Raptors have areas to build off from narrow win over Bulls
Even though the Toronto Raptors bullied the Chicago Bulls into a bevy of giveaways and ran a handful of smooth plays, Thursday’s game was far closer than it should have been.
Fresh off their first All-Star Game with two representatives since 2019-20, the Raptors saw both glimpses of promise and red flags as they barely held on for a 110-101 win over the floundering Bulls at the United Center.
Brandon Ingram scored 31 and had one his more prolific driving games of the season, but also hoisted 26 shots. Keep those chains moving. He added eight boards, six assists and a couple steals for good measure. Scottie Barnes had his usual helping of stat-sheet stuffing – 14 points, nine rebounds, five assists and four stocks.
The Raptors mugged the Bulls out of the gate. Badgered and accosted them. Took their lunch money. Three steals and five forced turnovers in the first five minutes. Chicago had nine turnovers by the end of the quarter, the most Toronto’s forced in a frame this season. In typical fashion, the Raptors also finished the first without a made 3.
Ingram was aggressive. He ran out in transition, then drove the rim and got a putback to go with a third effort. Fresh off his second All-Star appearance, he launched himself at the rim for a third consecutive possession, this time off a Chicago action (an off-ball screen into a handoff), but was stuffed at the summit by Jalen Smith.
On defence, it was Scottie Barnes imposing his will, of course, punching the ball out of Matas Buzelis’s hands and flushing it running out the other way. It’s a mixture of this pressure and the Raptors’ “first touch” philosophy – they constantly look for hit-ahead passes – that fuels Toronto’s third-ranked transition frequency. They score a higher frequency of their points via the fastbreak than any other team.
Barrett dunked a hit-ahead from Ingram then lobbed Collin Murray-Boyles out of 77 shallow to cap a 10-2 opening run.
The easy transition points are certainly needed when the halfcourt offence lumbers the way it did Thursday. They finished with 75.6 points per 100 plays against Chicago’s set defence, a fourth percentile mark.
Despite the abysmal result overall, there were bright spots. The Raptors ran Ingram off an oft-used action, a flare screen into a stagger, and he splashed a signature fading middy. Then the next trip they tried the same and Isaac Okoro fouled Ingram trying to top lock him off the screen.
The Bulls climbed back as the seas parted to the Raptors’ rim. Jakob Poeltl plodded in his first game off the bench since Dec. 12, 2024. Collin Sexton stole an ill-advised pass by Jamal Shead for transition points, then splashed a 3. Reset, refocus. Back to badgering. Shead hounded Sexton in the backcourt to the tune of an eight-second violation. Barnes and Immanuel Quickley jumped Rob Dillingham for another takeaway.
To my eye the Raptors were running clean actions more often (at least for a time at the end of the first quarter and beginning of the second, before it got much worse). They hit handoffs with pace, cut hard, and were more intentional. Good process. And the kind of play you want to see coming out of the All-Star break. Barrett ran “Gut Chicago” and slung a bullet skip-pass for a BI corner 3.
The core tenets of Darko Rajaković’s system – rapid and relentless defence and rapid and egalitarian offence – were present for this stretch. The ball zipped as Quickley touched the paint and dumped to CMB, who pinged to Ingram who swung to Barrett. Ingram caught off an Iverson cut and dished to a cutting Ja’Kobe Walter for a dunk.
The guards seized control of the game to start the second half as Anfernee Simons kept hitting from 3 and Quickley poured in points on the other end from the line – he’s continued to draw far more fouls in the lane with his pump fake lately. The backcourt supporting cast got in on the action too. Tre Jones and Sexton scored the basketball. Walter finished a baseline reverse after missing a corner 3 and banged his next attempt from above the break. The sophomore finished with a team-high three steals and went 2-of-5 from deep, filling his role nicely.
“He’s probably the best shooter on the team besides Jamison Battle,” Ingram said of Walter to Sportsnet’s Blake Murphy after the game.
Ingram eventually big dogged everyone though and stepped to the rim for an and-1 finger roll. He streaked downhill for another finish shortly after. To be fair, the Bulls’ defence wasn’t doing much to deter.
Even though Ingram’s aggression here is a welcome sight, the Raptors blew a third-quarter-ending possession as Ingram drove into a crowd and Sexton ran out for a finish at the other end to beat the buzzer. The aggression still must be selective.
As the game rattled towards it’s seemingly inevitable conclusion, the Bulls gave the Raptors a solid scare, with Simons, Jones and Smith leading a 7-0 run to pull within two. Toronto held serve though, as Ingram first found Murray-Boyles mismatched on Simons under the rim for an and-1, then ran a pick-n-roll with CMB and splashed a step-back middy to seal the game.
It wasn’t the strong showing the Raptors wanted to start the final stretch against the what-is-this-team Bulls. But the pieces are there for better offensive process. They have been all season. Quickley went 0-for-4 from deep in this game. Run him more actions like this effective Flex Pin play they’ve been mixing in lately (first noticed it against the Pistons before the break) and maybe he gets up a couple more open attempts. Maybe he even hits some.
The Raptors need Quickley to empty the clip if they’re going to be at their best. They’ll also need a better mix of offence that puts players in advantageous positions. And it doesn’t have to be complex. They ran delay and got Mamu a mismatch off a back screen at one point. Simple stuff. But it needs to be that rather than expecting them to create for themselves, because outside of Ingram, it just isn’t there.
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