TORONTO – Never to worry.
Lose two straight with some tough opponents coming up? Not a problem.
The kid you drafted to be a three-point threat can’t make a three alone in a gym?
Your sparkplug bench unit has suddenly gone soggy? It’s going to be fine.
Your kryptonite is defensive rebounding, and one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the league is in your building?
We’ve got a plan for that.
The trick in the NBA is not to let a passing cloud turn into a monsoon.
Coming off a pair of losses on the road over the weekend, rendering their shiny nine-game winning streak kaput, the air pressure seemed to be dropping around the Toronto Raptors for the first time in a month.
And in the early going against the visiting Portland Trail Blazers, a team with the type of statistical profile that has given the Raptors fits when they have struggled this season, the barometer was heading further down still. Portland jumped out fast and hard and had Toronto on its heels.
The Blazers rebounded their own misses exceptionally well, in part because they could park the biggest human eclipse this side of Zach Edey – 7-foot-2, 300-pounds of Donovan Clingan – in the paint and watch him hoover shots off the rim. He averages nearly five offensive rebounds a game in 25 minutes, and the Blazers are second in the category behind the Houston Rockets.
The Raptors, with no meaningful size at center behind Jakob Poeltl, are firmly middle-of-pack at giving their team second-chance opportunities.
But despite all of the potential issues and the Blazers’ hot start on Tuesday, the Raptors were able to shrug them off, find an answer to any question, or just plough thru anyway. Consequently, they were able to squeeze out a much-needed 121-118 win over Portland, stemming their weekend slump at two, and making them 1-0 in December after going 11-2 in November. It leaves them 15-7 on the season and in second place in the bunched-up Eastern Conference. The Blazers,missing a swath of regulars,fell to 8-13.
“This was a big-time win for us, we really needed it,” said scottie Barnes, who celebrated his Eastern Conference Defensive Player of the Month award for October/November with a blocked shot on Blazers engine Deni Avdija with nine seconds left, on a layup that would have cut the Raptors’ slim four-point lead in half. “We dropped those two back-to-back. Really feel like we should’ve had that first one (in charlotte, but good to) get back in the win column and finish out the game.”
Barnes was the primary catalyst, with the kind of performance that can make a whole institution stay calm in a storm. He finished with 28 points,seven rebounds,seven assists and two blocks.
Raptors Weather Blazers’ Storm, Secure victory
The Toronto Raptors defeated the Portland Trail Blazers 117-106 on Tuesday night, rebounding from a recent two-game skid. Scottie Barnes led the Raptors with 32 points, while RJ Barrett added 22.
Toronto built a pleasant lead in the third quarter, but a series of three-pointers from Portland narrowed the gap, forcing the Raptors to maintain their intensity.
Ultimately, Toronto prevailed, turning a potential losing streak into a single-game concern. The victory provided a much-needed boost after a challenging stretch.
• Getting Sharpe: Shaedon Sharpe arrived in Toronto after a five-hour flight and immediately headed to the gym.This has become a routine for the fourth-year canadian guard on road trips.
“I try and get in the gym (the night) before the game, work on my shot and kind of what I see from another team and just work on the shots I’m shooting during the game,” said Sharpe, who shot 9-of-18 from the floor on Tuesday.
Sharpe’s drives to the rim have been particularly effective. Drafted seventh overall in 2022 with limited traditional basketball experience, he continues to develop his game. He entered the Toronto game averaging a career-high 20.9 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 1.3 steals, despite a decrease in minutes to 27.7 per game on a deeper Trail Blazers team (compared to 31.9 minutes in the previous two seasons). focusing on utilizing his athleticism to attack the basket has led to increased foul calls – he’s drawing 6.7 fouls per 36 minutes, more then double his career average of 3.3/36.
This is a significant advancement for a 78% free-throw shooter.
“I think it’s just me being aggressive,” he said. “Learning more about the game and what teams are trying to force you into. So for me, I’m just trying to be aggressive. And I know when I started doing that, defences start collapsing, and then that’s when I’ll kick out to my teammates. Or get fouled. I’m trying to just be aggressive and force the refs to make a call.”
Sharpe hopes to be included in the Canadian national team’s plans for the upcoming summer.
Keep reading