PG: The Scottie Barnes Show

[ConSarnit]

When the raptors turn up the energy and play all over the place on D they seem like a legit top team. Problem is we only see this in spurts and some games none at all

What’s often lost I think is how inefficient offence impacts our defence. It’s hard to play defence like we did last night when you’re scrambling back in transition because you’ve missed a bad attempt.
Having RJ back should help improve our D simply because the opponent will be taking the ball out from under their rim more often.

Good point.

I don't know what it is about RJ, but he just seems to find ways to get easier baskets than everyone else. He seems to be in the right place at the right time on offense. It could be a timely cut, wide open three or simply running the lane effectively in transition.

RJ has done an excellent job at taking a step back from his role with the Knicks. He doesn’t really force anything. He’s really done a great job at doing what the coaching staff has asked him to do. You have to give him props for adapting his game for the betterment of the team.

[tsherkin]

RJ has done an excellent job at taking a step back from his role with the Knicks. He doesn’t really force anything. He’s really done a great job at doing what the coaching staff has asked him to do. You have to give him props for adapting his game for the betterment of the team.

He's been receptive to what we've tried to do with him since he came over. Right now, he's playing in a way not too different from right after the trade when we still had spacing and other scorers. He's also improved as a passer, which is nice. Apart from his FT shooting and D (where you can at least see he's trying), he's been fantastic for us this season when he's been on the floor.

[Indeed]

Scottie can't play center full time or even majority minutes like peak Draymond. He is nowhere as good of a rim protector or smart defense or as strong as young Draymond. GSW tonight were small and unathletic so it worked well.

Sadly, Barnes playing outside of C is just average or below due to his shooting.
He will need to play C to make up his near-max contract.

Scottie can play center depends on the match up, he can't play against AD, Wemby or Jokic.

I don't even know if Barnes fans has their understanding in Barnes. Some say he can play C, some say he cannot play C.

So do we need a C who cannot space the floor? If we don't that's great, and we can look at the result.
If we do need a C who probably cannot space the floor, than he is not playing C, and why we are asking to add more C?

There are match up stats on NBA.com, and I am pretty clear on his ability, I think this is just not the case with people who I am arguing with.

[Basketball_Jones]

Ingram got us some timely iso buckets when needed after a couple of bad possessions. Unfortunately couldn’t get us the kill shot but we had enough from everyone else to close it out in OT. This was the formula of the win streak stretch. Getting enough collectively is this teams calling card. And yes, great to see IQ off ball and lining up open 3’s above the break and sometimes the corner. Important to have him play with Shead and have BI as playmakers, though BI really can improve here.

[nowayguy]

Go Raps Go!

Yeah, I said it.

[Tha Cynic]

Wouldn't it be funny after all this time, center is where he breaks out.

I have always thought Center is Scottie's best position. My favourite games of his have come when he plays that spot. I bought his jersey because this is exactly how I thought he would dominate the league. I was really frustrated by PG Scottie the last couple of years but this year he is finally starting to realize he is one of the strongest men in the paint.

My dream would be seeing Scottie become our starting center (Scottie is as strong as Draymond) then see Bobby make a deal for a Point Guard.

Hell while I'm at it, would love to see Dick get benched to give Lawson or Martin a chance with those minutes.

Can't wait to see RJ play more minutes and Walter is starting to look like a player!

Scottie can't play center full time or even majority minutes like peak Draymond. He is nowhere as good of a rim protector or smart defense or as strong as young Draymond. GSW tonight were small and unathletic so it worked well.

Green was playing PF and had either Bogut, Pachulia or Cousins starting at the 5 for most of the title runs. Barnes is also a PF. You need a legit 5 beside these guys. He can do this as a PF too.

I’m not sure why we keep thinking small ball big men work long term. They’re good for specific matchups and in short spurts only. Put an athletic defender at the 5, or a big who can defend and shoot 3s in this starting lineup and they will thrive. For example, a healthy Porzingis on this team probably makes this team an eastern conferences finals contender. You can see why there are rumours about AD. A two way 5 will have the biggest impact on this team.

[Tha Cynic]

IQ needs a C and/or another PG/good playmaker. Otherwise he struggles often. Anyone earning $32M can be criticized for sub par play. Shouldn't even require explanation.

Ya I dont get the confusion, we needed IQ to step up when RJ went out and he had a lot of bad games. Hes being paid a lot of money that we cant use to upgrade other parts of the roster to be able to do exactly that. Dont get upset that fans will IQ to the standards of his contract.

With that said, he was awesome down the stretch. This team needs his shooting because we have no one else on the team to provide that sadly.

At this stage this is more of a coaching issue and front office issue. IQ is not a full time PG. you can’t make him something he’s not. He does not have the burst to attack the rim and he can’t create without screens. The dude should be playing as our two guard and this has been obvious for a while. It’s not surprising that he starts hitting 3s in the 4th playing beside Shead. I’m not a huge fan of Darko but he doesn’t have too many options other than to start IQ as PG so maybe it’s more a front office issue.

[Tha Cynic]

I heard Scottie had the flu last week which would explain the dropoff and now epic game..I guess he's recovered.

The team as a whole looked exhausted for a stretch after RJ went down. I chalk most of this up to an 82 game schedule and there being a lull due to scheduling, cold streaks and injuries. The team looks better overall and are getting a starter back.

We don’t have a lot of bench guys (or any) who can upscale into starters and that has been a huge issue while RJ was out.

When everyone is healthy, this is a pretty good team. One injury to our starting lineup and we look like we lack talent. We already knew this and this is something the front office will need to address. My bigger issue is why our young players have not developed. That’s what we said the team would focus on and I think Bobby needs to start asking questions here.

This board going up and down with every game is just this board being true to its nature.

[OhCanada]

I just don’t get this take or from many people in here repeating this. What do you guys think Scottie has been doing these last 3 weeks without Poeltl lol? Mamu wasn’t guarding the other team’s centers, it was Scottie.

Warriors are just one of the only teams in the league that doesn’t have a player taller than Scottie or even Ingram that plays starter minutes. This isn’t some new revelation, it’s a one off outlier.

Playing Scottie against actual real bigs full time is unfair to him and won’t set us up for success.

You keep saying Scottie has been guarding the other team’s C the past few weeks, but he has generally been on the perimeter even while Poeltl has been out. Over the previous 5 games (of which Poeltl missed 4 then played like 6 minutes in the other), Mamu almost exclusively defended Cs/PFs while Scottie was typically defending ball handlers.

vs WAS: Mamu spent more time on Sarr while Scottie defended a mishmash of George/Bilal/Middleton as well as Sarr

vs MIA: Mamu spent more time on Bam/Ware while Scottie primarily defended JJJ/Powell/Wiggins

vs BKN: Mamu spent more time on Claxton/Sharpe while Scottie primarily defended MPJ/Egor

vs BOS: Mamu spent most of his time defending Queta/Garza while Scottie primarily defended White/Pritchard/Walsh

vs MIL: Mamu spent most of his time defending Turner/Sims while Scottie primarily defended Portis

He has NOT been defending Cs and fighting for boards on both ends like he did today. He has typically been chasing players around screens or trying to slow down penetration over the past few weeks.

It’s a by a committee approach but either way, Scottie at the 5 as his main role is just unreasonable lol.

Yeah it wont work against every team. I think his best role is guarding the wings and in the help defender position. In the help defender position he sort of can roam and be a defensive playmaker. Having him defend Centers helps blow up screen and rolls but as we saw last night it still doesnt matter Curry still goes off. Theres only so much you can do to defend those actions without a designated guy that can fight through those moving screens and be a pain like Lou Dort or Dillon Brooks. All the contenders have multiple guys that can do it and we have none. Houston sat Reed Sheppard his whole rookie year because he couldnt do it, they made him transform his body and add 15 pounds of muscle. Its kind of a waste having Scottie at Center but its what the team needs. Im pretty sure CMB would have gotten the start Center and moved Agbaji to the bench if he was healthy. Only reason he had 25 rebounds is because nobody on our team rebounds.

[HiJiNX]

When the raptors turn up the energy and play all over the place on D they seem like a legit top team. Problem is we only see this in spurts and some games none at all

What’s often lost I think is how inefficient offence impacts our defence. It’s hard to play defence like we did last night when you’re scrambling back in transition because you’ve missed a bad attempt.
Having RJ back should help improve our D simply because the opponent will be taking the ball out from under their rim more often.

Good point.

I don't know what it is about RJ, but he just seems to find ways to get easier baskets than everyone else. He seems to be in the right place at the right time on offense. It could be a timely cut, wide open three or simply running the lane effectively in transition.

When I coach kids I tell them to just go to where nobody is. RJ is very good at this—he knows when to attack the empty space. He sees space like a soccer player.

[sidsid]

A lot of the flow of the offense looks better for Barnes at C because that's the fulcrum for the playmaking in the offense (the one we're forced to put Jak in because he can't shoot). He spends more time assessing the options in the middle of the action as opposed to spending all his time at the wing or corners. Just making quick passing decisions or directing the offense.

Defensively you need multiple strong defenders and crucially another strong help defender no matter what in the modern game.

And Ochai had a strong movement game on O.

[GoRapstheoriginal]

C_money start the next Game Thread bro! No time off/vacation from work or?!?!?!?

[Yallbecrazy]

Ya, I need to ask if CMB is available tonight.

[pingpongrac]

This team has proven to be very inconsistent. One of the most bizarre Raptors teams we’ve ever had. It remains to be seen if they’ll find an identity or continue to be up and down the entire season.

A bit of inconsistency should be expected from a relatively young team learning how to win together, especially considering they’ve spent about half of the season thus far without 2 starters. They’ve been pretty damn good when mostly healthy though; 13-5 with RJ and 9-3 with all 5 starters available even despite Poeltl generally looking like a shell of himself aside from 4 or 5 games in November.

A win tomorrow and looking competent against the Nuggets would go a long way to making some fans start to believe a bit more I think. Hopefully they can string some good games together again.

There's some disappointment from our young players not taking leaps in their game but hard to complain about where we stand given the circumstances.

I gave Gradey some grace earlier on in the season as he produced before RJ went down (16/4/2 per36 on 59 TS%), but he has been absolutely brutal for the most part since then (14/4/2 per36 on 42 TS% in his last 16 games). He was still typically getting 10-15 MPG despite struggling so much simply because RJ has been out, but hopefully he can start knocking down open threes because he has noticeably improved on the defensive end this year and his activity has been a boost, as seen by the +/- stats. Ochai was also terrible early on, but I didn't read into it too much because he wasn't getting much opportunity and he's such a low-usage guy that a few bad games was going to skew things even more dramatically. That being said, he has turned things around as of late (11/5/1 per36 on 56 TS% in the last 9 games) and he has fit into the starting lineup pretty well. We need more of that from him going forward. JKW has been very feast or famine (7 games with >10 PTS in which he has combined to shoot 22/37 on 3FGA vs 14 games with <4 PTS in which he has combined to shoot 5/26 on 3FGA), but those good games are making him look much better than he has actually been. The reality is he has struggled for the majority of the season, but hopefully he is starting to turn things around a bit as he has looked very good in the last 2 games. The fact that there has been about a dozen games where we barely got anything from all three of them combined while RJ was out is a major reason why we struggled so much in those 15 games. Mogbo has also been a complete bust so far this season, as he has been unable to get on the floor and is never making much of an impact whenever he has been out there.

On the other hand, Shead has been productive — despite the absolutely putrid TS% — and we have generally played very well with him on the court; prior to a 4-game stretch before/after the holidays, he was sporting a +6.6 NetRTG (#3 on the team) with a 4.5 AST/TO ratio while being one of the top 3-5 players on the team in multiple hustle stats as well. It's kind of wild that he has been so impactful considering his 49 TS%, which is bottom 20 in the league among qualified players lol. CMB has also been very productive after a bit of a slow start; 14/8/3 per36 on 62 TS% while being a very good defender is not something I expected so early out of the gate. The only issue with him so far is it's giving me OG vibes with the random injuries/absences every couple of weeks that just seem unlucky, but hopefully it doesn't carry over into future seasons.

All things considered, it's pretty incredible we are 19-14.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Great stat line by Scottie. However, Golden state has no bigs, and we had no other bigs in the starting lineup to take away from Scottie's rebound numbers (ie another big would have grabbed more boards).

The lack of bigs on GS also allowed our guards to get to the hoop which helped quick.

We need to chill a bit

[djsunyc]

Great stat line by Scottie. However, Golden state has no bigs, and we had no other bigs in the starting lineup to take away from Scottie's rebound numbers (ie another big would have grabbed more boards).

The lack of bigs on GS also allowed our guards to get to the hoop which helped quick.

We need to chill a bit

it's ok to celebrate a 23/25/10/3/1 statline.

[Merit]

I do agree on the inconsistencies. However, we went on a massive run when we had our whole starting 5 present. As soon as they got injured things got worse. First it was RJ, the. iQ and then Jak.

the inconsistencies come from a young group navigating a season where they're indeed trying to win games, coach as well. Which should be expected, y'all just don't wanna give this group any grace because of the past rhetoric out there.

I fell I’ve given them grace. Can’t get too high or too low. They weren’t as good as the win streak and they aren’t as bad as they’ve shown since. The team is essentially what you’d expect from a 45 win team. There is still something off with this team. You can see it in the body language, facial expressions, and fluctuating intensity and effort. Everything comes out in the end. We’ll find out soon enough.

Not getting too high or too low is the right choice

[Merit]

RJ has done an excellent job at taking a step back from his role with the Knicks. He doesn’t really force anything. He’s really done a great job at doing what the coaching staff has asked him to do. You have to give him props for adapting his game for the betterment of the team.

He's been receptive to what we've tried to do with him since he came over. Right now, he's playing in a way not too different from right after the trade when we still had spacing and other scorers. He's also improved as a passer, which is nice. Apart from his FT shooting and D (where you can at least see he's trying), he's been fantastic for us this season when he's been on the floor.

I’m truly surprised by his FT shooting. It’s gotta regress to the mean, no?

[kalel123]

RJ has done an excellent job at taking a step back from his role with the Knicks. He doesn’t really force anything. He’s really done a great job at doing what the coaching staff has asked him to do. You have to give him props for adapting his game for the betterment of the team.

He's been receptive to what we've tried to do with him since he came over. Right now, he's playing in a way not too different from right after the trade when we still had spacing and other scorers. He's also improved as a passer, which is nice. Apart from his FT shooting and D (where you can at least see he's trying), he's been fantastic for us this season when he's been on the floor.

I’m truly surprised by his FT shooting. It’s gotta regress to the mean, no?

He shoots career average of ~77% and he's shooting about 83 for the season. So not that far apart. Might regress but still might achieve career high in %.

[Merit]

He's been receptive to what we've tried to do with him since he came over. Right now, he's playing in a way not too different from right after the trade when we still had spacing and other scorers. He's also improved as a passer, which is nice. Apart from his FT shooting and D (where you can at least see he's trying), he's been fantastic for us this season when he's been on the floor.

I’m truly surprised by his FT shooting. It’s gotta regress to the mean, no?

He shoots career average of ~77% and he's shooting about 83 for the season. So not that far apart. Might regress but still might achieve career high in %.

For sure. I guess I’m misremembering from earlier in the season when he was in the mid 60’s. your point is fair and correct.