Scottie Barnes returns and Olivier Sarr hits game winner against Wizards
The early game was defined by a very aggressive Immanuel Quickley — who had some nice fight on defense and a hankering for shot attempts on offense — and two laissez-faire basketball teams. The Raptors starting lineup was Scottie Barnes, Ja’Kobe Walter, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Quickley, and Barrett. No Brandon Ingram. No Collin Murray-Boyles. No Jakob Poeltl. The best run of play came from Chucky Hepburn who cashed two triples and carried over.
We got to see Barnes after a couple games off, and it was relatively similar to his game against Denver, at least in terms of process. Super talented defense, with a good amount of effort, mixed in with an aversion to almost anything that isn’t a jumper. It leads to an odd process, and maybe for a guy who is trying to avoid the injured list it makes sense to get jumpers up and avoid the trenches. He’s also been an All-Star before, and preseason isn’t the best barometer for who will be good anyway. On top of that, his defense always helps and his presence on the floor is always important. It’s weird process, though.
Also! The Sarr brothers, Alex and Olivier, faced off for the first time in the NBA!
It was very ho-hum basketball, where the runs made by each team were dependent almost exclusively on 3-point shots going down, and transition frequency. Neither team was dynamite at creating from a standstill, and that made the first half about big exchanges of points. Basketball has always been a game of runs, but this was even more so. Quickley & Barrett were both using a lot of possessions to create, but to little affect. Although, Quickley finally got his 3-pt attempts up — the transition possessions and less than energetic playstyle allowed him more volume — and he was hitting.
The big observation I settled on from the first half? Mamu can really drive the ball. I talked about it a bit when he first signed with the Raptors, but he can really put the ball down and the Raptors will really benefit from it this season. He’s good! I hope this isn’t some flash in the pan like Svi’s preseason all those years ago – and I don’t think it is, but I just remembered how Svi tricked me.
There weren’t many dominant or defining features that emerged in this game. The big thing was obviously that the trio of Barnes, Quickley & Barrett got a lot of minutes, and they’re good, so they were able to overwhelm and keep the Wizards at arms length. Walter got a lot of minutes, some pretty good run, and while he was decent enough on defense he really struggled to get the ball to go down in this one. Ochai Agbaji also struggled to find the bottom of the cup. The trio of Walter, Barrett and Agbaji were shooting 7/27 by the end of the third quarter. The Raptors weren’t getting efficiency from anywhere, basically. Sure, Hepburn and Gradey Dick had hit 4 triples between the two of them, but that’s not very meaningful volume.
Still, they went into the fourth quarter up 87-79.
It was Walter at first, with a couple buckets made (and a 4-point play as one of them), and then the deep bench after, who were meant to take the Raptors to the sweet promised land of a 3-1 preseason record. Deep bench vs deep bench. Jared Rhoden got to the bucket after a ricky screen and a pick n’ roll. David Roddy rumbled to the bucket for a finish. Hepburn hit his 3rd triple. However, it wasn’t comfy at all. The Wizards made a mad dash to the finish line. A very similar stretch of hoops to the one that allowed the Raptors to steal the game from the Celtics — although with less back court pressure — and all of the sudden the Wizards found themselves down 1, with the ball, and with 4 seconds left in the game. Will Riley curled away from the sideline off the inbounds, caught the ball, and turned the corner on Rhoden before getting fouled with .8 seconds left – he hit both free throws for the lead.
However, Coach Darko had another lob to the bucket SLOB play and drew up a winner. A streaking Sarr caught the ball in air and finished – delivering the win to the Raptors. A nice pass. A nice leap. A nice play. Olivier wins the first Sarr-Bowl.
The fellas win again.
Have a blessed day.
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