean the glass in the half court for the Raptors last night the Celtics will put the clamps on you they’re like a vice and it’s horrifying they’re God they’re gonna win the championship aren’t they I

Hate it I really hate it man but yeah I thought this was a game where yeah maybe they needed those defensive boards to run off of more than they would in this typical game in the sort of post trade era um I thought there was some nice

Moments where you know they were pretty liberal with the switching as well obviously going a little bit smaller um you know that’s going to be kind of the thing you lean into probably but even when jontay Porter was in there he had some moments he had one possession where

He switched on Derrik white and kind of hung with him for like 10 12 seconds and had a block um which was like okay didn’t know joh J Porter had that in his bag defensively but that’s nice to see and yeah I thought they mixed it up

Pretty nicely when they did switch and kind of get those Mouse in the house situations like you talked about where Quickly’s guarding porzingis down to the block I thought Pascal did a really good job kind of being the second guy over as he’s always been like that was kind of his

Main role in a lot of Nick nurse defense is obviously kind of flying over being that second guy there to force the kick and the swing and you know some moments where the rotations weren’t totally on point a little bit slow a step behind but for the most part uh the detail

Stuff was uh pretty interesting and anything on defense where they show some life is encouraging to me like this is clearly the thing they have to do to get their house in order as the season progresses it’s been I think going into last night they were 26th in defense

Since the trade so you know and obviously not having yaka purle really really inhibits their ability to sort of perform at their top end defensively but uh you know some some nice stuff last night a nice step forward for a defense that has been on Hard Times of late

Despite the loss we’re going to come back Assad get into the offense which was a brick machine last night we will talk about that and what went wrong Pascal seak Scotty Barnes etc etc get to that coming up in just one sec Today’s Show is sponsored by better

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Assad Let’s uh dive into the offense from last night against the Boston Celtics that regression wave Came Crashing like a tsunami did it not four of 32 from Deep seum 0 for six after being like like 70% over the last handful of games Scotty Barnes 0 for two

Jonte Porter 0 for two RJ Barrett 0 for four the Raptors go two of 21 among their starters Emanuel quickly two of seven the only starter to hit a three in this game uh not what you want against a Boston Celtics team that is going to make life

Difficult for you getting to the rim the Raptors actually did a decent job scoring from two in this game but uh you know you just are not going to beat the Boston Celtics shooting four of 32 from Deep considering the math Edge they walk into every game with as an extremely

High volume three-point shooting team you can stop them from two all you want and they did last night 17 of 43 from two were the Boston Celtics but uh you know Derek White Drew holiday bombing away tough stuff to deal with uh was there anything you know we’re not at a

Couple games in a row here Assad where the Raptors have come up against kind of zon heavy teams we saw of course the Celtics last night and the Jazz in that nasty schedule loss on Friday where the Jazz throw all kinds of junk at you and the Raptors have had some trouble both

Nights kind of carving things up I think the Raptors you know they shot well from three in that jazz game which kind of bailed out their numbers but it was not a very good offensive performance I would argue um anything you’re noticing here the last couple games about the way the

Offense is congealing obviously they looked like they were really kind of on a heater there for the first five or six games after the trade um anything of concern here or is just just just a couple of junky defenses in a couple of games where the Raptors have gone cold

And at least in the second one here going for 32 which they will probably not do all that often um what were your thoughts on the way the offense performed or did not perform in this game against Boston uh I think part of it is definitely like yeah they went

Cold like obviously there the worst percentage the Raptors of shots it’s like 2012 or 2011 I think K had that stat um but like I I I always hesitate when you have a bad shooting night against the Zone because a lot of times it’s a compounding effect where it’s

Like on a regular night the shots that you’re getting for your guys are out of the rhythm of the offense um so you’re getting open threes they’re shot ready for them and they know that like that’s the shot that’s coming like this is the play we’re running we’re getting a shot

Out of this or I’m an option on this play I’m going to get a shot out of this against the Zone I find the Raptors have been a little bit fluxed in terms of how to how to set up how to get like how are they going to create their advantage how

Are they going to attack the zone and credit to the Celtics defense a great defense uh they do a lot of switching they’ll scram switch their small guys out once the switch doesn’t work there was one play I think the Raptors are trying to get Scotty Barnes a post up uh

It was either Scotty or Pascal a post up against uh a small and then by the time they were actually able to get to the postup Al Horford was there and it’s like you you did all that work work you got all these switches and then they

Managed to get it reset before you even got the ball to where you wanted to go so I think part of it is that the Raptors obviously don’t have the three-point shooting there were short Gary Trent Jr uh yesterday I think having that second real knockdown

Shooter out there if they could have a lot of Jaylen McDaniels man like if you have quickley and Gary Trent out there it becomes a lot easier to you know contort The Zone it’s why the Raptors look best in those quickly minutes it’s also why the Raptor offense fell apart

At the end of third quarter uh when the Celtics went like a 20 to4 run or something uh to close the quarter when quickly sat like quickly sat for three minutes I think the Raptors only had two points to close the quarter or something like that and it was it was you could

Just see the difference between when quickly would have the ball or quickly how the defense was reacting to him versus how they would react to basically anyone else on the Raptors uh so yes part of it’s a cold shooting night but again part of the function is and this

Is why you see a lot of teams struggle to shoot from three against the Miami Heat we’ve seen that happen Raptors a lot where you’ll just have like these disgusting shooting nights against really Zone heavy teams and part of it feeds into each other team sees you’re

Not making threes against Zone you more and then as they start zoning you harder you’re suddenly feel like you’re forcing open threes rather than you know taking a natural open three uh and then the second piece I have of concern for the Raptor offense it’s not even a concern

Point but I think it’s just a point of emphasis is like they brought in a Manu quickly I understand that he wants to pass a little bit more he wants to show cases passing but I do think that the piece that’s missing for the Raptors right now

Is quickly taking like using his threat as a three-point shooter and actually taking some shots yes um he definitely uses his threat to contort the defense but he just needs to get more attempts up right now he’s averaging I think per 36 I looked up he’s at 7.1 per game as a

Raptor um as a New York Nick before the trade he was at like near Eight um and previously with the Knicks he’s been at around that eight Mark per 36 he needs to be like above eight like eight eight to nine shot attempts a game from three

Um himself I would aim at 10 10 threes a game for emanel quickly like there’s no reason not to if he’s in a 33 35 minute roll uh similar for Scotty Barnes Scotty Barnes only got two attempts up last night of course that’s a function of

When you’re beating a Zone you need to have like you know your bigs that are gonna pass out of the middle of Zone and collapse it so Scotty was in that role a lot more um but you need him to be at the five to six three-point range

Um and maybe that means putting Pascal more on ball in the middle of floor and Scotty in the corner so that way the defense is helping off him uh versus having the flip where you have Pascal in the corner and Scotty on the ball in the

Middle and it’s just it’s just a matter of figuring out how to get the number of three-point attempts up because even in the Jazz game the Raptor shot 17 to 34 but they only got 34 threes up if you can get that closer to 37 38

39 attempts on a night I think that would would be better for the Raptors in general um not that their offense has been a massive problem but if you’re going to play better defense and play more half court offense then against zones you’re going to need to be a bit better

About parking your Shooters where they’re going to get a shot and then actually getting the shot attempts like the volume up because last night the Raptors did deliver a lot of three-point attempts to probably their worst three-point Shooters which is what the Celtics would have wanted um as their

Defensive game plan yeah for sure I yeah you want that flipped I think six attempts to two attempts between Pascal and Scotty and the point of putting Scotty off ball I think is a really good one and you know the sort of you know there’s a certain corner of the fan base

They’ll be like Scotty off the ball how you GNA do that but like Scotty off the ball is amazing he’s been like one of the better spot up scorers in the league over the course of the Season like top quarter um in terms of like the percentiles all season long as a spot-up

Guy it’s because he’s a 38% high volume shooter who when a close out comes his way is causing all kinds of Havoc getting downhill and yeah I think that is something that they can tap into a little bit and I just back to your quickly point you know so far with the

Raptors eight games he’s averaging 2.8 pull-up attempts per game he’s shooting 36% on those Fred Van was averaging like four and a half pull-ups during his time with the Raptors last season especially after the trade with yaka purle and obviously not having purle for half of the games affects this they haven’t been

Able to run that quickly and pural pick and roll that hurts but I would like to see a little more of the quickly and Pascal pick and roll stuff the quickly and Scotty pick and roll stuff like in particular like the quickly Scotty Dynamic there have been moments where

It’s looked really good but I don’t feel like they’ve tapped into that sort of dynamism those two can have working in connection with one another quite enough and I think that is a way that you kind of unlock those opportunities to quickly to kind of rain pull up threes on

People’s heads is if you have people with like legitim roll gravity or pop gravity to kind of give a little bit of space there get those windows where Qui quickly put it up um that’s I think something I’d like to see a little bit more obviously tougher against a very

Good defense that’s zoning you up and making things very difficult but um you know I think that’s uh that’s a worthwhile thing to keep an eye on and as far as like the Zone busting you know who they kind of missed Zone busting and this is a crazy statement it’s precious

To Chua a little bit right like he could flash to the middle and just be like well I’m going to blow by this Center and score and like that was like a pretty viable way for them to get easy buckets obviously a third of those times

He’s booting it out of bounds and doing precious things but that was like a valuable little thing that they had in their toolbox that I don’t know if they figured out a way to sort of counteract not having now when you talk about that role it’s uh it’s interesting to see

That the guy who had probably the most offensive success last night was RJ Barrett because that’s what he was doing he catches off ball and just will attack he will cut and he will cut and he will cut and he will drop drive and he just

Kept getting to his left hand early in the game I think he had like 10 in the first quarter um he was really uh buzzing uh in that game early on where he was just blowing up the Zone by cutting through the middle attacking hard driving hard and that’s stuff that

You primarily would have wanted to see from press situa and probably why I think RJ has looked so good as a raptor is because he’s getting a lot of the looks that not only is he a finishing them fairly well outside of that one game against Utah but he’s been

Um it’s kind of a bit of comparison in your own head where oh on the same look I’m seeing like you know OG kind of awkwardly cut or I’m seeing precious aoua accidentally dribble into three guys and commit an offensive foul or decide to pass it as as he’s about to

Dunk the ball or something I don’t know you can kind of make whatever decision he wants at any given moment so it’s it’s just it’s nice to see someone so kind of single-minded and what they want to do and have decided and make a clear path for himself uh jumping back to the

Quickly Point uh it does suck that he’s missing a screener in yaka purle I do want to see him work more with Barnes but I think the other thing the Raptors just in general need to do is they need to set the screens for him a lot higher

I think right now they’re they’ve become so used to I think setting the screens at the three-point line or a little bit under the three-point line right that when they run that high pick and roll or they run those pick and rolls for quickly they’re not setting three the

The pick high enough uh one of the one of the things um I looked at on pros and Claw on the substack was um I did a video on Emanuel quickley playmaking after the trade and I looked at a lot of his uh playmaking looks out of the pick

And roll out of different situations dho and one thing that was noted was New York set those screens really high for him of course New York had some really big screeners they have Mitchell Robinson they’ve got hartenstein like those are big body dudes but they’re setting the screen at like the

Four-point line and what that allows quickly to do is quickly a has intense speed but he loves kind of like just sticking on the screen like after he guy gets hit on the screen he likes to stick there for a second to see what the

Defender is going to do and then he kind of goes start stop and starts like jagging in and out and deciding what he wants to do uh so I think the Raptors that’s the only thing that I would say they need to adjust a little bit on the

Quickly stuff and that kind of comes with you know getting to know a player and like learning where they want the ball what they where they want their screen how they want the screen set and it sucks that P’s injured during this period because I would love to see as

Much yaka purle Emanual quickly Twan game as possible but that’s one thing I would look out to see how the Raptors do better in terms of setting that screen for quickly a lot higher up so then it gives them more of a downhill to attack and also pop for

That three when um behind the line yeah that’s like they’re they have to condition themselves to not operating in a phone booth like they have for the last six year six years three years whatever it’s been um you know obviously Fred was a bit of an agent for vertical

Spacing as well but I don’t think quite to the same degree that even quickly can be kind of when fully Unleashed so yeah I I think that’s a really good point on the RJ thing as well I think you know the way he’s fitting to the offense I

Think it’s like it’s kind of a thing where the system fits the things he does already well right like moving off the ball um sort of just barraging his way to the rim making quick decisions like it empowers him to do the stuff as like a scorer that he’s always been good at

While also I think working against like his worst Tendencies and kind of helping him right because like this offense doesn’t have room for him to have these sort of Meandering long bully drives right it’s got to be a lot more quick firing and I think that’s uh been a

Pretty nice marriage of player in system that we’ve seen so far also uh he’s got Thad young throwing cool ass passes to him seemingly every time down the floor which certainly helps seven assists for Thad incredible stuff um we’ll leave it there though the good offense talk we’ll

Come back to the other side get into The Good The Bad and The Hum to round out today’s episode we’ll do that in just one sec Today’s Show is brought to you by Jace medical Scar in The Lion King said at best be prepared it’s really all it

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Assad Alvi from pros and Claw uh and again just sort of schooling fools at Milton rec centers uh for decades now right is that kind of the is that the story career of Assad just uh yeah that’s one that’s one way to age me but

Yeah no I was it was it was kind of sad the other day I was like U we’re getting ready for our recck League season starting today so I was looking at and I just came across like you know how Snapchat kind of throws you some

Memories sure so it was like a clip of me like nailing like a half court shot like just in warm-ups and I was like oh that’s great I’m like oh I remember this and I’m like oh this is when I first joined this league and then like 10

Years ago I’m like that is depressing but okay that’s a long stor career I don’t I don’t know what you’re talking about that’s uh I’ve gone from I’ve gone from 220 pound shooting guard to 300 lound Point Center but that’s what happens my favorite kind of basketball

Player in general so uh you know I I can’t wait to we just got the email about the Raptor Republic 3on Three Tournament coming back in March I uh can’t wait to see you oh that’s perfect March I was uh wondering when that was gonna happen so right all I remember is

Uh Shawn Woodley taking out my ankle uh many a years ago CU I crossed you up so bad or did I like inj no we were on defense Sean Woodley just decided he was going to set the nastiest screen and I have the video footage he clearly

Targeted my ankle um but it’s fine it’s fine we will get revenge one day I went to the marcool and serge Baka School of screens uh it’s a no one’s calling it a pickup so I don’t know uh let’s uh wrap it up here with The Good the Bad and the

H we will use things from the basketball game last night not our pickup or rec league exploits what was your good from last night’s game Assad H the defensive rebounding it was great it was awesome I loved it jont Porter like again I don’t think much of jonte Porter but like in

Terms of like he had to start in a spot and he looked okay in it um you mentioned earlier his like closeout stuff there’s actually a sequence in the Sacramento game where I think he had to do three times he had to on the same play because they kept giving up

Offensive rebounds or uh I think Sacramento kept passing out of it but jonte closed out to the three-point shooter then stuck with the shooter through the dive then had to close out to another three-point shooter stick with him and it was like three times in

A row on the same play and I’m like that that’s impressive to me um I don’t think he’s necessarily a good Defender but he’s definitely not a bad Defender I think he’s got some chops there at least um he tries and he’s smart yeah I think

He kind of understands where to be even though he’s come overcoming kind of a very apparent lack of athleticism but uh yeah Point well taken my good is I we mentioned it before RJ Barrett’s cutting uh man the dude Cuts with such force and it’s beautiful to behold he’s just just

Like slingshotting his way to the basket uh you know Thad young of course finding him a couple times last night and I do not envy anyone who’s like meeting RJ Barrett at The Rim that dude is a tank and watching him kind of work off ball

Find the pockets of the defense where he can attack uh I think the role he’s in right now on offense is perfect and I would prefer if the Raptors didn’t trade away a very important offensive player who allows RJ Barrett to occupy this lower leverage off ball role but we can

Save that for another day or any of the last six podcasts we’ we recorded if you want to go check that out uh what you got for your bad in this one uh the bad it’s pretty the shooting like I don’t know it’s such an obvious bad that I don’t

Really know what to say but I like I think deep cut bad you can go there too you can talk about Chris buet if you want yeah no no Chris I don’t mind Chris Chris has a good lot of good energy it just like shots don’t go down they don’t

Go down but like yeah I think that young at one point uh air balled a corner three-pointer like two feet long and I was like all right so that’s our night today that’s great uh remember when Nick nurse just stuck him in the corner for like an entire back half of a season

After the trade deadline that was cool yeah the thing was he made his first couple that was like oh he they fixed them the the the shot doctors have gotten to him he’s good yeah that was that was rough stuff that we can highlight that Thad three as the bad if

You want on otherwise solid night the team leader in plus minus Thad young in this game um but yeah that was rough my bad is uh Scotty and Pascal’s perimeter defense in this one in particular the stretch where in the late third quarter Jason Tatum is eviscerating Scotty

Barnes every single time down the floor as they are talking about Scotty Barnes in the sideline Report with Kayla talking about like Scotty Barnes is ready for these big time mat matchups he’s just he’s talking about it all the time how he wants these big assignments

He talks to Darko about it as Jason Tatum is cooking him for a personal 80 run uh that that was that hit pretty hard there was also a couple moments where se yakum you know SE yakum hits his Peaks on defense he also has had plenty of blow buys allowed this season

And I think there were a few in last night’s game particularly the first of Jason Tatum’s two very loud dunks back toback um you know again they they got roasted by Tatum in a lot of you know he didn’t have a great game overall just 19 on pretty in inefficient shooting but

The moments R Tatum was cooking it was seak and Barnes who were uh I suppose the in the pan I don’t know it was not the best so that was my bad that actually just reminded me of the bad that I I think that really did stick out

Third quarter the Raptors were on a bit of a run and they had played such good defense they had turned him over Pascal’s breaking they’ve got Tatum in front of them or somebody in front of them he kicks it back to Scotty Barnes it’s two-on-one fast break they’ve got

Qui quickly shooting to the corner and then Scotty Barnes does like a nol look pass to Pascal it’s a two-on-one it just like no looks it but T doesn’t look with him and it just a steal and then the Celtics just have this Onslaught afterwards uh at that point I think both

Pascal and Scotty had gotten pretty tired I think they were late in their shift anyways but that was like the one where I was just like oh man like I love no look passes don’t get me wrong it’s my favorite pass that’s the only pass I

Throw nowadays is no looks but like so I have nothing against the nol look pass I love it but man when you screw it up it just uh it hurts but uh that was probably the bad it is also like pretty Stark anytime you see Scotty and Pascal

Bungle a fast break considering that’s like instant buckets most of the time yeah that did feel like a big one because I think holiday came down hit a shot and then the the Run kind of began there bummer uh let’s go to the H what you got for your whom from this game

Assad uh I think it was just intriguing to see that they could play defense like in general they could rebound it was I I was them today baby I’m like I don’t I don’t know if they could rebound and they actually showed that they could

Rebound I was actually very uh uh I was interested by that but uh Scotty’s a hell of a rebounder when he’s like really doing it man he’s really really good at it when he’s locked in yeah um sorry did you have something else you wanted to add there the only

Other thing was again like ah like jontay Porter is very interesting I like him I don’t know what it is I liked uh he he went with like a drake comeback season uh type cut tried to keep it nice and tight he’s got the facial hair nice

And tight so you know look like an old Drake album cover but you know shout out to him you know you get your first start you got to look good for it and he came and made sure he looked good for his first start yeah Mantic actually my favorite thing uh

Favorite NBA thing is the first game back after a road trip everybody gets back to their Barbers everybody gets a clean cut and everybody looks clean again it’s like oh yeah their braids are redone everything I’m like oh y back the uh myom is also jonte Porter related you

Mentioned him getting the start I thought he performed reasonably well in the first half you know it’d be nice if he could hit some shots he was one of five 02 from deep but you know some nice passing you mentioned the the rebounds you mentioned the defense um then he

Gets 10 seconds of action in the second half he fouls Chris daps on the offensive end gets his fourth foul and then never sees the floor again uh bit of a weird one I know like Darko went small and there was a lot of logic to

Going small late in this game I thought and they obviously made a pretty decent push to close and their defense held up pretty admirably even without jont out there but it did feel a little strange that he was just like pinned to the bench after picking up his fourth

Foul I I don’t know if that says anything about darko’s belief in jonte Porter it might have just been game Flow it might have just been matchups and all of that but uh you know keep an eye on that one because that was a pretty quick

Hook and I you know the fourth foul is going to get you there but could have gone back in probably at some point it seemed in that second half he really liked the McDaniels look more than he liked the portal look and like I guess I

Get it because it lets you in theory get out and transition more be a little bit more switchable maybe gives you a little bit more three-point shooting though I don’t imagine how much McDaniels did hit his first three in the game um didn’t hit he hit a three in transition that

Was wide open that I was certain was bricking because he’s bricked that shot he hit a quarter of the Raptor threes so you know what if you got a guy who’s hit a quarter of your threes you got to play him so I actually don’t I don’t mind the

Decision actually looking back at it but oh man you know it’s a rough shooting night when uh your best shooter by percentage is Jaylen McDaniels from Deep uh Hey Jaylen McDaniels actually been he he hit a three tonight he was one of the few Raptors to hit a three and then the

Other night against Utah I think he was one of two Raptors to shoot over 50% from inside the arc which was like Chris buet was one of one and he was four of five I’m we’ve stumbled onto a sneaky H here is Jaylen McDaniels revived is he

Back is he a rotation player or is he just about to be traded to the bucks for a future second round pick we’ll see uh we will leave it there though Assad thanks so much for hanging out man it was great having you do you have anything you want to promote for the

Good people out there yeah of course always check us out on substack um pros and Claw uh myself and Iman are always putting out work there uh Raptors and NBA related um I did a couple breakdowns um that are great W uh video watches that you can watch on YouTube as well um

Just breaking down play-by-play both RJ Bear 37-point game as well as Emanuel quickley playmaking those are all good watches we also have more content coming out um More or Less weekly uh coming up and you know hopefully the Raptors give us uh you know some good some good games

To over on this little home trip to give us something to talk about yeah man it it does feel like one of the least deserved four game losing streaks but they are on a four game losing streak they should probably start to rack up some dubs here at some point the heat

Will be tough the Bulls hopefully not tough we’ll see um just a banger of a game in the playin race Bulls Raptors just you can’t keep these two teams from playing High leverage high stakes basketball baby uh we’ll leave it there thank you so much for tuning in we’ll be

Back again on Wednesday I’m hoping to get Katie hindle on the show but I know she’s up at the cottage and it’s snowy and lust three and I’m not sure if she’ll have internet to do that so we might do a mailbag show something like that either way back again tomorrow we

Got Jamar Hines coming along on Thursday we’ve got Tony East from locked on Pacers on Friday to talk about well you know what we’re going to talk about with the Pacers host but uh that’s going to be up on Friday as well thank you so much for hanging and extend Pascal SE

AUM now bye-bye

In Episode 1556, Sean Woodley is joined by Asad Alvi (Prose & Claws, @Swarlayzers) to recap the Toronto Raptors’ 105-96 loss to the Boston Celtics on Monday night in a game that saw the Raptors turn in one of their best defensive efforts in weeks, only to be undone by one of the worst three-point shooting nights they’ve ever had. Off the top, Sean and Asad dig into what they noticed from the defense as they did a great job preventing Boston from getting much of anything inside the arc, flashed some strong help-and-recover defense, and cleaned up the defensive glass at an impressive rate. Next, they dig into what went wrong on offense beyond a simple cold shooting night, and examine why zone defenses have given the Raptors some problems in their last two outings against the Jazz and Celtics. Lastly, they run through The Good (Jontay Porter’s play in his first start, RJ Barrett’s cutting) The Bad (the bricks, Scottie Barnes and Pascal Siakam’s wing defense) and The Hmmmm (Jalen McDaniels, Jontay getting benched after just 10 seconds of second half playing time) to round out the show.

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