PG: Raptors win in OT

[tsherkin]

The logo 3, the 3 on 1 fastbreak, and the baseline fadeaway were just awful awful decisions. The last one I have on Darko too, that's what we drew up out of the timeout? lol

Those were some of them, for sure.

But yeah, I can't really bang the gong enough on shooting 27.3% on 22 FGA in that game. That was a PUTRID scoring performance. I'm all in for us giving a little more support to IQ as I've discussed in other threads, because we're very fickle based on his game to game performance, but that did suck a lot. We need to not let him shoot THAT much, because he's not that kind of player. ESPECIALLY on a night where he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with an artillery fusillade.

Usually I'd agree except with who we were missing. Ingram, RJ, Poeltl and then Walter. We sort of need him to shoot at that point, for better or worse. Looking at the boxscore, I'm not sure how we spread it out much more.

Shead shot 15 times, Martin 11, Barnes 19, Boyles 12.

Outside of Martin, our bench didn't really show up last night.

I hear what you're saying, but at some point, we were involving CMB more toward the end of the game and on a night like that? I mean, ride-or-die on a guy who isn't that level of scorer never feels good to me. Dunno that I have a quality solution, though, which I guess brings us back to the same problem.

[MEDIC]

Honestly, man, he made some good plays at times, but that was an epic masterclass in poor decision-making and dreadful shot selection. He also made a SERIES of poor plays in the 4th. He didn't step up. He had a horrendous volume shooting performance with some exceptionally untimely gaffs.

That he also did some good stuff is worth noting, but doesn't dominate the narrative of his game performance.

The logo 3, the 3 on 1 fastbreak, and the baseline fadeaway were just awful awful decisions. The last one I have on Darko too, that's what we drew up out of the timeout? lol

The 3-on-1 fastbreak bothered me the most, because he threw away a guaranteed 2 points.

What bothers me most about that play is it was an easy read.......and you are the frickin Point Guard. Making reads like this are supposed to be easier and more natural for you than other players......AND.....he is small. It's not like he is 6'7" with long arms & has the ability to finish over people. He had no advantage there.

I think IQ is a tunnel vision type player. Darko asked him to go out & be aggressive. Take lots of shots because we were missing key players.

So he did.......and you can't fault him for that. The problem is, he's just not that guy. He's the "point guard", but he's not really. He's not a scorer or a playmaker or an elite ball handler.

He's a shooter and he is a streaky one at that.

He is basically a poor man's De Angelo Russell playing a lead point guard position.

I had said in a previous thread that players like IQ worry me when the playoffs come. Games/ series that might come down to a single play. You can't afford to blow simple plays like that. You need high IQ players in your top 8. Look at our championship team. Our lowest IQ player was Serge maybe. He was a big though & you needed him for other things, so it was OK. He didn't have the ball a lot.

Your guards though.....they need to make the right plays at the right time because they have the ball in their hands a lot.

[MEDIC]

Great win. I'm not sure what Oubre was even thinking with a two handed shove on a bad angle. Just gave the game away. Why was Nurse even putting him in there in a defensive situation? Why didn't Darko put a shooter in? We got a little lucky, for sure.

If Bona was a Raptor, every time he got ragdolled and ended up on the floor would have been a no call. If 6 feet guards are dumping you that easily it's because you're not strong enough yet, and refs usually recognize that.

I think Gradey and Battle just really struggled with the physicality of the game. With Gradey, he tends to go too hard to compensate and rushes his shots or puts his body in harm's way. Battle is more of a shrinking violet and plays soft.

I think Scottie would have turned the corner for the dunk, if not for the shove.

100%

I still can't believe continuation wasn't called when you consider time, score, and he picked up his dribble at the point of the shove.

Also, the shove wasn't even a basketball play.

No consistency in the NBA with refs.

Yeah. The NBA loves the highlight play for big markets and superstar players. You just know that continuation was probably going to be called if that was Lebron or Luka or the white kid that looks like a banker

[DreamTeam09]

To say IQ didn't stepp up today because he went 6-22 and totally disregard everything else is whats wrong with some ppls interpretation of things.

Honestly, man, he made some good plays at times, but that was an epic masterclass in poor decision-making and dreadful shot selection. He also made a SERIES of poor plays in the 4th. He didn't step up. He had a horrendous volume shooting performance with some exceptionally untimely gaffs.

That he also did some good stuff is worth noting, but doesn't dominate the narrative of his game performance.

IQ has 7 of our 1st 10pts along with an AST to start the 4th quarter to bring us back down 10 pts, then went out to have a clutch 2 to bring us down 2, then proceeded to have the face winning ast in OT, again, you guys see what you wanna see. He **** poorly, was a +13 and we don't win that game without him. y'all r tripping as per usual, y'all expecting perfect ball from an imperfect roster makes 0 sense

[Johnny Bball]

The logo 3, the 3 on 1 fastbreak, and the baseline fadeaway were just awful awful decisions. The last one I have on Darko too, that's what we drew up out of the timeout? lol

The 3-on-1 fastbreak bothered me the most, because he threw away a guaranteed 2 points.

What bothers me most about that play is it was an easy read.......and you are the frickin Point Guard. Making reads like this are supposed to be easier and more natural for you than other players......AND.....he is small. It's not like he is 6'7" with long arms & has the ability to finish over people. He had no advantage there.

I think IQ is a tunnel vision type player. Darko asked him to go out & be aggressive. Take lots of shots because we were missing key players.

So he did.......and you can't fault him for that. The problem is, he's just not that guy. He's the "point guard", but he's not really. He's not a scorer or a playmaker or an elite ball handler.

He's a shooter and he is a streaky one at that.

He is basically a poor man's De Angelo Russell playing a lead point guard position.

I had said in a previous thread that players like IQ worry me when the playoffs come. Games/ series that might come down to a single play. You can't afford to blow simple plays like that. You need high IQ players in your top 8. Look at our championship team. Our lowest IQ player was Serge maybe. He was a big though & you needed him for other things, so it was OK. He didn't have the ball a lot.

Your guards though.....they need to make the right plays at the right time because they have the ball in their hands a lot.

Could he just run a normal PNR like any other random guard in this league? If Drummond is on the floor and you are not putting him in the PNR, like every time, you deserve to lose. And then there's an entire rest of the game. Instead someone sets a screen and near every time he dribbles away from it. Why even set the screen!

I would be screaming at him if I was darko.

[tsherkin]

IQ has 7 of our 1st 10pts along with an AST to start the 4th quarter to bring us back down 10 pts, then went out to have a clutch 2 to bring us down 2, then proceeded to have the face winning ast in OT, again, you guys see what you wanna see. He **** poorly, was a +13 and we don't win that game without him. y'all r tripping as per usual, y'all expecting perfect ball from an imperfect roster makes 0 sense

It isn't tripping to look at such profoundly terrible scoring and say that wasn't a great game. It's equally valid to note that he had some positive contributions as well, and that we needed him for shot creation and play initiation. Hyperbole doesn't help anyone, though.

[tsherkin]

What bothers me most about that play is it was an easy read.......and you are the frickin Point Guard. Making reads like this are supposed to be easier and more natural for you than other players......AND.....he is small. It's not like he is 6'7" with long arms & has the ability to finish over people. He had no advantage there.

But we know he isn't a PG. He's a short SG who does most of his best work WITHOUT the ball, but can also do some on-ball action which is of value. It's important we remember what he is and isn't, instead of landing expectations which are too heavy on him, you know? We definitely don't have him in the same sort of optimized role from which Scottie and RJ are benefiting.

As you say here, really:

The problem is, he's just not that guy. He's the "point guard", but he's not really. He's not a scorer or a playmaker or an elite ball handler.

I had said in a previous thread that players like IQ worry me when the playoffs come. Games/ series that might come down to a single play. You can't afford to blow simple plays like that.

You're right, but I think we'll see some notable changes before this team is able to be really competitive in the playoffs. Tough to evaluate our team due to the health issues. Right now, we've been an Orlando-ish level team, but that also isn't authentic to our level of play when fully healthy.

I dunno. I think that something like IQ's propensity for blown plays isn't really an issue until we start SERIOUSLY competing, and we aren't there yet.

[Mikistan]

With Shead, CMB Barnes and now Martin, we have dogs and are cementing our defensive identity. Its too bad Martin won't be eligible for the playoffs. We are better off sending Agbaji into capspace with a second or two and picking up a cheap third string big while converting him.

I love RJ and his rim pressure, but can anyone imagine this team with Dillon Brooks? A few WTF plays here and there, but man, Good luck scoring on us

How come Martin won't be eligible for playoffs?

[rapsincr]

and we got rid of each and every single one of those guys except scottie

how was Nurse wrong?

regardless of if we traded them away or not, such a dick move to say that. we gave nick his shot in the NBA, gave him everything he has now. i credit him for helping us win the chip, that being said, **** that guy. if that were a player that amidst a playoff push, that went into a rival teams city and said what he said(unprompted just like nurse)then signed with that team in the off season while taking shots at us at the same time, he would be despised in the city for the rest of time.

I dont recall Nurse said anything about the city. And did Nurse quit on us first or the FO?

It feels the FO has a mandate to pla Flynn, Trent. All I feel is FO (doubt these are Ujiri) wants to build around Barnes, yet, we traded away better talent for him to succeed, not success though. So what exactly you want Nurse to do when this is more politices (or ego) with the FO quiting on them. Did Siakam quit the city? Probably when he is the best player and not being build and repected on.

i never said he said anything about the city.

also, who else were we supposed to play besides flynn and trent? dowtin and barton? if anything the FO were too loyal and refused to quit on the team even though it wasnt working.

the facts are nurse(under employ of the raptors) went into philly while we were fighting for the playoffs and pretty much said for their owner that he wasnt coming back, without a reporter even asking about it. douche move no matter how you feel about the FO.

[dozo]

With Shead, CMB Barnes and now Martin, we have dogs and are cementing our defensive identity. Its too bad Martin won't be eligible for the playoffs. We are better off sending Agbaji into capspace with a second or two and picking up a cheap third string big while converting him.

I love RJ and his rim pressure, but can anyone imagine this team with Dillon Brooks? A few WTF plays here and there, but man, Good luck scoring on us

How come Martin won't be eligible for playoffs?

Players on two-way contracts are not playoff-eligible and are limited to 50 games on a team’s active list

[Tha Cynic]

Yeah...that's asking a lot

That’s his job. He has this in him. We all know it. We need it more than once every five games. We need it four of every five games.

I don't think we want him trying to carry the offense though when BI and RJ back. They're better at it than Scottie is. Let Scottie do a bit of everything. We don't need monster offensive numbers from him every night but we do need consistent effort and intensity.

As a starting point, he should be doing this every time he plays with the second unit. You can clearly see when he’s going to be aggressive on offense trying to score vs not. It makes a huge difference to the team when he just decides that he’s going to body people on offense. Every possession down he should be thinking I need to get to the rim and catch a body, and then go hit the bench and rest while Ingram takes his spot with the next unit.

[Brinbe]

Quick is definitely a scorer and can be a very good one when he's on. He's just majorly slumping with his shot this season. But I guess the disagreement will come down to whether you think this is just a rough stretch, especially since his prior track record has been above this, or if it's something more serious.

I still have belief he'll turn it around

[Tha Cynic]

Love that Ingram, while on the sidelines (a very familiar territory for him) realized this isn’t the Pelicans racking up Ls anymore. He’s in a real winning culture now, with a young core growing alongside him and SB leading the way.

Is it just me or does the guy always have a Tim Hortons cup in his hand when he’s not playing lol

[tsherkin]

Quick is definitely a scorer and can be a very good one when he's on. He's just majorly slumping with his shot this season. But I guess the disagreement will come down to whether you think this is just a rough stretch, especially since his prior track record has been above this, or if it's something more serious.

I still have belief he'll turn it around

He's been in a real slump for like 7 games. He was doing just fine for the first like 26 games of the season.

[Tha Cynic]

I'm not the usual IQ defender but let me just say I believe he's a valuable talent as an above the break shooter. Now, in a perfect world, he'd be my change of pace 6th man. Its not his fault we signed him to a big deal while also being over loaded with Shooting Guards. He has tried very hard to make it work because he's high character. Because financially Masai set him up for life, he'd dont really have to sweat, but he is because he wants to make it work. The genesis of all his struggles is feeling the need to change his game. if we try and trade him without every using him at his best, that will be on us. But this org has a decision to make with IQ, and RJ still. Because it's become as clear as Gradey's lack of development as a shooter, that IQ doesn't have it as a PG. And continuing to force it will not help us or IQ. I don't care who startrs or has their name called out. But I think Shead needs to play more. I think Martin is making a case for minutes too.

I understood the team thinking they could maybe change him into a PG and giving him the opportunity to learn - but I think at this stage it may be too much for him. He’s clearly very confused (not dissimilar to Gradey Dick). I know Lowry developed later, but I don’t think you just flip a switch when it comes to feel for game and making good quick decision with the ball.

Let him shoot and focus on shooting. He’s not great being the ball up and making decisions in transition or in the half court. We even force it to him when Shead is on the court with him along with Barnes. At this stage the coaching staff is putting him in a bad position. Start using him off screens and get him open looks from the top of the key

[Mikistan]

With Shead, CMB Barnes and now Martin, we have dogs and are cementing our defensive identity. Its too bad Martin won't be eligible for the playoffs. We are better off sending Agbaji into capspace with a second or two and picking up a cheap third string big while converting him.

I love RJ and his rim pressure, but can anyone imagine this team with Dillon Brooks? A few WTF plays here and there, but man, Good luck scoring on us

How come Martin won't be eligible for playoffs?

Players on two-way contracts are not playoff-eligible and are limited to 50 games on a team’s active list

So I guess we gotta cut or trade someone to free a spot and convert his contract

[Grew]

Quick is definitely a scorer and can be a very good one when he's on. He's just majorly slumping with his shot this season. But I guess the disagreement will come down to whether you think this is just a rough stretch, especially since his prior track record has been above this, or if it's something more serious.

I still have belief he'll turn it around

He's 37% from 3 for his career. 35 right now. 39.5 his highest years. I don't really think he's slumping for the season. He's a streaky guy, he will have a couple games he hits 5/7 and his percentage will swing back to 37.

What we have seen from him this year is who he is.

The play where he didn't pass it back to Martin for the easy dunk is a microcosm of why people have issues with Quick. You aren't winning anything if one of your main decision makers is consistently making poor decisions.

I can accept him having poor shooting nights. It will happen to everyone in this league. What we really need is for him to continue to grow his understanding of when to pick his spots and when to just move the ball.

[mihaic]

Quick is definitely a scorer and can be a very good one when he's on. He's just majorly slumping with his shot this season. But I guess the disagreement will come down to whether you think this is just a rough stretch, especially since his prior track record has been above this, or if it's something more serious.

I still have belief he'll turn it around

He's been in a real slump for like 7 games. He was doing just fine for the first like 26 games of the season.

third year wit raptors. Each year his TS% declined if you look at statmuse.

He was at 59% the year before trade. He dropped about 3 %points since

I hope he turns it around. There's always excuses.
First () year: transition, half a season, no practice
Second year: injury, he needs to figure out how to run the team
Third year: he still needs to figure out how to run the team

There is a reason why I am reluctant to part with RJ. He improved constantly, adapted his game, and has the skillset we need

[Brinbe]

Quick is definitely a scorer and can be a very good one when he's on. He's just majorly slumping with his shot this season. But I guess the disagreement will come down to whether you think this is just a rough stretch, especially since his prior track record has been above this, or if it's something more serious.

I still have belief he'll turn it around

He's been in a real slump for like 7 games. He was doing just fine for the first like 26 games of the season.

disagree there. he's been struggling even before that. plenty of tour date statlines going back to week one.

he had a nice stretch in Nov and that's it

[tsherkin]

disagree there. he's been struggling even before that. plenty of tour date statlines stretching back to week one.

had a nice stretch in Nov and that's it

I mean, in the literal sense, he was at 59.2% TS over the first 26 games, and has tanked since.

He was at 59% the year before trade. He dropped about 3 %points since

I hope he turns it around. There's always excuses.

See above.

He takes nearly 54% of his shots from 3. Even an elite shooter will have significant variance with that shot diet. It is what it is.