Raptors flex their muscles on Jazz in blowout victory
As the NBA season winds down, the teams without playoff hopes begin to shift to tank mode. Star players are sidelined, regular rotation players are sidelined, all in an effort to make sure they lose the game and improve their lottery odds. This practice has been in use in the NBA for as long as I can remember, and the Utah Jazz are no different. Their injury report was as long as a CVS receipt, with a whopping 7 players sidelined with various injuries.
These players include Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr, and Keyonte George, their three best players. Safe to say, Utah had no intention of winning this game, and Raptors up and down the roster took advantage of this lack in competition to have successful nights.
Brandon Ingram, Jakob Poeltl, and Immanuel Quickley were sidelined last night, but against an opponent like the Jazz, their services were not needed. Multiple Raptors set or matched career highs last night, which should shed some light on the level of talent in this game. Ja’Kobe Walter matched his career high in made threes with 6, Jamal Shead set a new career high in assists with 14, and Sandro Mamukelshvilli had a new career high in steals with 5. The Toronto Raptors as a whole set a franchise record with 49 assists in total.
On a night like this where the bench players got a chance to be moved up the totem pole temporarily, various depth players took that chance and ran with it. Walter has been separating himself from the rest of Toronto’s bench players with his recent play, and last night was an extension of this run of good showings from the Raptors sophomore. He finished with 21 points while shooting 70 percent from the field. Offensively, Walter showed how much of a threat he is off-ball as he relocated around the three-point line, drifting into open space at the right time and knocking down jumpers.
Walter is shooting an excellent 39.3 percent from behind the arc and last night was the embodiment of his shooting talent. It wasn’t just open triples like he gets from time to time, he was hitting triples with contests, and he even had one fall after a foul. Walter has made himself a firm fixture in the rotation, and his shooting talent as well as his ferocious defense are going to keep things that way for the foreseeable future.
Markelle Fultz made his main roster debut last night, and he looked pretty pedestrian. Albeit he hasn’t played in an NBA game since April 16th of last year so he clearly needs to get some more reps under his belt before he can be critiqued too harshly. His only points came as he cut to the paint while Scottie Barnes was in the post. He hit a quick hop step and then flipped in a layup high off the glass. He got some extended run during garbage time, and the rest of his shot attempts were short mid-range looks or paint looks, but they would all careen off the rim, mere inches from falling in.
Shead’s scoring struggles continued last night, but he was able to mask things with his playmaking efforts. His heads up passing in transition led to plenty of easy buckets for Toronto, the ball would be flying over Jazz defenders heads before they even knew what was happening. Shead’s reads were quick and intentional, whether he passed it from the top of the key as part of a set play, or whether he drove the ball and found a shooter to kick it out to. We’ve seen Shead have big assist nights like this before, but it would have been nice if he had been able to get his own scoring woes in check as well.
To Utah’s credit, they competed for longer than anyone would have expected. They were only down 68-58 at halftime, which given the massive gap in talent between the two sides was not as bad as it could have or should have been. The third quarter is where this game was blown wide open and Toronto never looked back. Toronto outscored Utah 49-30 as Utah had no answer for the scoring explosion from RJ Barrett. Barrett scored 18 of his 27 points in the third period, and he knocked down triple after triple, which came as a result of Utah defenders helping off of him too far.
Jamison Battle had one of his better games in recent months, recording 17 points with 4 made threes. He did what he usually does, spot up for threes, and wait for Toronto’s creators to find him behind the arc, and hit the occasional layup after cutting to the basket. Good on him for not letting his minutes tonight go to waste.
Barnes also had a dominant game, which is to be expected. His mid-range touch looked phenomenal, his playmaking was crisp, hitting cutters while at a standstill for easy rim looks. Utah would try to have the low man stop Barnes from rolling to the rim, or try to have his matchup keep him from getting deep paint positioning, but it was all ineffective. Barnes was too strong and forceful for Utah to contain, and he just had his way whenever he decided.
All in all this game was nothing special for Toronto, they handled their business against a team much worse than them, which is something that they should easily be able to do. It’s still good to add a win to the win column nonetheless, and with the eastern conference being as tight as it is, every win counts.
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