The Raptors’ offence a sloppy, arrhythmic mess against Hornets
Ginger Baker was a brilliant drummer and, if reports are to be believed, something of a mess of a man. He blended rhythms like a fusion restaurant and was one of the best drummers in the world in the 1960s, even joining former bandmate Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton in supergroup Cream. He once slashed at Bruce with a knife during a show. He was a brilliant drummer and a troubled man.
The point, of course, is that there are risks to relying too heavily for your health and happiness on tempo.
The Toronto Raptors have built a fragile ecosystem on the offensive end of a basketball court. Creating a good shot is, at times, like cooking Beef Wellington. There needs to be the right ingredient cooked and added, at precisely the right time. Temperature must be just so. Cuts must be precise. Screens must make contact at the correct angle. Timing, above all, determines the dish.
Every possession is something of a ballet performance on the edge of a knife.
This is especially the case when Brandon Ingram is not a virtuoso. And against the Charlotte Hornets, Ingram was sloppy. His jumper was off, his drives stopped short, and sometimes he simply turned the ball over with no cause. He wasn’t seeing the help in advance of its approach, which meant he multiple times started shooting, saw he was surrounded by bodies, and had to fling the ball to the perimeter to reset the play. No foresight or pace to his game. And when Ingram isn’t delivering a masterpiece, with so few other players able to dribble and create for himself, the Raptors must rely on the tenuous kindness of tempo. Which can be treacherous..
And for the first half, the offence was stagnant. Off-ball screens — a massive driver of tempo when they work — were defanged by simple switches, which meant Toronto created little with its half-court pacing. Outside of a few guard forays, no one drove. Passes were unthreatening. Scottie Barnes relied heavily on his jumper. While he hit plenty — and was fantastic, especially in the first half — it was relevant that so much of his creation came over the top of the defence. And when Barnes sat, everything came over the top of the defence for Toronto. Passes were east-west around the perimeter, with the defence totally unthreatened by any movement of ball or man. Possessions eventually ground down to wishes. The dish burned, the dance on the knife slipped off the edge.
There were some rare positives. Immanuel Quickley found his spots, including ending a minutes-long stretch of zilcho with a crossover, drive, and short floater off the glass. He hit triples to keep the team alive. Late in the game, he was the only Raptor with any offensive zip to his game. And, well, those were the positives. Barnes and Quickley. No one else came along for the ride.
Jamal Shead found layups (and missed an uncontested one in transition). He did hit a nifty stepback triple in the third quarter to pull Toronto within five.
But every run was killed by an untimely turnover. Flyby closeouts gave Charlotte wide open sidestep triples. Jakob Poeltl was slow and unsteady on both ends. He forced a few passes at times, especially on the interior, which led to turnovers. Poeltl really struggled to defend drives and deter passes to his own mark, which led to an impressive Ryan Kalkbrenner game, especially early.
Traditionally, Toronto hits the gas when the bench hits the floor. In the third quarter, Toronto’s bench committed a vapid turnover while trying to enter the ball to the post on the elbow, giving up an uncontested transition score. Then Toronto committed a turnover on the inbounds immediately afterwards. Charlotte doesn’t force turnovers; the team came into the game placed at 27th in opposing turnover percentage on the season. Toronto was just giving it away regardless.
Sandro Mamukelashvili tried to solve the problem on his own and drove into a thicket of bodies, throwing the ball at the stanchion. Toronto tried Barnes at center, picking up full court, and the team played passable defence for 23 seconds only to foul at the last moment. Gradey Dick missed a transition triple, which Toronto rebounded, only for Shead to airball a triple of his own.
The fourth quarter was much of the same. Barnes missed a jumper. A driving Ingram karate chopped his defender during his gather. Dick missed an open jumper, then Ingram another. No tempo. No cut or screen meant much of anything. It was like a redux of the 2024-25 season. Quickley quietly went berserk, scoring well, but no one was able to come with him. Quickley may have scored well, but he didn’t create much of anything for his teammates.
And so Toronto’s recent answer to their second test of the season is not permanent. That was always going to be the case. But the hope would be that Toronto wouldn’t have to face the same questions only a few days later. How does this offence function without RJ Barrett or anyone else able to bend the defence to his rim attacks? How does this offence function when Ingram misses pull-up jumpers? How can Poeltl get healthy? What does the offence have when the tempo drags slow?
These are important questions. And Toronto is about to face a much tougher stretch of schedule than it has since those first five games of the season. One way or another, for better or for worse, we’re about to find Toronto’s answers to those questions that keep sneaking up to plague an otherwise perfect season.
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