Toronto finishes off the preseason with a win over Brooklyn
The Toronto Raptors played their final game of the preseason last night and things went fairly well for the most part. In a 116-112 win over Brooklyn young players like Gradey Dick and Immanuel Quickley were able to get some quality minutes and make an impact. Davion Mitchell and Jamal Shead were once again pests on the defensive end. Scottie Barnes also looked like he was ready for the regular season to begin and he dominated his minutes last night.
Quickley in his return did not make as much of an impact as you’d like to see as a scorer, but it was his playmaking where he shined the brightest. He manipulated defenders with the threat of his shooting to create wide open layups, he hit Ochai Agbaji with an excellent pocket pass out of a side pick n’ roll, and he also dished to cutters out of his drives, solid playmaking for Quickley’s first NBA action this season.
The star of the night was of course Barnes, as he finished with 21 points 6 rebounds and 3 assists. On one play Barnes turned the corner after a Jakob Poetl slip screen, and he began his gather adobe the free throw line, muscled his defender out of the way with some long strides, and finished with a statue of liberty dunk in a wonderful show of his strength and length. All night long Barnes seemed to be able to get what he wanted, and he looked pretty good as a three point shooter as well, especially to open the second half.
Boucher has done so much this preseason to be in contention for a consistent rotation spot which he wasn’t able to get as last season rolled on. Boucher is always barreling toward the rim looking for opportunities to finish, but when he really shines is when his three pointer is dropping which it was last night.
For Dick it was an up and down night defensively, there were plays where he was caught ball watching and gave up good looks to the opposition, but then there were other plays where he was step for step with a ball handler and shutting him down with effort. Dick even had a chasedown block last night in a show of his willingness to compete on that end of the floor. Dick’s shooting wasn’t very impressive last night as he finished 2-8 from 3, but he mixed in some very powerful finishes that were very encouraging. Dick timed a dive to the rim very well and rose for a putback dunk that shocked pretty much everyone but Dick, and he also had a strong layup in semi-transition where he got Cam Johnson to bite on a pump fake and used that to drive to the rim and absorb contact mid air and finish over the top of the defender.
Shead’s willingness to cut and the timing of his cuts led to some great looks for him, and added even more impact than he usually does with his defense. Multiple times last night because Shead was glued to his man on a pick n’ roll he drew an offensive foul on the screener. Little things like this don’t go unnoticed and really make it tough to not see Shead got some good opportunities in the NBA.
Overall, Toronto was in control for most of the second half, the defensive started to look more cohesive and really shut down Brooklyn, the transition play looked strong, and Toronto’s lead ballooned to 17 in the 4th quarter when Darko decided to empty the bench and give those players their final preseason run. The lead was cut down to 6 with 2 and a half minutes left after an 11-0 run by the nets led by Keon Johnson and Ziare Williams. Toronto’s end of bench guys could not seem to get anything going offensively and thus the lead began to get smaller and smaller. The lead was then cut to three with 30 seconds left in the game, and it was clear that the defensive pressure of Brooklyn was becoming too much for the young Raptors. Despite all the dramatics at the end of the game, Toronto held on to get the 4 point victory after Jahmius Ramsey hit some clutch free throws to extend the lead to 4 and ultimately get the win.
Toronto opens up their season at home on Wednesday night against the visiting Cleveland Cavaliers and hopefully the season can get off to a good start.
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