Behind Ingram’s artistry, Raptors win dizzying shootout with Hawks
On a long enough time scale, what you put into a thing is what you get out of it. If you try hard, you get better. If you hit a baseball hard, it goes far. This is basically the First Law of Thermodynamics. And against the Atlanta Hawks, the Toronto Raptors proved that ‘long enough time scale’ to be approximately five seconds.
They started out very much not getting the points that the quality of their looks deserved. That changed quickly. It was fast enough to cause whiplash. They opened the first quarter against the Hawks by smoking five consecutive layups, including a pair in transition by Scottie Barnes and Collin Murray-Boyles. That’s good process but bad results. The team created terrific looks with dynamic offence, pace, and drives. But they didn’t turn into points. Yet they finished the first half with 77 points as the bench and the stars finally performed up to standards in the same game.
The only problem was that as good as Toronto’s process was, Atlanta’s was just as impressive. The Hawks, too, played fast. The Hawks, too, created layups. Toronto allowed every Hawk to play one-on-one, with little team defence of which to speak outside of a few spurts that led to oodles of steals. But those came in small, isolated moments of the game. And as Toronto was playing one-on-one defence, it’s not like off-ball defenders were sticking with their men. They frequently fell asleep guarding shooters, allowing easy relocations for uncontested jumpers one pass away.
And it was ironic, though perhaps expected, that Toronto’s winning moments came not through its marvelous offence but through a stretch of defensive adequacy. More on that later.
One of the most impressive components of Toronto’s offence, especially in the first half, was its ability to toggle different screeners onto the ball. Barnes was fantastic as a screener. He missed a few, and he got stripped under the rim, but his screens generally got him the ball on the move towards the rim, which is automatic paydirt. He pivoted into step-through scoop layups. He attempted a life-ending cock-back dunk, though he missed it. He caught on the short roll and calmly threw a hook shot off the glass.
But it wasn’t just Barnes. The Raptors used Immanuel Quickley to screen for Barnes in the third quarter, which led to free throws. They used RJ Barrett — a full-calorie contributor — as a screener for Brandon Ingram to get the latter switches against lesser defenders.
Oh, about Ingram? He had his full toolkit on display. He rejected screens to hit mid-rangers along the baseline. He faded away, full extension, from four feet. He hit a Dirk Nowitzki stepback from the elbow. He finished the first half with 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting. They weren’t all easy, but neither were they all of the impossible mid-range artistry variety. He pump-faked for a drive. He ran in transition. There were some layups mixed in to make his diet more palatable.
And just to add an extra Scoville in there, the Raptors used Ingram himself as a screener from time to time, too.
Yet for every Toronto basket, it couldn’t string stops together to actually build a real lead. Nickeil Alexander-Walker found himself completely opened from deep time and again. He finished shooting 6-of-11 from deep. Keaton Wallace saw either uncontested triples or easy side-steps for uncontested triples after a flyby closeout. On the few occasions the Hawks missed a shot, they often managed to grab an offensive rebound — and shot approximately 1000 percent on second-chance looks.
Of course, Toronto always had an answer. Ja’Kobe Walter drilled a corner triple when Atlanta tried to find some answer with a zone defence in the third quarter. Sandro Mamukelashvili both scored with ease and drove to create looks for his teammates. He rebounded the heck out of the ball on both ends, and though his 3-point stroke wasn’t immaculate, his off-the-dribble game was one of Toronto’s premier weapons. He finished two assists shy of a triple-double.
And so neither team was able to build much of a lead despite each landing haymaker after haymaker. Both teams scored 40 points in the second quarter. They finished up 107-106 after…three quarters. The Raptors have had nine games this season scoring fewer than 107.
Toronto finally — finally! — ended the dizzying back and forth in the fourth quarter. And it managed the accomplishment despite facing some offensive struggles. The Hawks turned to a zone consistently to open the fourth quarter, and Toronto’s struggles with zones continued, despite their blistering first three quarters. Mamukelashvili and Quickley missed open triples. Yet the all-offence lineup that also included Gradey Dick, Barnes, and Barrett actually locked in on defence. The Raptors forced turnover after turnover, a 24-second violation, and even enjoyed Ingram swatting a late-clock attempt after multiple closeouts dissuaded 3-point attempts. An despite the half-court struggles, a Quickley layup here and a Barnes dunk there actually built the Raptors a double-digit lead. Dick chased long offensive rebounds with aplomb in the quarter, and he even had a breakout dunk after a Toronto stop.
And so Toronto remains impossible to predict. Some games are flat from jump street, with static offence and piddling point totals. Some are absolute shootouts. This is a hallmark of good-but-not-great teams. They can punch up or down. And the Raptors can certainly hit that top speed, as they showed against the Hawks. But to reach the next level as a team, they’ll need to eliminate the letdown performances.
That will come, as it did against the Hawks, by trusting — even when you can’t immediately see the results — that good process will eventually lead to points on the board.
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