PG System and Usage Angst again

[normgod6]

?? Is this really the game to crap on Pascal? 21 points on 17 shots, Barnes had 10 points on 11 shots.

He’s been pretty damn good all year offensively outside a stinker against Utah.

He had a decent offensive game but you're missing the point of my post. Barnes cannot be assertive while being on the floor with Pascal. This is the main point I'm trying to make.
The eye test shows Scottie doesn't have the same confidence while on the court with Pascal compared to when Pascal was still recovering (feel free to find numbers to debate this). I don't remember seeing Barnes parked in a corner this often when Pascal was still injured. We saw Scottie rise and take confident mid range jumpers, feasting on the post up and offensive boards, and creating for teammates. The quality of his shots has dropped off because the spacing he was used to on the floor is now compromised with Pascal's re-insertion into the lineup. Is it detrimental to the team? I would say that's unfair to say as Pascal offensively has been solid.
Is it detrimental to Scottie's development? No question.

Pascal is a great offensive player in this league. Against bad teams, he will feast. Against good teams, he will struggle to get his at times but he will still put in his best effort to score and will find a way to get his 20 points.
I'm just of the opinion that this team cannot contend with Pascal as our franchise player. He's proven to be an amazing sidekick, that Robin to a Batman.
Wouldn't it be great to see if Scottie could eventually be our Batman? We've seen some flashes of brilliance that is very rare to see, especially in a rookie.
Ultimately, it could just be that this franchise is stuck inbetween playoff contention and development. We want to win but are not willing to take risks and make changes while adapting our playstyle to our cast, continuing to run our offense through Pascal and Freddy.
I know this a long post but I respect your opinions and your statistic supporting posts so far this season. I feel this entire board is split which is highly representative of what we're seeing translate on the court.

So why is this an issue with Pascal but not with OG? OG has taken more shots per game than Siakam has.

Ans it’s funny to say “against good teams he will struggle” after shooting nearly 50% tonight, or 20 on 15fga against Portland, or 15 on 12fga against Brooklyn… he has one bad game against Utah and that’s really it. Before tonight he was at 17ppg on 60TS%. It’ll be pretty close to that after tonight as well.

The “spacing” thing is funny to bring up considering when Pascal was out he played primarily with Birch and Achiwua who provide 0 spacing. So the spacing thing obviously is not the problem.

Scottie just isn’t that good offensively yet. That’s all there is to to. Early in the year his “big games” were pretty much off offensive rebounds and transition mid range pull-ups (which honestly are terrible shots and bound to come down to earth). Barnes wasn’t initiating anymore before Siakams return than he is now. He simply was hitting his mid range at a ridiculous rate (I think it was at like 70% at one point IIRC).

Barnes is a rookie. Barnes isn’t that good. Barnes has a ton of potential and will be very very good. Force feeding Barnes and not holding him accountable for his terrible defence or his turnovers or his bad decision making and rewarding him with the primary ball handling duties is just not a good use of his development.

Most of his points were in the paint and not off midrange jumpers. In fact, to start the season, it was his elite finishing skill that was sustaining his scoring. His finishing efficiency has tanked in the last handful of games.

[EFF3KT]

Question for you, Yogurt. What do you feel we need to see change overall with our offense?
Something is clearly not working that well and you've been clear that Pascal has been a positive for this team, which I do agree. I'm still of the opinion that both cannot co-exist on the court simultaneously given our current "system" we're running and I believe Scottie is also at his best when the ball is in his hands. Add in OG who also seems to be trending into more of a ball dominant playstyle and there's clearly not enough touches going around.
It's a puzzle that's going to take a full season to solve and I'm curious if Masai has the patience to let the season play out before making and drastic moves.

[raptor jesus]

Warriors defended the Raps exactly as I would - lots of switching and live with the results of them creating 1 v 1. The Raps just don't have the talent to consistently break down a defense 1 v 1. That said, the primary issue remains on the defensive end; the looks opposing teams are getting - on a nightly basis - are too clean. Nurse expects his guys to both pack the paint and close out to the 3-point line, but that's looking unrealistic with this group.

[gbball]

[streamable][/streamable]

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He isn’t wrong entirely. Our defence hasn’t been great, but we’ve been entirely on the wrong side of some 3 point luck. Wiggins going 6/6 at one point? Poole at like 8/11 and Porter 5/9.

We seem to keep getting destroyed by very meh players. And yes, part of it is our less than stellar efforts lately, but even the worst defences in the world in NBA history don’t give up 49%, 44%, 41%, 43% (our last 4 losses).

Our effort has to be a bit better, but I’m pretty confident we’re not nearly as bad as it’s looked lately.

I feel like we've been on the same page a lot recently, especially when it comes to three-point variance lol.

As I said earlier in the thread, we were absolutely killed by hot shooting from pretty mediocre three-point shooting role players. Poole came into this game shooting 35/114 (31%) on open+wide open shots, Wiggins was shooting 24/76 (32%) and Porter was shooting 17/44 (39%). On open+wide open shots, those three combined to shoot 33% heading into tonight. Without even looking at the stats (as soon as they are NBA.com I can edit this post), I know they completely blew those numbers away as they shot 68%. They literally shot twice as well as they typically do -- and they did it on insanely high volume (29 combined 3FGA when they average 16 combined 3FGA on the season).

Sometimes all you can do is tip your cap to the other team's players for playing one of their best games of the season.

I agree with this, but I think there's a bit more nuance to it as well. If player get a lot of open looks from 3 and they knock a few down, they're going to get in rhythm. NBA players are really good. Poole is a fantastic young player and Wiggins is also very good...they'll get it going if they're involved enough, especially if they know what kind of shots they're going to get and they're good shots.

That being said, I wouldn't be surprised to see Raptors win like 16 games in a row sometime in 2022, once we figure out what works and what doesn't. I don't think teams would be able to duplicate these performances from 3 against us.

[sidsid]

I swear this board has reached new levels of stupidity.

Like, people are blaming Nurse for doubling... Steph Curry. If there's a player that's 1000% deserving of that kind of coverage it's him. And basically every team does it in some form, and he still routinely drops 30+. Our defense on him was excellent. The overall defense would have looked better if Wiggins and Poole didn't shoot the absurd percentages they did, even if they were open looks. Give them credit for knocking them down.

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We used this type of defense against basically every team with a star in our post-Kawhi year, and it's one of the reasons we over performed during the season. Mainly because it's a playoff style approach that teams aren't used to seeing in the regular season, and it takes them out of their usual rhythm, especially when we use it all game. And because you're only playing one game and then moving on, they don't have a chance to adapt.

But it's going to be a mixed bag for a couple reasons now:
1. The roster isn't filled with veterans who can execute it like they could in the past
2. The cat is our of the bag (Durant, Beal, etc. know it's coming from Nurse). Steph was passing well out of it all game.

But I haven't complained much about the defense this year, because I'm dedicated to development track and do not care about Ws. Even if we're doubling scrubs for no reason sometimes, guys are learning about rotations. Wish I could be fine with the offense, too, but that's not in the cards this year.

[bape_lovers]

We lost our best player Kyle

Predictable L, nothing to see here.

Side Note #1 - Let Scottie bring the ball up when the game matters, not just as the end of the game. It's so frustrating to watch

Side Note #2 - The fact that we're 8-10 this year and were 7-11 at this time last year says something

Tampa and stuff.

[pingpongrac]

Not sure how wide open 3s can be considered getting hot. These are professional basketball players

Because open/wide open threes are generated by EVERY team in the league numerous times EVERY game and we have enough data to support the claim that it is just hot shooting. Miami generates the least open/wide open 3FGA and they are averaging 25+ open threes per game. Some teams (like the Warriors) generate 35+ open threes per game and sometimes role players just get insanely hot (like Hayes+Bey+Jackson vs DET last week) and can't miss. That's exactly what happened tonight.

Wiggins+Poole+Porter came into this game averaging 4.9 3FGM on 15.1 open/wide open 3FGA which works out to about 32.5%. That is 15 games worth of sample size. Tonight they combined for 19/28 (68%) on ALL 3FGA. Even if they were all uncontested, they still shot more than twice as well as they usually would on open looks.

[DelAbbot]

Warriors defended the Raps exactly as I would - lots of switching and live with the results of them creating 1 v 1. The Raps just don't have the talent to consistently break down a defense 1 v 1. That said, the primary issue remains on the defensive end; the looks opposing teams are getting - on a nightly basis - are too clean. Nurse expects his guys to both pack the paint and close out to the 3-point line, but that's looking unrealistic with this group.

Wonder why Nurse doesn't make any adjustments to that expectation. I guess he wants to keep molding our guys into that type of defensive system/rotations, while causing us to lose games this season.

[EFF3KT]

To be fair to Nurse, I'd roll the dice on Poole and Wiggins shooting 3s over Steph any day.
Wiggins 32.5% and Poole 29%.

But like mentioned above, we need to do a better job contesting. How many times I saw an open 3 with no one bothering to contest was frustrating to watch.

[WeThe2019Champs]

Damn.. we suck need OG back. Hope we win the next game.

[Dalek]

We lost our best player Kyle

Predictable L, nothing to see here.

Side Note #1 - Let Scottie bring the ball up when the game matters, not just as the end of the game. It's so frustrating to watch

Side Note #2 - The fact that we're 8-10 this year and were 7-11 at this time last year says something

Tampa and stuff.

I think the record is what it is because of the injuries and the long road trip. I say the same thing after seeing Brooklyn beat Toronto, or any other quality team. Let's see how this goes when we have OG, Yuta and we have a bit of time to gel. Right now the Raps are in a tough spot but they are competing. We beat GSW by 40 the last time we played and they only won by 15? I thought they were going to blow Toronto out so this was a bit surprising.

Watching Jordan Poole be this good is important to take note. He was a scorer in college and when he came to Warriors it took him almost three years to get this good. Toronto could do this with David Johnson if they stay the course developing him. Not sure abut Flynn because he is so small, but Johnson and Harris could easily be great 2 way guards in the league. Scottie will also get better in time.

Right now the Warriors are playing great, but I don't expect it to continue. Curry is 33 and this season and pace will catch up to him. They are just having a really nice stretch but this doesn't have enough to grind it out with other teams.

[SFour]

It's time to accept that the Raptors are a lottery team....

4-9 against above .500 teams
4-1 against sub .500 teams

[Rapsfan07]

It's time to accept that the Raptors are a lottery team....

4-9 against above .500 teams
4-1 against sub .500 teams

Yep

[ItsDanger]

People point out that they just hit their 3s but it seems many teams do this against us on a regular basis. Too predictable. Defense should switch up more often. Still feel our offense is the real problem.

[Basketball_Jones]

It's time to accept that the Raptors are a lottery team....

4-9 against above .500 teams
4-1 against sub .500 teams

That’s not bad enough for me to TWO. Need to get that 4-1 record down for me to start rooting for losses

[C_Money]

Nurse’s defensive scheme is gonna get him fired one day.

[PushDaRock]

Warriors defended the Raps exactly as I would - lots of switching and live with the results of them creating 1 v 1. The Raps just don't have the talent to consistently break down a defense 1 v 1. That said, the primary issue remains on the defensive end; the looks opposing teams are getting - on a nightly basis - are too clean. Nurse expects his guys to both pack the paint and close out to the 3-point line, but that's looking unrealistic with this group.

Wonder why Nurse doesn't make any adjustments to that expectation. I guess he wants to keep molding our guys into that type of defensive system/rotations, while causing us to lose games this season.

Probably important to remember we have a lot of new players in the system. Right now, you have OG, Siakam, FVV and Boucher who are familiar with the defensive schemes and have chemistry on that end due to having played together. Yuta and Flynn have a year of experience but one hasn't played and the other rarely does. Trent and Birch have played less than half of a season with us and the rest are all in their first year here with many being young players. We look amazing at times because we have the defenders to be really good on that end but the cohesion just isn't there yet and it will probably take some time to get there.

[SB4]

Barnes isn't going to get his touches playing alongside Pascal and FVV. Once OG is back, even less touches.
I never thought I'd say this but for the sake of Scottie's development, we need to move him to the bench so he can be our primary facilitator in our 2nd unit. We have enough of a sample size to see that Pascal and FVV have no intention to let Scottie playmake and just defer him to becoming a screener and dribble hand off man. A huge waste of his development time and potential.
We really saw Scottie's energy and confidence explode in the 2nd half, especially the 4th in garbage time where he was assertive. He looked lost on defense in the 1st half and became a passive floater on the offensive end. It was good to see that change in the 2nd half.

Bang on with every take.

I have been in favour of moving him to the bench for a few games now. This team's offense needs a change and it's very clear that they look much smoother when Barnes is given stretches where he's allowed to do more than dribble handoff.

We also hear Nurse talk about Barnes being more aggressive, which he can be, but I think the offense they're playing right now makes it very difficult. Barnes being more aggressive is basically Barnes playing like FVV, GTJ, and Siakam and chucking himself. This team just isn't looking to make easy plays for each other, other than when Barnes is allowed to use his own creativity for a short stretch.

You can see Barnes kind of break away from the normal Raptors offense at times and do his own thing by reading the play, and that's when you see how smart he is. He's easily the team's best facilitator on offense.

100% this. He really is our best facilitator and his IQ is head & shoulders above anyone else on this team. While I respect Nurse as a coach, my fear is he will ruin Scottie & his strengths and make him into a Fred/Siakam chucker. We need to put him in positions to succeed and I feel our coaching leaves a lot to be desired, especially our half court offence. I want Scottie to have the ball in his hands and to be groomed to make the right play in the right situation - not just look to get his own. Some added aggression wouldn’t hurt at all, but I’d want us to empower him to develop the gifts that he naturally has. The culture of this team bothers me sometimes and it feels like everyone is out there to get there own. Coaching has a large part in that. It often feels like FVV & Siakam are given free reign. Overcoming ego might be our biggest challenge as a team. Just my two cents.

[Warriors Analyst]

Warriors' fan here:

Barnes is impressive. He moves well on D and he looks good on-ball. I spent most of 2013-2019 watching more of Milwaukee than Golden State because I was living on the east coast and had college/jobs to attend to that made PST games difficult to catch and I thought I might share this observation:

Giannis was very obviously the Bucks' most intriguing long-term option as the lead-ball handler in his rookie year. I spent lots of time on the Bucks' board in those days and we all complained at length about Brandon Knight monopolizing possessions as the lead ball-handler while Giannis was stuck in the corner.

A few years back, Larry Drew was quoted (and I am paraphrasing here) as saying that he wanted Giannis to eventually be the lead ball-handler, but he couldn't just give Giannis the keys to the offense at the age of 18 as the #15 pick.

I suspect there's something similar going on here with Barnes and FVV. Barnes probably needs to take the PG role by force and do so in a way that is so commanding that none of the vets can be pissed about it. Not sure what it will take from Barnes or Nurse to make that happen, but I hope it does. Barnes will be a hell of a player down the road.

[pingpongrac]

It's time to accept that the Raptors are a lottery team....

4-9 against above .500 teams
4-1 against sub .500 teams

That’s not bad enough for me to TWO. Need to get that 4-1 record down for me to start rooting for losses

Not to mention most of those losses were games where we were without at least one of OG/Siakam (6 of 9) and there was a stretch where we were also missing Birch and/or Achiuwa for 6 games (where we went 1-4 against +.500 teams).

I'm not throwing in the towel on this season until we see a string of at least 10 games where we're healthy. None of this revolving door at C crap plus missing one of our top 3 players for basically every game. Hard to gauge how well this team can play when there has been absolutely no consistency to the lineup in the last 3 weeks (coincidentally the start of this 2-7 stretch we're in now).

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