Amidst massacre by the Magic, Raptors find two moments of magic

There was a brief flash of life, a quick flicker.

It started, as pace often does in this NBA, with multiple point guards on the floor together. Immanuel Quickley picked up full court, pushing the Orlando Magic shot clock down and holding its head underwater. Davion Mitchell started in the corner against the Cole Anthony, but Anthony jetted to the ball out of Chicago to start creating, and because of Quickley’s early work, Mitchell only had to shut him down for 10 seconds. Easy work. 

Orlando bashed its head against the Great Mitchell Wall repeatedly to start the second quarter, and Mitchell held firm. As the Raptors found their way to stop after stop, they found themselves running, too. Quickley galloped to the corner in transition, missing an uncontested one. Mitchell drilled one from the other corner on the next possession. Toronto saw practically every possession for the first several minutes in the open court, while Orlando slogged through the confines of the half court.  

The run wasn’t perfect, but it was, hopefully for the Raptors, a portend. A sign of what might work in the future. The present? At 8-26 (now 8-27), it’s a write off. But there are still lessons to be learned. 

Toronto has spent much of the season demonstrating what doesn’t work. Possessions without paint touches? Yeah, not in this NBA. Defensive possessions without activity? Help yourself to the rim, please. But Toronto’s multi-guard lineup allowed the Raptors to fulfill both needs. Quickley hit the paint on one end, while he was great as a secondary guard defender on the other, letting Mitchell really lock up. 

Perhaps as significant as those two were the other players on the floor alongside them. Bruce Brown gave Toronto a third guard, a third mover and shaker whose activity on both ends had been one of the few bright spots during the late stage of Toronto’s losing streak. He was just as significant as his fellow guards in keeping juice in Toronto’s drink. And of course Scottie Barnes was there too, the most important player to any success Toronto has found. At one point feeling the power of his teammates’ effort flow into his veins, he closed out to the corner with the verve of a young Chris Boucher, flying past the shooter like an eagle on the hunt. Orlando missed (one of its only missed 3s in the first half), and Toronto galloped the other way in transition. 

Toronto cut the first-quarter 13-point lead to nine. A few minutes later, after Toronto broke up its multi-guard pairing, the Magic grew the lead back to 18. The Magic are good, and the Raptors are bad. It was not a fair fight. But for a moment, it looked like Toronto was the team with momentum, vitality, and energy. 

The Raptors have spent too much time this season with too little shooting, too little driving, and too little defence. Pairing Mitchell and Quickley together is one way to find the right balance for all three. It’s not turning up all three to 11 — the Raps don’t really have the personnel to do that, not until Cooper Flagg comes to town. But it’s the best they can do, especially with RJ Barrett still out sick. 

In many ways, this season has been one of tradeoffs. It’s good to develop rookies! But then … you’re playing lineups with three, sometimes four, rookies on the floor, and you’re going to lose a lot of minutes. It’s good to play a shooter at center! But then Kelly Olynyk is giving up so much on the other end that whatever structural advantages you’re gaining by being able to play a bench center who simulates Jakob Poeltl’s delay action, with a jumper, is sort of given back by his being unable to play NBA-level defence. Barnes initiating the offence is good! But then Barnes loses touches as a forward, where many of the extraordinary abilities allow him to truly thrive. 

Quickley’s return shifts Toronto away from the most disadvantageous of those tradeoffs. He is one of the team’s best shooters (which is because he’s extraordinary) and drivers (which is more because the team is quite bad there). He also doesn’t sacrifice much on the defensive end, especially when he locks in like he did against Orlando. The best players don’t sacrifice anything. 

Quickley lost his first-half minutes by one point, the best mark on the Raptors. 

It all crashed back down to earth shortly thereafter. The Magic were already without their best players Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, and their remaining best player Jalen Suggs left midway through the game with back spasms. Toronto found itself in the strange position as the healthy team. Which really only served to prove that poor health isn’t the only thing ailing the Raptors. 

A short but jarring avalanche of Toronto turnovers buried the team offence beneath its deadly weight. Quickley threw away a host of unforced passes. Poeltl let a pass slip through his fingers. On the other end, Gradey Dick lost a number of battles on the glass. The whole time Orlando kept plugging away from behind the arc. 

To some extent, shooting variance doomed Toronto. That’s life in the NBA, and it’s invoked to explain games far more than it should be. But at least in this one it really carries some explanatory power. Dick and Quickley combined to shoot 3-of-16 from behind the arc, including completely uncontested misses from the corners for both shooters. And the other way, Canadians Caleb Houstan and Cory Joseph splashed virtually everything they threw at the rim, as well as rookie Tristan da Silva. Sometimes middling shooters outshoot good ones. Toronto’s defence didn’t do anything to help limit the damage. 

Still. For one brief stretch, the Raptors outran their shooting variance. They throttled a team that is built to do the throttling. They found their best selves, actually winning on the defensive end, driving transition, and juicing the building with energy. To start the fourth quarter, Toronto turned to the same lineup — with Ja’Kobe Walter replacing Brown — to try to capture magic in a bottle for the second time.

And It worked! Barnes forced turnovers and drew free throws, hit triples and dimed his bigs. Walter contested shots while Mitchell jittered into the lane for rebounds. A 10-2 run in a brief three minutes. The magic was so fierce that it even dragged the husk of Olynyk to an impactful defence. But it was not to last. Though Darko Rajakovic rode the multi-guard lineup for several more minutes, the best Toronto could do after sucker-punching the Magic to start the quarter was break even the rest of the way.

It is reality for these Raptors that such stretches are brief. Three shining minutes, twice a game, surrounded by 42 of fetid putrescence. It is something on which to build. In a rebuilding season, sometimes that’s the best it’s gonna get.

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