Toronto Raptors overwhelmed vs. Pelicans | RJ Barrett’s importance | Gradey Dick’s career night

Toronto Raptors overwhelmed vs. Pelicans | RJ Barrett’s importance | Gradey Dick’s career night

On your Tuesday episode of Locked on Raptors the Toronto Raptors get embarrassed by the New Orleans Pelicans and RJ Barrett just might be the most important player in Toronto Raptors history you are locked on Raptors your daily Toronto Raptors podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every Day hey what’s going on and welcome to another episode of locked on Raptors part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day it is Tuesday February the 6th and I’m your host sea Woodley I’ve been covering the Toronto Raptors now for 10 seasons on various

Platforms you can find all my work over on that website that doesn’t work very well and is very mean all the time Matt Woodley sha you can find the show on Instagram at lockon Raptors and of course you can join us over on the lockon rptor Discord server the link is

In the description of the podcast it’s free to join we would love to see you in there and uh it’s a great little spot it’s a great place for coping these days is the toron ronto Raptors are not a very good basketball team by Design I

Suppose but man oh man last night not very fun two games in three now not very fun we will get into the mess that was this L of the Pelicans coming up on today’s show of course uh reminder you can find the show for free where get your podcast follow subscribe rate

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Show which is brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel make every moment more right now new customers get $200 in bonus bets if your first bet of five bucks or more wins visit fanduel.com lockon to get started and we’ll get started by digging into just a

Really ugly lifeless kind of waste of time uh spending our evenings watching it Toronto Raptor basketball game really really bad stuff 138 100 the Pelicans walk all over the Raptors they open up the first quarter 36 to9 the Raptors have a five minute scoring drought in

The first quarter and they were never in this one after that third quarter obviously some signs of life here and there a decent second quarter on offense at least but it all comes crashing down as Brandon Ingram goes off for a cool 41 points on 16 of 21 shooting an eight of

11 from deep as the Toronto Raptors simply had nobody to guard that dude we will get into the good stuff from this game which was uh kind of only Grady dick will do a good bad at the end of the game at the end of the show as well

As we always do but we should start off with my sort of big Takeaway on this game which was which is that it’s kind of unbelievable and frankly impressive how valuable and important RJ Barrett seems to be the to the Integrity of this basketball team right now not having him

Last night second out of the back toback injury management totally makes sense you don’t want to overextend him coming back from that knee swelling but it turns out without RJ Barrett this team just kind of can’t really do any of the things it wants to do and a lot of its

Weaknesses are Amplified by the lack of RJ Barrett as well um I think the thing that really popped out in this game and I thing that’s really been incredible to watch with RJ since he joined the Raptors over a month ago now is transition he’s been such a devastating

Transition player and last night was maybe the worst transition performance the Raptors have turned in all season long uh they only got into transition 10.6% of the time that is just not enough for this team which for the most part this year has been hanging out near

The top of the the charts when it comes to transition frequency transition efficiency all that stuff they just didn’t run in this game and look it’s hard to run when you’re fishing the ball out of your bucket because Brandon Ingram has schooled you once again uh

You know over the course of a full game it’s tough to rack up those transition opportunities when you’re just not getting stops also a problem you know exacerbated by not having RJ Barrett even though he’s not the greatest defensive player of all time or anything like that but yeah just a strange game

Where it seemed like the Raptors are very eager even off of makes to or off of you know collecting defensive rebounds that is very eager to just kind of walk it up and get into some kind of lifeless halfcourt sets which are way less potent when you don’t have the

Battering ram that is RJ Barrett flying around screens cutting into space knocking down threes when they swing to him in the flow of the offense just not having him as a play finisher really really nukes the effectiveness of this half Court offense right now it’s pretty

Stark um you know I didn’t think Bruce Brown had a very good game as an offensive Cog in this game at all you know you know he four7 from the field or whatever but he was pretty ineffectual a team worth minus 31 the defense obviously from Bruce Brown not so hot

Either and when you don’t have RJ Barrett it’s not just that the offense runs less smoothly and that the transition game is less easy to get to it’s also just that the biggest weakness of this current roster which is just size at athleticism not being felt at all by their opponents that’s

Exacerbated even more by not having RJ because he’s like the one guy right now who every single time he touches the ball is making the opponent feel his presence there’s making them hurt he’s just driving into dudes and making things happen with physical force and physical force is not really a thing the

Rest of this roster does super well right now it’s just not a very physical team they are not phys physically imposing they’re not terribly athletic when you compare them to a lot of teams around the league the league is skewing huge and it’s not surprising to me that

They keep on running into these Western Conference teams that are sort of middling teams by Western Conference standards the injured Grizzlies the Rockets the Pelicans you run into these teams and they just don’t have the physical might the Raptors don’t to keep up with these squads the Pelicans are

Massive everywhere Jonas Valen chunis is an absolute tank and hey I will give serious credit to Scotty Barnes who I think tried his darnest to fight and bang with with JV in this game um you know a lot of liberal help coming over from yaka purle JV did not have a very

Good game and I do think a lot of that is on you know Scotty Barnes being a really good sort of overmatched Underdog in those David vers did David versus Goliath matchups JB just goes four of4 but you could tell it was just physically taxing for Scotty Barnes just

To simply be in that matchup I I understand why they did it you know you open them up to be more switchable if they’re going to run yonas and pick and roll and stuff like that and you have you know Yak sort of be more of the sort

Of Rim bound hang near the basket guard Zion don’t worry about him shooting threes type of guy um you know I didn’t mind the defensive alignment but it just it speaks to how outgunned this team is physically that that was probably their best defensive alignment they did a

Pretty good job in one specific matchup at least uh with Scotty and Jonas valent chunis but there’s just not enough physical Force on the perimeter to keep guys from just walking to the basket the they’re just kind of overmatched physically and athletically at every position at this

Point it’s kind of wild to considering where we’ve come from where this team was once 68 everywhere and length and you know just jumping in your face and arms and thickets to try to navigate through as an offense there are no thickets right now this is an Open

Meadow for offenses and the offenses are just like sprightly skipping through with their picnic baskets and uh you know laying things up at The Rim it’s been pretty tough stuff I think uh you know it’s just you look at the Pelicans team right Trey Murphy is like 610 and

Blocking shots on the perimeter and flying around and you have herb Jones who’s just this ridiculous athlete an incredible Defender and the Raptors counter to it is bad young like it’s tough man it’s really really tough I I uh I don’t know it it’s just this this

Is the team they have this is the path they’ve chosen to walk and it’s going to be bad until for a while until it’s good I you know I’m bullish on having a good summer and you know turning things around in pretty short order here but this team right now is very much

Outgunned and it’s not surprising they keep on coming up against these western conference powerhouses with 11 deep rosters and getting completely just demolished in the athleticism and jumping around sort of departments is just not what this team does well and that’s the way the league is skewing as

The Raptors were I think kind of ahead of the curve on with the way they built their team they just didn’t build it with the right types of skill sets but they had the right idea in mind and now it’s just like kind of back to square

One where everyone outside of Scotty and Yak is small and overmatched it’s uh it’s tough stuff and again RJ makes it that much easier to figure out um you know this also was a bad game for getting to the rim another thing RJ Barrett really really amplifies for this

Team is the rim pressure this team’s identity has to be living at the rim and they have the capacity to do it when they’re healthy but RJ Barrett not being there really takes away one of their best Rim pressure options and uh you know there’s just was like a lot of

Walking up taking the first three available the first quarter was a nightmare for this just nothing going to the rim no nothing you know gaining penetration paint touches anything like that it was just kind of make a pass or two and the first kind of open three

That’s there let’s Jack it up miss it and go back and try to defend the Pelicans once again it was a really rough one that you know might have been a rough loss anyway if RJ Barrett were available but it’s pretty Stark how much he changes the dynamic of this team I

Don’t think he’s the best player on this team by any means obviously I still think that’s Scotty Barnes um you know creation burden is a thing the know I don’t think RJ would hold up with the creation burden that Scotty Barnes has for example but I do think RJ is the

Raptor who is playing the best right now and when you factor in the stuff he brings to the table not having him on the floor it just kind of left the Raptors drawing dead against this very good Pelicans team so tough stuff what are you going to do about it they’re

Going to lose games like it’s just kind of the way it is now it’s not how I would have gone about things but uh it’s the the path they’ve chosen to walk and there’s got to be patience there has to be an understanding that this is going

To be a regular occurrence and you know you would hope that they can hold up and not lose by 38 points most nights that that Rockets game was a disaster this one was a disaster there obviously been some high points on this road trip as well the Hawks game was Spirited the

Bulls win was nice the the Thunder game as much as the Finish was heartbreaking was a very spirited and good effort but if you got too many of these games kind of racking up man it’s a it’s an ugly look and it’s not conducive to development you’re just kind of running

Out garbage time lineups in second halves that’s not conducive to anything really garbage time there’s a reason cleaning the glass limits for garbage time in their statistics because garbage time is garbage there’s nothing going on there so yeah it’s tough It’s uh it’s just the way things are right now we’ll

See RJ Barrett certainly helps Mak thing a little bit more easy to navigate and obviously getting through the deadline and getting the clouds of uncertainty out of the the way would be very nice as well but this team just does not have the juice right now having four good

Players is not really enough in today’s NBA there’s lots of good players around It’s just tough we’ll come back on the other side and get to a guy who might be a fifth good player for the Raptors if uh if he plays his cards right if the Raptors play their developmental cards

Right and it seems like the developmental track has been working for this guy talk about grd Dick who was the Lone bright spot from this game coming up in just one second Today’s Show is brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel happy Super Bowl to all who celebrate from FanDuel

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Toronto Raptors loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on uh Monday night yeah second night of a back toback and look that’s part of this as well pretty clearly gassed after a two overtime Thriller against the Thunder I don’t think the Raptors really had much of a shot of

Winning this game anyway because of the schedule factors coming in but still you’d like to see a little bit more juice and uh juice is not something the Toronto Raptors brought unless you’re talking about Grady dick who had himself a really nice game in this one probably

His best as a pro at least the first half the second half I think most of his scoring was relegated to garbage time he was missing quite a bit in that third quarter when Brandon Ingram was going off and look no one was guarding Brandon Ingram the Raptors don’t have anyone to

Guard Brandon Ingram at this point it is what it is you’re going to run into matchups where you don’t have the juice defensively either but I do think Grady dick uh earnestly showed lots of Promise in this game in the first half in particular we had 15 points he goes

Nine of 16 overall four of eight from the field hitting twos hitting threes you know catch and shoot stuff pull up stuff uh you know off the bounce it’s pretty encouraging stuff for Grady dick and the trajectory he’s been on this season I I I just you know we’re kind of

Watching Player Development happen in real time right and I think you know it was always ridiculous it’s a fun pun ridiculous uh it was always silly to you know look at Grady dicks summer league or preseason or first stretch of NBA games and say oh that’s a bust should

Have taken Jordan Hawkins should have taken haime hawz or whatever and it may be true that those guys end up being better NBA players down the line this is how the draft works it’s a crapshoot and we like to think we know everything about it but uh you know things happen

And Grady dick was projected as like a top six guy in some boards and you know we’ll see ultimately I think the nice thing is is that grd dick is playing good enough ball right now and showing enough signs to suggest that this is not

Going to be like a lost pick grd dicks got some juice and I I think you know the thing that really just stands out to me watching him play is the dude really knows how to get open and that is kind of an underappreciated skill the dude

Just knows how to find pockets of space where he’s available to be hit with passes there were even some times last night where I thought the Raptors guards missed him a little bit I will give Bruce Brown credit wasn’t his best game he’s not been very good since the trade

Obviously there’s the whole trade thing hanging over him and we’ll see you know you know people know my opinions on Bruce Brown I would like to see him kept around and be part of the mix but clearly things are trending maybe in another Direction than that but I do

Think Brown was pretty good at kind of when Grady was hot in that first half he felt like the Raptor’s guard who most was trying to get him set up into spots where he could get more looks off so credit Bruce Brown for that that’s some veteran stuff hey turns out veterans

Good for Player Development who would have thought um but either way I I think you know that was a really notable thing from Grady last night is just like this dude continually finds him s in spots where he’s one pass away from a very good shot uh for the Toronto Raptors

Offense and as the threes continue to fall you know after what an awful start it was he’s now over 30% you know near 31% from Deep on the season over the course of his what 9 games played that’s great that’s really encouraging he’s moving into normal shooting territory

He’s still below 50% true shooting but it’s ticking up baby and that’s what you want to see and again this is just Player Development taking place this is the slow play of it this is what the Raptors used to do development wise was take very raw players think of Pascal SE

Yakum as a rookie that dude was as raw as they come he was basically just there to catch Outlet passes from Kyle Lowry and grab offensive rebounds that was kind of of the whole thing he brought to the table but they layered stuff in they played it slow they took the time they

Used the g-league and we are seeing that with Grady dick that you know the g- league time the sort of two- week physical regimen thing that they went went went through with them all of that seems to be paying dividends now and he to me like has to be playing heavy

Minutes down the stretch he played 30 minutes in this game just play him all the minutes at this point because that’s where he’s going to learn that’s where he’s going to get accustomed to the speed of the NBA which has been one of the rallying cries of uh the coaching

Staff of why he hasn’t been playing or had wasn’t playing early on in the season was he just wasn’t ready for the speed of it give him more reps against the speed of the NBA and good things are going to happen as he’s getting more comfortable kind of realizing where he

Can attack okay I got the you know it swung to me I got my pump fake teams are worried about that now so I can pump I can drive I can pull up off the bounce he had one last night where we scored over I think it was Brandon Ingram might

Have been someone else but uh might have been Trey Murphy uh but either way just like a really nice you know catch pump Drive Baseline fade away that’s incredible stuff to see from gr dick as he’s sort of being emboldened to go and do more and on defense like look they’re

Still learning to be done there are moments where he’s you know kind of getting bullied around but he’s picking up charges he’s in the right spots he’s jumping passing lanes and I I think he’s not detracting from the Raptor defense anyone else any more than any of the

Other turn Styles they keep on throwing out there on the perimeter and so I don’t see any reason why Grady dick shouldn’t be playing heavy minutes down the down the rest of the season like this is what this is for use these games for development use these games to

Actually try and figure out like what lineup combinations work what player pairings work with grd dick who does he have chemistry with and you know obviously Scotty Barnes is gonna be a big part of this thing going forward too with Grady dick like how do those do do

How do those dudes play off of one another plenty of History to suggest that movement shooting is something that works very well next to Scotty Barnes let’s tap into that a little bit more can you run some Twan game between Scotty Barnes and grd Dick I would love

To see if they could kind of tap into remember the heat you know used to really and they still do this right they run a ton of bam out of Bio Duncan Robinson pick and roll and dribble handoff stuff and just Twan actions to get those two dudes and what they do

Well playing off of one another and amplifying each other I would love to see that more with Scotty Barnes I’d like to see that more with Scotty Barnes and Emanuel quickly as well uh still didn’t see a ton of that last night there were like one or two attempts at

Pick and rolls that didn’t go anywhere um still lots of I think ripe Delicious Fruit to be plucked off that tree for sure um but yeah Grady dick belongs in this rotation right now and it is the thing to kind of keep you excited and if you’re building a team right think about

It like if you’re putting together a team that’s going to be serious in the NBA at this juncture where the talent like seemingly overnight it seems like in three or four years the sort of Baseline for requisite number of good play players has gone from like seven to

10 very quickly think about the Raptors you know their very tight rotations back even in the the early Nick nurse times like after kawhai left and all that like they were running some pretty short benches in those times and they made it work because the top end guys were good

Enough top end guys are not good enough now on their own to bring you to wins right every team has nine 10 dudes it seems who are pretty good and right now the Raptors we know this has been a shortcoming of theirs in recent years is filling out back end of rosters and

Grady dick right now if you look at this roster and say okay Barnes Barrett quickley purle that’s four Dudes no doubt those are good players who are going to be on this team for a while if you’re looking for a fifth like I feel pretty confident saying gr saying grd

Dick is going to be one of the nine or 10 best players on the next good Raptors team and hey for uh a guy you take 13th overall maybe you want higher Ambitions and I’m sure he will be better than just the ninth or tth guy based on what he

Does as an off ball player and the gravity of his shooting especially as he gets into the groove and is actually hitting his shots um but at the very least it feels like they’ve got a piece who will be part of this team the next time they’re good and competitive so

That’s that’s great very encouraging was happy to see Grady and just sort of the the versatility of the way he can get his looks off right whether it’s you know little floaters here and there getting downhill I love it when they bring him around the screen he can kind

Of cuts down right down the paint and can put those up off glass like that’s great stuff uh in a nice sort of diversity not just a shooter as the refrain has gone with grd Dick for a while and you’re seeing it right he he’s just he’s got a lot to his offensive

Package and I think as he gets more comfortable the physicality becomes less of a burden for him and less of a daunting obstacle to climb things are only going to get better for Grady dicks so nice performance here and uh you know we got to take the wins where we get

Them and that was a fun one we we more of that please more Grady dick bombing away on those threes that would be pretty sweet and nice to see him do it against Jordan Hawkins of course the guy who was taking after him who everyone’s very mad about now I was a Jordan

Hawkins guy too I love Jordan Hawkins but uh you know nice to have a nice game from grd dick where you don’t have to feel like you missed out or anything like that all that good stuff we’ll come back on the other side round it out with

The Good the Bad and that not much good to pull from this one but I have one sort of Meandering creative one that we’ll get to and among our bads and HS that we’ll get to coming up in just one second Today’s Show is sponsored by better help

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H yeah uh thing we liked thing we didn’t like thing that got us a little intrigued or by us I mean just me because it’s just me on today’s show it’s not a plural of people here I’m losing my mind uh either way let’s get

To the good shall we the good again not a whole lot I talked about Grady dick already so I’m not going to rehash that one and beyond that there’s not a whole lot of good you know there was Scotty’s Noble efforts against the very large Jonas valan chunis that was fun and

Interesting to watch for a while even if it seems like it maybe took Scotty out physically on the offense event I don’t know um but I I I do have one and it was getting to see perhaps the last fleeting glimpse of Chris bue as a Toronto Raptor

Reporting yesterday from Doug Smith that the Raptors are looking for a landing spot for the longest serving Toronto Raptor which is quite a sentence to say uh and look is it fitting that the last fleeting glimpse of Chris buet took place in garbage time considering that

Was the role he occupied way back when he began with the Raptors as like a garbage time hero on the championship team I think it is a little fitting uh you know 12 minutes for him in this one 11 points six boards an assist minus four as the Raptors went minus four in

That fourth quarter plays it all um you know it’s been weird Chris bu’s had a lot of UPS he’s had many Downs he’s been a pretty you know Dependable Soldier for this team for many years and you know when he’s been really good he’s been like a really really exciting energy

Infusing bench big it’s just kind of weird the way it’s all gone down obviously he’s been sort of moved out of the plans and I I don’t even begrudge the Raptors for that at all I don’t think bue has been especially good this season he’s certainly not been very

Consistent it’s been up and down um the three-point shot continues to baffle and you know sometimes it looks like the prettiest most butter jumper you’ve ever seen and sometimes it looks like it’s just got no chance of going in that’s just the Chris buet experience um you know obviously I think without precious

AA without the sort of commitment to being this insane offensive rebounding outlier team bu’s effec this has gone down a little bit the last couple Seasons as well um I guess mostly this season you know just it’s just kind of been weird with Chris buet weirdly fitting lineups and all that all through

It he’s been super professional he seems like a pretty sort of trusted and loved voice within the locker room as well obviously was very close with the recently departed seaka and OG and precious and all that you know a pretty you know compelling fun character for

This Raptor team for many years and if that was the last we see from Chris bue I’m glad it happened in garbage time where that was kind of where Chris buet first became a dude I enjoyed which was garbage and frankly it’s kind of a personal thing too my M who got really

Into the Raptors during the championship run the 201920 season as well kind of fell off after the pandemic I think that’s probably true for a lot of fans who jumped in for the title and then uh The Following season and the pandemic really kind of hurts stuff but um my mom

Just texts me all the time when bue is playing and just calls him garbage time so endearingly she loves it she loves him uh really likes him but I was just like oh yeah it’s garbage time Chris bu’s in that was kind of my common

Refrain uh way back in 2019 and uh to have him have that garbage time performance last night where he goes four or five hits a three all that good stuff it was a fitting potential end to Chris bu’s tenure with the Toronto Raptors unceremonious as it may be for

Me on a personal level considering you know my my own mom’s love of this player uh it was I think a pretty fitting way for it to go down and hey maybe he plays against the Hornets maybe he’s not traded by then but it does seem like we

Are in the last couple days here of the Chris buet Toronto Raptor era one way or another um which on the whole I would argue has been a good uh even if it’s been a little frustrating at times let’s go to the bad uh lots of bad in this one

Obviously you know I did not think this was a good Dennis shuder game really bad Dennis shuder game actually uh just didn’t have it minus 25 04 not really orchestrating the offense very effectively uh not my favorite we talked about Bruce Brown not having himself a very good defensive game you could just

Say like perimeter defense could be a thing that was not good from this game gestures broadly at the whole game could be the bad from this game as well I’ll say Jordan War though I didn’t love this war game he had five assists somehow um but you know he obviously played the

Entirety of the fourth quarter thought overall though just a pretty ineffectual game from war and like maybe the Magic’s not quite there anymore right like you know if he can pop off and have a heater from Deep that’s great I’m not sure he does a ton else to really affect winning

And this is why I was not terribly enthused when he was involved in the trade and I why I don’t think Tony East when we talked to him from locked on Pacers was all that upset about the r the Pacers moving on from him either you

Know I do think there will be an opportunity here for war to play himself into the mix down the stretch if he can continue to capture what he did in those bulls and Hawks games in a bottle then great for him but I do think you see the

Limitations of Jordan War he you know doesn’t make very quick decisions with the ball in his hands he you know has like a little bit of passing juice but I don’t think he like gets to those reads very naturally and he’s just not a very good Defender like he just doesn’t have

The lateral foot speed and at 6 foot eight like you would hope that you are getting someone who can be like a physical you know a Defender that you feel but I don’t quite think Jordan war is that it’s uh you know this is I just

Had to pick something there was lots of bad from this game Emanuel quickly had a pretty rough one the finishing a problem again just two of seven from two um I continue to think that’s going to be something that’s just sort of like a a working progress with him he’s carrying

A much bigger burden as the lead guard than he was with the Knicks and you know the the percentages drop down when that happens right it’s an adjustment period I’m not terribly concerned but not a very good game from quickly either just a bad game in general General man this

Game’s stuck like just if there’s more of this if this is how the season ends just like a an absolute waste total nightmare hopefully it’s not hopefully they can kind of get things through the deadline and settle down a little bit and have themselves a bit of a decent

Run to close the season I think that’s very much on the table even if it’s not full of wins I think it could be more full of competitive fun interesting developmentally conducive basketball games last night no one’s getting developed at all it’s just nightmare uh

Shad out Grady I guess for being the one guy we’ll go to the H the H from this one I wonder just how much two massive blowout losses in the matter of three games changes the Raptor’s sort of feelings in the deadline you know I’ve been thinking no maybe they’ll just keep

Gary Trad Jr maybe they keep Bruce Brown for the trade possibilities having him on the roster in the books opens up in the summer Dennis schruder feels like a guy they’ll keep Chris bue You Know M maybe they find a move for him if they don’t maybe they just keep him around it

Does kind of feel like maybe they just move everybody I I don’t know it’s hard to say it’s a weird Market you know no teams are you know who are looking for upgrades or looking at Jaylen McDaniels as some kind of piece to add of their

Team or anything like that but it just I wonder what the effect of two really nasty losses is on the psyche of the front office and how much they want to go and just kind of trade everything that’s not tied down I should say I think this would be bad idea I don’t

Think they should just get rid of anyone who could help them play competent basketball I don’t think they should just trade Dennis shuder for the sake of trading Dennis shuder I don’t think they should trade Bruce Brown for the sake of trading Bruce Brown I think Gary Trent

Jr you know obviously it sucked to see him go out of the lineup last night with the back spasms hopefully he’s okay and come back in short order here he’s been playing very good ball of late you know can you get anything better than a second round pick for him if not like

I’m not even all that in on that move here either I just think you have to have competent basketball players and I think because of where the Raptors sit because their Lottery odds are going to be mostly out of their hands whether they’re fifth sixth seventh eth whatever

It’s still going to be kind of a tossup you know or you know at the very least like a one-third proposition of keeping their pick like I don’t know man I think they should try to play competent basketball because we saw last night the losing habits that seep in when you’re

Not playing competitive ball and to do that over the course of a third of a season can be damaging it’s hard to wash that stuff off so I’m not saying I’m here sitting here hoping they move on from everybody who they can get something for but if they do I you know

I wouldn’t be surprised considering how lifeless things have looked these last couple games it’s tough stuff man it’s going to be a long road this is uh not turning around anytime soon at least not this season um it’s just the way it is it’s just the way it is we’ll leave it

There for now come back tomorrow and we’ll uh you know hopefully feel renewed and sprightly and excited but it’s hard to get excited after a 38 Point budgeting at the hands of the Pelicans um I guess the one other bad or good from this game the bad is it’s the end

Of King cake baby season that’s upsetting King cake baby should be a year round thing the Pelicans that should be doing um you know he only gets like a short run before Marty Gro and all that stuff I keep them around please please can Raptors borrow kingcake baby

For the rest of the season just to have some like fear instilled into their defense or something I don’t know um I just wanted to quickly acknowledge King cake baby my prince who uh is or my king my king I guess is King cake baby a

Prince or a king yet is he waiting I’m not sure either way I love King cake baby and I miss him and uh already the first day without him and I’m sad either way I’m losing my mind here we’ll leave we’ll leave it off there we’ll talk to

You again on tomorrow’s show I think ktie hind will be along we’ll find something exciting to talk about you know optimistic because today was kind of a a dow show as you might expect after a loss like that either way appreciate you for tuning in subscribing following rating reviewing telling a

Friend all that good stuff find us on Discord link is in the description come hang out uh and tell me how I need to be happier about the team or whatever you can do that you can tell me how wrong I am about stuff I love that I appreciate

It very much you’re all wrong to tell me I’m wrong but that’s fine you’re still allowed to tell me I’m wrong uh either way I’m just saying words now we’ll close it off there we’ll be back again on Wednesday another episode of lock on Raptors we’ve of course got our trade

Deadline coverage on Thursday trade deadline followed on Friday Raptors Hornets tomorrow as well so no shorter of stuff to get into this week and boy oh boy please don’t lose to the by 38 points please either way thank you so much for tuning in we’ll talk to you

Again on Wednesday till then thanks for hanging bye-bye

In Episode 1569, Sean Woodley goes solo to dissect a 138-100 Toronto Raptors loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Monday night in a game that was saved only by Gradey Dick’s career-best 22-point night. Off the top, Sean digs into the many ways in which the Raptors missed RJ Barrett against the Pelicans, who are already a more forceful team than the healthy Raptors, but were completely overwhelming without Barrett’s power game there to serve as a foil to the Pelicans’ athletic and phyiscal brand of ball. Next, Sean sings the praises of Gradey Dick, who is simply very good at getting open, and in this one contributed some very encouraging shot-making and on-ball work. It’s pretty clear he needs to be playing heavy minutes from here to the end of the season. Lastly, Sean runs through The Good (one last garbage time swan song for Chris Boucher?), The Bad (Jordan Nwora looking out of place) and The Hmmm (whether recent blowout losses might have the Raptors lean even further into a teardown by Thursday) to round out the show.

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