Boy, oh boy. The Raptors handled work with style points on their road trip to Hotlanta.
Back-to-back games against the Hawks, in enemy territory no less, and would you believe it? The Toronto Raptors have now won five of their last six contests.
First, on January 23, the Raptors would pull through in a tight contest with Atlanta, ultimately defeating them 122-119. Sticking around for another showdown at State Farm Arena on January 25, the Raptors would once again topple Atlanta, except this time in a more decisive 117-94 victory.
For Toronto, they can thank the services of Scottie Barnes, who played amazingly in both matchups. Moreover, the Raptors got a ton of boost from a talented supporting cast, including RJ Barrett, Jakob Poeltl, veterans Bruce Brown, Kelly Olynyk (who missed the January 25 game due to illness), and the still-hot Chris Boucher (23 points off the bench on January 25).
Whenever you face Atlanta, the primary threat at hand is obviously their floor general, point guard Trae Young. Young is a superb passer and capable of scoring at will too, but in both contests against Toronto, the man known as "Ice Trae" lived up to that moniker, but not for good reason.
Trae Young struggled mightily against the Toronto Raptors
Young's box stats vs. Toronto were as follows:
January 23: 18 points on 36% field goal shooting, one rebound, and 13 assists, plus/minus -8.
January 25: 16 points on 41% field goal efficiency, four rebounds, four assists, a whopping 11 turnovers, and a horrid plus/minus of -28.
The numbers don't look strikingly horrible at first glance, but it's safe to say Toronto successfully shut down Atlanta's top weapon. Although they'd find offense from their other talents, if your go-to guy is struggling, it's going to be really hard to churn out a W.
The Raptors got a huge boost from the aptly named Mr. "Off-Night" Davion Mitchell, who proved his defensive prowess to be a great asset, sticking to Young like super glue and making his nights super tough.
For Toronto, it looks like they're finally figuring things out from an identity perspective, and it is resulting in strong victories. The defense is clicking overall, and if the Raptors can somehow fine-tune their three-point shooting deficiencies too, they'll have a ton of promise to build on going into next season. It wasn't even that long ago when Toronto managed to topple the NBA's reigning champs andstar-studded forward duo of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.
This time around, it was Trae Young who found out that, despite their relatively mediocre record, the team up North has some gritty dawgs after all. The promise is there, but perhaps this trend of victories is increasing fans' blood pressures a little bit, as Toronto's odds of Cooper Flagg stand at risk.