Top 10 Raptors Plays of the Week: Brandon Ingram dazzles amid All-Star slump

We’re back for the Top 10 Plays of the Week, and this week the schedule got pushed back due to being on standby for the trade deadline that saw the Raptors not do much in. Since we upload every Wednesday, I decided to keep it that way game-wise, which means the Minnesota and Chicago game’s highlights will be in the next edition of Top 10 Raptors Plays of the Week. That means we had three games to pick from: the Wednesday meltdown against New York, another meltdown on Friday night in Orlando and the Sunday night win against Utah.

10. Brandon Ingram’s creative dribble

To start our list, we’ll go with the man himself, the Notorious BI3, as Brandon Ingram catches a pass and the way he avoids the steal attempt of Mikal Bridges just mesmerized me, even though the bucket is such a routine shot for the snubbed All-Star. A pretty rare play, at least to me. I haven’t seen someone avoid a steal like that ever, and it just really stood out to me. Is this a routine play, or was it truly impressive? Anyways, Ingram was great in this game with 27 points, 6 rebounds and 2 steals on 10 of 16 shooting from the field.

9. Collin Murray-Boyles’ hustle

Another kind of routine play that leads to a mini 2014 Spurs-like possession, which either touches four Raptors hands or all five, depending on how you count the possession, as technically the Quickley shot was a different possession. Anyways, CMB’s heart and hustle is just too much to pass up here as he runs quite a bit to chase a loose rebound that he saves miraculously, and it leads to the ball zipping around the gym before finding Scottie Barnes down low for two points. Another classic CMB statline of 12 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals and a block on 5 of 7 shooting from the field. The 9th overall pick is currently living up to his expectations and even exceeding them.

8. RJ beats the buzzer

RJ Barrett has struggled since returning to the lineup from his most recent injury, and he’s been a part of trade rumours almost all season long. Could the post-trade deadline confirmation give his mind some peace and help him find his form back from earlier that made him look like a star? Anyways, his buzzer-beating Dirk Nowitzki-like fadeaway on one leg gave Toronto momentum heading into the fourth quarter that quickly disappeared, unfortunately. He also had a decent outing in this game with 16 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists on just below 50 percent shooting.

7. CMB skies high to block Paolo Banchero

CMB shows up again in Orlando, and this list is pretty much dominated by the Magic game, as the Raptors were an absolute highlight reel in this one. A shame they didn’t come away with the victory, but CMB has been playing amazing defence, the main reason the Raptors decided to go with him at the 9th pick and even at 6 feet 7 inches, he’s really held down the centre position and paint defence in the long absence of Jakob Poeltl. A beautiful block on one of the top bucket getters in the league as a help defender, and he even had a nice steal on Karl-Anthony Towns against the Knicks that made me question whether that should make it too, but ultimately, there were too many good plays this week, unfortunately.

6. Scottie’s buzzer-beating dish

Scottie Barnes makes his first appearance for his own play as he was technically on the receiving end of the RJ Barrett dish that came from CMB’s hustle play at 9. Scottie throws a beautiful bullet outlet pass after reeling in a rebound, almost Kevin Love-like to Ja’Kobe Walter, who just puts his head down and runs the floor, putting full trust in his team to corral the rebound. Again, if you look at the score, Toronto was in the driver’s seat for much of this game and unfortunately just fell apart in the fourth quarter.

5. Jamal Shead’s hockey assist

This wasn’t even an assist for Jamal Shead, but man, how can you pass up a pass like that? Shead hits the Jazz with a change of tempo as he brings the ball down the court with a head of steam and penetrates the defence to kick the ball out to the All-Star’s hands in the mid-range, a perfect player to give the ball to, as Scottie makes the right play of finding a wide-open Sandro Mamukelashvili for three. It seems like the Utah Jazz don’t know who Mamu is, as that 2-year, $5,262,809 looks better and better every day that passes by. It’s a crime that Shead won’t get any real stats out of this pass, but at least he gets some recognition here, right?

4. Ingram rises for a nice jam

It’s pretty rare to see the mid-range maestro rise for a dunk these days, but he does get into the paint at a solid rate. He gets a nice blow by on Anthony Black with his jab step and slams home the first two points of the game for the Raptors on Desmond Bane, who slides over in an attempt to help. You thought the 27 points in New York were good? Well, how about 35 points on 13 of 23 shooting while adding a steal and a block. Also, Ingram had been missing from this list for quite some time, but perhaps I got too used to his amazing plays, anyways this week I couldn’t snub him from the list as he was just amazing on the court and clips-wise with some great highlights.

3. Scottie All-Star show’s what he’s all about

Scottie Barnes will hold the honours of being the lone All-Star for the team this season, and what a season he’s had so far. This play epitomizes what Scottie is all about. How about a block on a bigger Wendell Carter Jr. and bringing the ball down the court as the ball handler and a no-look pass to RJ Barrett to finish off a highlight reel. It truly sucks that Brandon Ingram didn’t make it with Scottie, but it was the right decision in the end. If Toronto were to have only one Raptor make it, it would always be Scottie, given his all-around game and his role as the heart of the team.

2. Jamal Shead’s ankle breaker + 2014 Spurs

A very hard one to judge for the top play of the week as this was a classic 2014 San Antonio Spurs possession that we’re always bringing up and perhaps it should be called the Top 10 San Antonio Spurs plays of the week, but it starts with a beautiful move by Jamal Shead as he drops his defender to the ground leaving the arena in awe. The ball touches four Raptors hands and finds Gradey Dick at the end of the possesion who nails his three. The Raptors played a great first half in this one, but a very late Knicks run to end the second quarter began showing the cracks of how the rest of the game was gonna go when New York ended up winning the second half 72 to 41.

1. Brandon Ingram’s 360 assist

To end the list, Ingram returns to the top plays with a bang and secures the top spot of the week with a crazy assist. It was one of his two assists for the game, and it came very early, but that’s gotta be one of the best assists of his career, and he’s come a long way with the playmaking, starting out averaging just 2.1 assists for his career in his rookie season to now having a career average of 4.3 assists per game over a 10-year career so far. This was a part of the back-to-back meltdowns the Raptors had against the New York Knicks and then the Orlando Magic, and funnily enough, the lone win of the week only had one good play highlight-wise in my opinion, and the list was mostly dominated by this game before the fourth quarter.

That’s a wrap for this week’s plays. The schedule will go back to normal after the All-Star break, as the last game before the break comes against Detroit on Wednesday night, so we’ll do one more off-schedule week before getting things back on track, hopefully every Wednesday when the NBA returns post All-Star break.

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