Immanuel Quickley<\/a> and Gradey Dick both pilfered the ball when it looked like the Nets might take their first lead of the game in the fourth quarter on Sunday.<\/p>\nDespite looking to run in transition, the Raptors are a top-10 team in limiting their own turnovers. They have the highest assist-to-turnover ratio in the league. They also force turnovers at a top-10 rate. They had 10 fewer turnovers than the Nets on Sunday.<\/p>\n
No team scores frequently as they do on the fast break. They are seventh in potential assists per game and sixth in actual assists.<\/p>\n
To paraphrase G.I. Joe, knowing who you are is half the battle. The Raptors have that down.<\/p>\n
Unselfishness and malleability<\/p>\n
This is the type of thing that you know when you see. There is no stress among the Raptors about who is going to take the most shots. Everyone is rowing in sync. When Quickley was going through his shooting struggles to start the year, nobody was criticizing his shot selection.<\/p>\n
These things aren\u2019t always quantifiable, but it\u2019s clear the Raptors are not worried about their individual numbers. Maybe that comes because none of their starters are heading toward free agency. Maybe it\u2019s just the right mix of players at the right times in their careers. The leaders of the team, both on the coaching staff and on the floor, have preached the right things.<\/p>\n
There was concern about how Ingram, Barrett and Scottie Barnes would share the ball coming into the season. Well, they all came into the Nets game with usage percentages between 23 and 26. Barrett usually gets the ball off his own movement or the ball\u2019s. Ingram is the fulcrum in the half court while Barnes makes things happen on the run.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the Raptors are glad to play small by putting Quickley and Shead together in the backcourt and Barnes or Collin-Murray Boyles at centre. We haven\u2019t seen Poeltl share the floor with Mamukelashvili yet, but it wouldn\u2019t be a surprise to see the Raptors try a bigger look sometimes soon.<\/p>\n
Glass half emptyOpponent shooting<\/p>\n
This has been a disagreement between basketball thinkers since analytics entered the larger discussion around the sport: How much can a team impact its opponents\u2019 3-point accuracy?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you remember the Houston Rockets a couple years ago, when they were, like, everything at the rim or 3s, you\u2019d go into the game and tell your guys, \u2018You\u2019ve got to take away those 3s.\u2019 And still they take 50 3s in a game,\u201d Raptors coach Darko Rajakovi\u0107 said. \u201cBut the quality of the shot, if those shots are going to be contested or not, how you\u2019re going to contest those shots, if you\u2019re going to contest them on their side, on their shooting hand, all of those things have a factor or shooting percentage.\u201d<\/p>\n
In general, the people playing and coaching sport would like to think they have an impact on the results. The Raptors\u2019 opponents are shooting 32.3 percent from 3, third-worst in the league. Either the Raptors have been really good at defending 3s or they\u2019re getting very, very lucky. (Or, both.)<\/p>\n
The Raptors came into the game ranked third in 3-point percentage, connecting on 38.5 percent of their attempts. They\u2019re near the bottom in attempts, so they don\u2019t have a massive advantage in makes per game compared to their opponents. Still, if everything evens out, you would expect them to be behind.<\/p>\n
Rebounding<\/p>\n
The Raptors are a below-average team in offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding and, accordingly, total rebounding. It has not been a massive problem on its own, but you can see how this and the above item could combine to turn the Raptors\u2019 defence into a problem.<\/p>\n
If their opponents start to trend higher in 3-point makes and the Raptors continue to give up more than their share of rebounds, suddenly the overall state of the defence would be an issue. Notably, the Raptors came into the Nets game grabbing 47.3 percent of available rebounds when Poeltl was off the floor and just 46 percent when Barnes sat. Those guys, it turns out, are important.<\/p>\n
What lies ahead<\/p>\n
We all know the Western Conference isn\u2019t what we thought it might be heading into the season. However, there is a chance some of the West\u2019s disasters get their acts together between now and when the Raptors play them. Toronto hasn\u2019t played a game in the Mountain or Pacific Time Zones, and won\u2019t until Jan. 18 against the Lakers. As it happens, that game will officially start the Raptors\u2019 second half of the season.<\/p>\n
The Raptors\u2019 schedule hasn\u2019t been cake so far. Ten teams have won less than 40 percent of their games this season, and the Raptors are now 5-1 against them. That is what good teams are supposed to do against the worst teams in the league, and the Raptors shouldn\u2019t be penalized. If the Raptors keep that up and split the rest of the games, they will flirt with 50 wins.<\/p>\n
However, they have played just two games against the teams with the six best records (Detroit, Oklahoma City, Denver, the Lakers, San Antonio and Houston) and lost them both decisively. They will play those teams at least 11 more times, and possibly more if they match up against the Pistons in the NBA Cup. They have defeated the Cavaliers, who visit Toronto on Monday, twice, but Cleveland was without all three of Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen and Darius Garland in one of those games.<\/p>\n
In other words, the Raptors\u2019 toughest games are yet to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Things were going too well. The Toronto Raptors were on their way to a seventh consecutive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85,17602],"class_list":{"0":"post-305630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-toronto-raptors"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}