Quick Reaction: Raptors 98, Knicks 112

Barnes has been starting slow in every game that I cover it seems like as this sentence is becoming a Deja Vu every time now. He was able to get onto the board early in the second quarter with a mid-range jumper. Barnes was much more aggressive in the second quarter as all of his nine first-half points came in the last 12 minutes of the half and he was also frustrated on two defensive possessions in the quarter, where you saw him raise his hands for mistakes of his own. Barnes started with great energy in the second half as he was able to clean up a Gradey Dick miss, score the first four points of the half for the Raptors and swat a three-ball on defence. He played some good defence tonight too despite a few mistakes in the second quarter.

RJ Barrett was heavily involved early on as he scored or assisted the first three Raptors buckets. RJ had a great second-effort puck back off his own miss in the second quarter, which is not something we see from him very often. Barrett played some astounding defence on OG Anunoby in the post late in the second quarter which was also great to see. Actually, RJ was on O.G. almost all night long and contested a lot of his shots pretty well but he just made some tough looks tonight. After such a great start, he fell off in the second half when the Raptors needed scoring badly.

Poeltl started off his night with a travel called against him early on in the first quarter. Yak was much more involved on the offensive end in the second quarter, as he was able to throw down a Shead feed and also score his patented push shot far on the baseline. Poeltl picked up a few bad offensive fouls in the first quarter that killed some Raptor opportunities, but to be fair his last foul at the end of the half was a very soft call. Poeltl’s defensive activity was great but he fell asleep on an inbound early in the third quarter that led to a free KAT slam. Poeltl was solid tonight, but he had a few bad turnovers that really killed the Toronto’s momentum, especially in the third quarter where he wasn’t able to receive a Shead pass on the fast break.

Gradey’s struggles from the past two games carried over early in the first quarter, as he missed two threes, forced two drives to the rim (one late in the shot clock to be fair) which caused a turnover and made a desperate reach that was called for a foul. It took Gradey six shots to register his first points of the night early in the third quarter with a three-ball. This is now the third game in a row that Gradey’s been ice cold but he’s had a pretty good year.

IQ made the Raptors first bucket tonight with a corner three off of a transition feed from RJ Barrett. Quickley had an awesome start to the second quarter with 6 quick points, but was pulled early again just less than 3 minutes into the quarter. Luckily that didn’t ruin Quicks’ momentum and he kept the scoring consistent all night long. Tough loss but it was good to see Quickley score efficiently for the first time since returning from injury.

Shead debuted a new hairstyle tonight and received a quick check-in for starting guard Immanuel Quickley. Shead made a nice layup off of some impressive dribble moves but unfortunately, it didn’t count due to an offensive foul on Jakob Poeltl. Shead’s first shift wasn’t too great as he missed a free throw and also wasn’t able to receive a pass when he was wide open. The second half was more or less the same but you know he’s going to be looking to hookup his teammates with good looks which is a good trait to have from your point guard. He played alot of minutes in the first half but wasn’t seen as much on the floor during crunch time.

Agbaji’s first bucket was a nice contested finish with a defender draped all over him. He was able to get another point right away with a cherry-pick opportunity that left him wide open. Ochai, who’s been the only Raptor to play every game got elbowed by Josh Hart midway through the second quarter when battling on the offensive glass trying to win his team a second chance opportunity. The Kansas product was labelled with a lower back contusion injury late in the second quarter and was confirmed done for the night midway through the third quarter, which was a tough blow to the Raptors second unit as he had a solid first shift. We’ll see if Ochai can keep the streak going tommorow night.

Bruce Brown was able to cash in a floater in his second possession after checking in. He did a great job of hustling back on defence after missing a heavily contested layup and played some nice defence on Knicks big man Karl-Anthony Towns. Brown was able to convert another tough finish late in the first quarter and had some good energy in the first half but he fell off in crunch time during the second half.

Olynyk has been struggling lately, especially during his first shift and first halves, but tonight he was able to finish an and-one during the Raptors second last possession of the first quarter. Kelly tried to beat the buzzer in the first quarter, after rebounding on the defensive end and bringing the ball all the way up the court but shot the ball a second too late in the paint and started the second quarter with a bad turnover. The Canadian big is sneakily crafty though as he had a nice spinning hook shot late in the third quarter. Although he’s not the best defender, he was decent on that end tonight.

Walter was very quiet tonight and I’ve been harping on him for forcing bad shots early into his career, but in the past few weeks, it seems either he, the coaching staff or both parties realized that and he’s been only shooting clean looks. It’s just about making the shots now and he did play some solid defence tonight though.

Garbage time minutes.

Garbage time minutes. Although he was unreal in those minutes. He sent a message with his limited playing time. I really wanted to give him an A+ but it’s a Raptors Republic tradition to hand out Inc’s for garbage time.

Same rotation from the Bucks game where the Raptors got blown out on Monday night. It took Darko a while to call a timeout when Agbaji went down which cost the Raptors 9 seconds of shot clock time. His first-half challenge was a good attempt as Poeltl barely touched the Knick player but was still deemed as an unsuccessful challenge. Once Agbaji went down Rajakovic didn’t elect to elevate anyone else into the rotation and stuck with the top nine in meaningful minutes.