Jonas Valanciunas struggles
The other side of the Ibaka/Valanciunas coin was JV’s struggle. Valanciunas played only 15 minutes and was relatively awful during that time.
Prior to the game, I noted that Al Horford vs. Jonas Valanciunas would be the matchup to watch. Apparently, Nick Nurse did not agree. The two spent less than one minute together on the court, as Nurse attempted to hide JV from Horford defensively.
Consider that a win for Boston. If Toronto isn’t able to play one of their best players for more minutes than Aron Baynes, the Celtics gain a significant talent advantage.
During the brief time that JV and Horford spent on the court together, it wasn’t pretty. Horford immediately blew by Valanciunas for an uncontested dunk and then quickly forced a travel on the ensuing defensive possession. Horford features a skill-set perfectly designed to give Valanciunas trouble.
To be fair, it’s not like JV exactly controlled the game when Horford wasn’t on the court. He finished with more turnovers than field goals and some of his reduction in minutes might be attributed to game-flow, rather than a matchup problem.
But every game is a data-point, and one data-point in, we’re not sure if Valanciunas can play more than 15 minutes against the Raptors biggest competitor.