Birds of Prey: Hawks vs Raptors

[Jamaaliver]

Gameday: Atlanta vs Toronto



So, the Atlanta Hawks. They have a ridiculously good offense — second in the league — and miserable defense. Remind you of anyone? Yeah, the Hornets just beat the pants off of the Raptors as an all-offense, no-defense team only last night. Toronto’s gonna have to find a way to slow the Hawks with more backbone than they showed against the Hornets. Really, any amount of backbone.

Trae Young is outrageous at creating advantages in the halfcourt. One of the best in the league. He’s only played one game against the Raptors this year, and Toronto defended him well. He scored well below his season average, at 22 points, and he didn’t hit a three. Toronto won. If they can cut off the head of Atlanta’s snake again, the Raptors should be able to bounce back.

The Raptors are going to be starting from behind with OG Anunoby injured. He is one of three great shooters in the rotation, and he’s the only reliable non-guard shooter. Missing him doesn’t explain Toronto’s performance against Charlotte, and nor does it excuse it. But it can serve as a warning, a cautionary tale, if the Raptors don’t clean up their act. They can get absolutely rocked if they play like this without Anunoby. They were at a season-low in three-point attempts before the bench unloaded some triples in garbage time, which means the Raptors just didn’t create enough advantages on the offensive end to open shots.

They’re gonna have to create more open looks against Atlanta, and they’re gonna have toss them in, too. Mostly, they’re gonna have to play some team defense. We know this team can do all those things. Let’s see it.

Raptors Republic

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[Jamaaliver]

Toronto Tidbits:

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[ducler]

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[DirtybirdGA]

Looking good for the moment.

[Jamaaliver]

Trae trying to make up for last game.

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[Jamaaliver]

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[Spud2nique]

Not tonight Fred VAN FLEET (just sounds right regardless of how’s it spelled sorry).

-Trae (the superstar)

[HMFFL]

Trae Young went nuclear in a 127-100 win over the Raptors on Saturday, scoring 41 points on 17-of-24 shooting (6-of-6 FTs) to go with four rebounds, 11 assists, one steal, one block, one 3-pointer and four turnovers in 37 minutes.

Trae is coming off a pretty miserable 3-of-17 shooting effort against the Bulls on Thursday, but he excelled and then some in a prime bounce-back spot. Young had 25 points at halftime without even making a triple, and he converted on 15 of his first 18 shots to cap off a masterpiece. It’s probably safe to say he’s out of his funk after the heater he was on tonight, as he failed to convert on more than 40% of his shot attempts in four of his last five contests, so hopefully there’s more where this came from. Plus, Young surpassed Michael Jordan for the ninth-most 40-point, 10-assist games in NBA history with 10 of them and tied Tracy McGrady for the sixth-most 40-point outings by any player under the age 24 with 22 of them, which is ridiculous. Atlanta gets tough matchups against the Celtics and Bulls for their next two games, and Trae will have to be at his best to keep his team fighting for the best possible play-in/playoff berth.

Feb 26, 2022, 9:52 PM ET

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[HMFFL]

Huge win for us. Trae can take over and not look back. Heck of a game for him and our team last night.

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[D21]

Big win, now the lesson for future games: it would be just better to have Trae around 30pts and 2 W in 2 games than him a 20 and 40 and 1 W + 1L