As rebuild heads to rearview, Raptors round into form with win over Pacers

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Do you remember when the Toronto Raptors beat the Miami Heat on February 1, 2022? 

Pretty good game. The Raptors were down early, stormed into the lead with a huge third quarter and held on to win their third straight in what ended up being an eight-game winning streak. Oddly, three of those wins came against Miami, including one that went into triple overtime and another that just needed one OT period. 

Anyway. 

Pascal Siakam had 16 points and 14 rebounds that night for the Raptors. Scottie Barnes, in the midst of an impressive rookie season at the time, had 11 points, nine rebounds and two assists. Barnes is the only Raptor on the current roster who played in that game. Siakam is in his third season with the Indiana Pacers. The rest of those Raptors have scattered to the four corners of the NBA and beyond. 

That night is relevant four seasons later because it marked the last time a Raptors win pulled them to the modest heights of three games above .500. 

The Raptors ended that season at 48-34, which was notable given they’d been in the draft lottery the year before and started Barnes’s rookie year 14-17. But their February surge above .500 was a real thing, helping carry Toronto all the way to the post-season, where they lost in the first round in six games to the Philadelphia 76ers. 

 Things have been dry in that department ever since. 

“It’s been a long time, man,” Scottie Barnes told me Saturday morning when I passed on how long it had been since the Raptors were even two games over .500 (Nov. 9^th, 2022). 

Does it feel that way? 

“For sure,” he said. “I know we’ve probably been struggling here in Toronto, but I’m happy and we’re super blessed to be in this position. But we can’t take nothing for granted. It’s still a grind; we got to still stay hungry. Just because we’re over .500, that don’t mean nothing.”

But it’s something, given how many different twists and turns the franchise has taken to even return to this not-so-exalted level. 

Toronto continued its steady climb to respectability with a 129-111 win over the Pacers, who have been going through a season from hell since losing in Game 7 of the NBA Finals last June. A cavalcade of injuries has seen them start the season 1-12, a franchise-worst mark to start a season. 

There was hope that Canadian Benedict Mathurin would make his return after missing 11 games with a toe injury, but he was held out and is expected to play when Indiana plays Detroit on Monday night. 

This time a year ago, the Raptors were 2-11 and on their way to starting the season 8-31. They’ve been digging their way out from those depths and the three years without a playoff berth.

But things are looking up for Toronto. 

Saturday’s win was Toronto’s third straight, improved their record on their five-game road trip to 4-1 and was their seventh win in their last eight games overall. They had seven players in double figures scoring, shot 55.2 per cent from the floor and recorded 29 assists and 13 steals.

Their 8-5 record moved them into a tie with the Atlanta Hawks, and if the season ended Sunday morning, the Raptors would have the fourth seed and be hosting the Hawks in the first round of the playoffs, given Toronto is up 2-0 in the season series. 

Sure, the regular reason doesn’t end until April 12^th, but the Raptors’ determination to beat the teams they should — the limping Pacers, short three starters and their sixth man and coming off a miserable four-game western road trip would be one of those — and take advantage of any other team off their game should set them up for success. Three of the Raptors’ next four games come against Charlotte (at home Monday), Washington and Brooklyn (both at home), which have a collective record of 6-30. 

Their effort against the Pacers was professional, if a few notches below inspired. 

After falling behind 22-10 — the Raptors’ starters have yet to find a fail-safe level of chemistry, which would be an area of concern among the geyser of positive vibes — Toronto finished the first quarter on 20-7 thanks to the usual suspects: Jamal Shead and Sandro Mamukelashvili coming off the bench to give Darko Rajkovic’s club a spark. The Raptors’ back-up point guard and back-up centre (respectively) each had a steal that they took the other way for a score, and Mamukelashvili continued his hot shooting from deep with a triple that pulled the Raptors to within two before Shead hit a three that gave the Raptors a 34-30 lead to start the second quarter that they never relinquished.

Shead finished with seven points, four assists and two steals while Mamukelashvili notched 12 points, four rebounds and three assists. It wasn’t just those two, however. The entire bench finished on the positive side of the plus-minus ledger, with rookie Collin Murray-Boyles adding 10 points and Gradey Dick eight. 

“I’m speaking a lot about our second unit. And our second unit outside of Sandro, everybody’s in first, second or third year, everybody’s so young,” said Rajakovic. “And those guys have amazing talent, and they’re jelling really well as a group. They are improving, and they’re also very, very ambitious. They’re hard workers. They are coming to every game ready to compete … It is a luxury, definitely, to have this group of guys on a team.”

But it was the starters who helped push the game over the top as they came out in the third quarter and helped the Raptors push the tiring Pacers aside, winning the period 39-32 as they built a 16-point lead to start the fourth quarter that Indiana couldn’t overcome. 

Helping lead the way was Jakob Poeltl, who finished with 22 points (tied with RJ Barrett for the team high) and nine rebounds, converting 8-of-9 field goal attempts. Missing eight of his 14 free throws held him back from a more dramatic box score line. It was the first time Poeltl had contributed back-to-back games of 20 points or more this season, as he puts the lingering effects of some early-season back stiffness behind him. It’s the first pair of 20-point or more games since he scored 90 points in a stretch of three games this time a year ago. 

But Poeltl is most encouraged with how the Raptors are figuring out different ways to win games after several years of demonstrating different ways to lose them.

“Obviously, there’s still things we want to improve on. We’re by no means perfect, but what I give ourselves a lot of credit for is the way we’re figuring out games,” said the 10-year veteran who was on the San Antonio Spurs the last time the Raptors were a playoff team. “Like we might not have the best start to games, we might make some mistakes early on, but we’ve always figured out, at least over these last [eight]games, we’ve figured out a way to respond to whatever the other team is throwing at us and really dialling into the weaknesses that we can exploit in the other team, and figuring out what they’re trying to do and taking that away as best as possible. 

“So yeah, I like the way we’re reacting to other teams’ game plans. It’s been really good.” 

Multiple milestones: Barnes wasn’t at the level he played at Thursday night in Cleveland when he helped the Raptors upset the Cavaliers with 28 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists and five blocks. He was hard to find in the first half (save for a spectacular block of Siakam, sending the former Raptors’ lay-up back to the three-point line by slapping it off the backboard) before helping spark Toronto in the second half.

Still, Barnes finished with 14 points, 11 rebounds and six assists and recorded a number of milestones none-the-less: it marked his ninth straight game recording at least one block and one steal, tying Vince Carter’s franchise record; he scored his 5,000^th point, joining him with Chris Bosh, DeMar DeRozan and Vince Carter as the only Raptors hit that mark by age 24 and he’s the only Raptor to have recorded at least 5,000 points, 2,000 rebounds and 1,000 assists by age 24. 

But not like this: Stick around the NBA as long as Rick Carlisle has and you’re going to see some things. The Indiana Pacers head coach is in his 24^th season in the top job, with stops in Detroit, Indiana and Dallas before his most recent stint with the Pacers. He logged 10 years as an NBA assistant before that and played five years in the league as well, beginning in 1984-85 with the Boston Celtics. So he wasn’t prepared to say that what his team is going through now — dual avalanches of injuries and losses —  just months removed from taking Indiana on a surprising run to Game 7 of the NBA Finals (during which superstar guard Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles tendon) is unlike anything he’s ever experienced, but ‘it’s not great Bob’, he’ll acknowledge.

“Not in the mood to talk about it,” he said when I asked him about any experiences he had comparable to this one. “[But] these things happen, and when they happen, it’s a reminder how humbling this game can be, how humbling this league can be, how important health is. But we also just got to play better.”

To the W?: Can confirm the reports that Raptors assistant coach Jama Mahlalela is on the short list of candidates for the vacant head coaching position with the WNBA’s New York Liberty, the team last coached by Sandy Brondello, who was recently hired by the Toronto Tempo.

The process has been ongoing “a while,” per sources. The final stage was this past weekend, when the 46-year-old former Oakwood Collegiate and University of British Columbia star met with the team while the Raptors were in New York this past weekend at the outset of their 10-day road trip.

Mahlalela is a well-regarded assistant who won an NBA championship while on Steve Kerr’s staff in Golden State. Previously, Mahlalela was head coach for Raptors 905 and was an assistant with Dwane Casey and Nick Nurse in Toronto before returning from Golden State to join Darko Rajakovic’s staff in Toronto for the 2023-24 season.

The interviewing process is complete, per sources. The other candidates are Kristi Tolliver, who won two WNBA championships in her 14-year WNBA playing career and has been an assistant coach in the NBA with Washington and Dallas and in the WNBA with Phoenix; and Will Weaver, a coaching consultant with Charlotte who was previously an assistant coach with the Nets, per the New York Post.

Mahlalela getting the Liberty job could create a conflict not only with the Raptors, presuming he has to leave his position in Toronto mid-season, but also with the Canadian men’s national team, as Mahlalela was recently confirmed as an assistant to Gord Herbert through the 2028 Olympics. 

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