One of the reasons the Toronto Raptors’ remaining schedule was considered relatively easy on paper (the 21st easiest schedule before Wednesday’s game, according to Tankathon.com) is because they have two games remaining against the New Orleans Pelicans.
But is it really an ‘easy’ game? That certainly wasn’t the case with Wednesday’s matchup. The Raptors flew in from Houston and arrived at their New Orleans hotel just before 1 a.m., where they fell in the fourth quarter, losing (again) to the Rockets.
There are tougher NBA trips than the hour-long flight from Houston to New Orleans, but in the meantime, the Pelicans were home and chilling in the Big Easy.
Just as importantly, the Pelicans are not a team that averages 21 wins. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the top of the rotation was fully healthy. Zion Williamson (remember him?), Trey Murphy III, Herb Jones, Dejounte Murray and Saddiq Bey are a lineup of quality NBA players. And they got some pop off the bench from rookies Derik Queen and Jeremiah Fears and second-year bigs Yves Missi and Karlo Matkovic.
And while the Pelicans are 6-3 in their last nine games, with two wins over Sacramento, Washington and Utah, they have beaten teams like Minnesota, San Antonio and Houston over the last three weeks. This is something the Raptors cannot claim.
Can the Raptors dig deep and pull off a win for Brandon Ingram, who played nearly seven seasons in New Orleans before being traded to Toronto last February?
Will the Raptors continue to push for a playoff spot based on an underwhelming team that sits in the bottom 10 of the standings?
Or will a loss to the Pelicans keep the Raptors from maintaining control of the top six without a break since Nov. 14?
In the end, the Raptors could have made a lot of excuses on Wednesday – conscious or not – and they accepted them all in a 122-111 loss that lacked a fight until the end.
The Raptors fought back after an uncharacteristically lackluster third quarter and trailed by two with 10:15 to go, but got on the wrong end of a 24-8 surge over the next eight minutes. On a strange play with 1:25 left, Murray (looking fantastic as he continues to recover from a ruptured Achilles tendon) sent Jamal Shead sprawling to the floor before hitting a 3 and standing up to taunt the Raptors guard, symbolizing the night. If the Raptors were paying attention, would it have been an ugly moment they couldn’t have controlled under different circumstances?
Instead, Immanuel Quickley was the only Raptor to take offense. In the end, Murray received a technical foul, but it was an image that was difficult to shake. Other teams had their backs on the Raptors and Toronto had no real answer.
On paper, Ingram had a good night, posting 22 points, six rebounds, five assists and four steals (including four turnovers) in his first game back in New Orleans after being traded to Toronto last February. But he had just seven points in the second half, and his two sloppy turnovers early in the third quarter gave the Pelicans a double-digit lead after going up by just two points at halftime. He was 0/5 in the fourth quarter.
Playoffs? What about play-ins?
On the other hand, if someone had told you in training camp that the Raptors would be 36-29 in mid-March and a half-game away from sixth place, most people would have taken a chance there. But it feels different with the Raptors sliding into this position to replace Orlando, which beat Cleveland on Wednesday. The knowledge that they are unlucky (4-18) against NBA top 10 teams doesn’t help.
All of their problems were on display against the Pelicans, but none more so than their inability to hit open 3s. This season the Raptors are currently shooting 34.4% from 3-point range, which ranks 25th in the NBA, but the quality of their missed shots makes it difficult to take them seriously.
Toronto shot just 13 of 43 from deep (the Pelicans made 14 but needed just 29 shots to do it), but the majority of their 30 misses appeared to be wide-open in rhythm, pass-and-catch looks. I had at least five notes taken by the likes of Scottie Barnes, Ingram and Quickley during critical portions of the fourth quarter. All sounds. They are back breakers.
But with 17 games remaining, it’s too early to say the Raptors’ playoff hopes are over. However, the surrounding teams, Orlando (5 straight wins), Miami (6 straight wins), and Atlanta (7 straight wins), are performing well. The Raptors will need to find another gear to keep pace.
kings of the third quarter
Depending on how you look at it, the Raptors’ offensive slump in the fourth quarter isn’t all that strange. Should a team with All-Stars Ingram, Barnes and three other experienced starters (when healthy) rank 29th in fourth-quarter offensive efficiency? Absolutely not. Is this completely inconceivable, considering that the Raptors rank 18th in first quarter efficiency and 21st in second quarter efficiency? I think probably not.
For three out of four quarters, the Raptors have been a below average or poor team offensively. So how do you explain the third quarter of the Raptors, who are fourth in the NBA in offensive efficiency with 120.4 points per 100 possessions? To put this in perspective, if the Raptors, who averaged 108.4 points per 100 possessions in the fourth quarter, were to play a full third quarter against the Raptors, they would lose by nearly 50 points.
Better-minded people than me could comb through the data to pinpoint why a below-average first-half offense would equal the league-leading Denver Nuggets through 12 minutes and ultimately the Indiana Pacers with 15 wins. I know the Raptors coaching staff is trying to figure it out. The minute distribution does not change significantly. That’s three minutes less than when Ingram played three minutes in the fourth (seventh). If he plays 10 minutes.
But then again, is this why Ingram is one of four Raptors regulars who makes over 40% on third down and never makes it on fourth down? Why is Ingram only shooting 48% of his 3-pointers in the third quarter and 33% in the fourth?
As a team, the Raptors shot 39.1% of their 3-pointers in the third quarter, third-best in the NBA, and 28.5% of their 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, last. The Raptors went 5-of-11 against the Pelicans in the third quarter (although they still lost 33-25 due to five turnovers in 12 minutes) and were 4-of-14 in the fourth quarter.
If you’ve ever seen Williamson running at full speed, you’ll believe the basketball story someone suggested. Someone might ask me, “Did you see Zion score his 50th point after winning the game with a two-handed dunk from the foul line?” I’d say, “I saw him do that at the Paramount Fine Foods Center in Mississauga before his freshman year at Duke University.” (This is a true story.)
But breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s record with 101 points? no.
Williamson had a good year (21.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.4 assists). The main reason is that he has now played 50 games and is on pace to hit 60 for the third time. The Raptors’ size and power became an issue, as he recorded 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists in 32 minutes. But if there’s anyone who can get past Adebayo’s 83-point outburst on Tuesday night and truly match Will Chamberlain’s 100-point performance from 1962, I think it’s Luka Doncic.
Can Shai Gilgeous-Alexander do it? entirely. To make that happen, I think he would have to score 25 points from the line, shoot 12 of 20 from three, then attempt 30 shots again and make 20 of them. It’s hard to imagine Gilgeous-Alexander being in a situation where the Thunder need him. three times more His season average was 31.7 points per game and the Thunder approved of rushing him just for fun. Doncic? He twice hit nine 3-pointers in a game. His career high for free throw attempts is 22 and his career high for shot attempts is 37. He had scored 73 points in one previous game. When I appeared on the Raptors Show with Blake Murphy earlier Wednesday, he made a good choice. The Timberwolves’ Anthony Edwards is an elite volume 3-point shooter who can draw fouls at will and is crazy enough to try. But I think 101 points is a record that will fall.
For most of Jamal Shead’s short Raptors career, everything he did was welcomed. His tenacious defense and selfless playmaking combined with his charming personality made him a fan and team favorite.
But it’s difficult to be an effective NBA player and not be a scoring threat at all.
Heading into Wednesday’s game against New Orleans, Shedd had shot just 20% from the floor in the month of March, which was unusual, but he had shot 40% in February, 38.5% in January, 33.9% in December and 36.4% in November. He shot 46.2 percent from the floor through six games in October, but has shot just 31.2 percent since then. Despite his recent turnover streak (nine in the last five games), his assist-to-turnover ratio is well above 3:1, but he needs to find a way to get the ball in the basket at least a little bit for the rest of the game to shine. He showed some signs against the Pelicans and had his best game of March, scoring nine points, three assists and no turnovers in 20 minutes in the third quarter, knocking down two straight 3-pointers.
It’s hard to know where the Raptors, who have lost four of their last five and six of their last eight, can gain traction and stop their slide. They host Phoenix (38-27) on Friday and the East-leading Pistons on Sunday before heading west for a five-game road trip that starts in Chicago, goes through Denver, Phoenix and Utah and concludes against the Clippers. Can we go 4-3 during that period? All the good and little they’ve done up to this point in the season can go up in smoke.
