After blowing an 18-point lead, the Toronto Raptors managed to hang on for a buzzer-beater win against the Orlando Magic. Here are my three big takeaways.
It wasn’t pretty, but the Toronto Raptors managed to escape with a victory on Tuesday night. After dominating the first quarter-and-a-half, Toronto went up 18. For a minute, the game appeared as if it might get out of hand.
The Orlando Magic didn’t allow that to happen. The Magic, aided by a dismal Toronto shooting performance, fought back. They grabbed the lead midway through the third quarter, and the entire fourth was a battle.
With less than 10-seconds remaining, Orlando was down two. Evan Fournier blew by Danny Green for a dunk. Just like that, the game was tied.
Then with two seconds remaining on the inbound clock, Nick Nurse drew up a nice play design and freed Danny Green for a turnaround seven-footer. Cash. Ball-Game.
The Raptors snuck-out a victory in a game they likely want to forget. What did we learn from the performance? Here are my three big takeaways:
1. Raptors win despite a cold-shooting performance
When in the zone, shooters say the basket feels “as big as the ocean”. Last night, the basket had to feel like the size of a golf-cup.
Nothing was falling for the Raptors or the Magic as the teams combined to shoot 17-64 from beyond the arc. For Toronto, no-one shot above 40-percent, and five players went 0-for-something.
The game resembled more of an early 2000’s slug-fest than a game played in the modern NBA.
Still, it was nice to see the Raptors earn a victory even when the offense wasn’t humming.
2. What’s up with Wright?
Does Delon Wright owe Nick Nurse money? Did Nurse and Delon recently get into a heated political exchange? Does Delon Wright prefer Friends over Seinfeld!? Other than that, I cannot think of one reasonable explanation why a healthy Delon Wright would receive fewer minutes than Lorenzo Brown.
Wright has been receiving far too few minutes this entire season. Last night was an extreme example of this underlying issue. Wright played only 13-minutes while Brown managed to long 19. That’s unacceptable.
Wright hasn’t been great in limited time this season, but he hasn’t been bad enough to warrant this type of drastic action.
I’m not sure what’s going on with Delon Wright.
3. The final play
What an outside-the-box idea by Nick Nurse to rely on Danny Green, rather than Kawhi Leonard for the final play of the game! Nurse knew the defense would key on Kawhi and instead drew up an unconventional look for a role player.
Well, I’ll let you in on a fun-little-secret. The final play was designed to free-up Kawhi Leonard.
That is a common NBA-action known as “pick the picker”. The Danny Green curl serves as a decoy while the real action is Serge Ibaka setting a pick to free-up Kawhi Leonard.
Orlando knows this, and as a result, Aaron Gordon tries to cheat by staying glued on Leonard. Kyle Lowry reads the play perfectly and it’s an open jumper for Danny Green.
Give credit to Nurse for designing a play with multiple options, but also give credit to Lowry for having the awareness to look beyond the typical read.
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