TORONTO — “I’m going to go back there and talk my (stuff).”
Davion Mitchell was in the visitor’s dressing room at Scotiabank Arena, but he was in a hurry to get to the Toronto Raptors room and make himself heard, as is his habit.
There were no hard feelings when the Raptors traded Mitchell to the Miami Heat at the deadline just before the all-star break for contract ballast (PJ Tucker) and a second-round draft pick. The fourth-year guard and pending free agent knew from the moment the Raptors acquired him on a draft-night trade last summer that there was at least the possibility that they might move him if the opportunity arose. It became even clearer as rookie point guard Jamal Shead showed he could provide Toronto a lot of the same services while being signed to a team-friendly deal for next season already.
And Mitchell has landed in a great role: Starting for a defensive-minded, veteran team trying to make a playoff push. So nothing to be mad about.
But that doesn’t mean Mitchell didn’t want to rub it in a little when he helped Miami to a 120-111 overtime win over the Raptors in each team’s first start since the all-star break, and their first meeting since the trade.
“I’m going to talk my (stuff) to Darko, to RJ, to Rayhan [Malik, the head athletic trainer],” Mitchell announced. “I’m going back there right now.”
And off he went.
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But Mitchell had done plenty of talking on the floor, specifically with Barrett, a frequent jousting partner when they were teammates.
It looked briefly like Mitchell’s steady dialogue would backfire.
After a slow start — the Raptors trailed 30-19 after the first quarter and 57-48 at half — Toronto made a hard push in the third, led in part by Barrett, who was inspired in part by Mitchell.
“We were talking trash the whole game,” said Barrett, who scored 19 of his game-high 29 points in the second half. “You go to war with someone like that, a guy who plays so hard, plays defence, does the dirty work. You always enjoy playing against a guy like that, but now that he’s gone, you know you’re going to have some good battles.”
Mitchell did his part as he finished with 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting as he made his fourth straight start for Miami.
“It’s always competitive, even in practice when I was here, it was always competitive,” said Mitchell. “No hate to anyone, love those guys, those guys are my brothers. It was just good to compete. It’s fun when you talk trash. I got the best out of (Barrett), he got the best out of me, that’s all you can ask for.”
As a group, the Raptors gave one of their better 48-minute efforts of the season, but, unfortunately, the game went for an extra five minutes, and the Raptors melted in overtime.
Getting there was fun. A Barrett three (he was 4-of-6 from deep for the game) sparked an 11-5 run that pulled Toronto within one before they briefly took the lead with 3:19 to play in the third quarter on a Gradey Dick triple set up by Barrett that rolled around the rim before finally dropping. The fourth quarter was tight throughout and featured Barrett getting buckets against his former Canadian national team teammate, Andrew Wiggins, who was traded from the Golden State Warriors to Miami at the deadline in the Jimmy Butler deal.
A Barrett three with 3:48 left tied the score and a jump hook over Wiggins on the next possession gave Toronto the lead. But Wiggins answered with a drive as part of a back-and-forth finish. It appeared that Barrett might have given the Raptors the lead they needed when he scored on a lay-up with 53 seconds left to put Toronto up three, but Barrett fouled Wiggins on a three-point attempt, and the 10-year veteran made all three free throws to tie the score with 45 seconds left.
Scottie Barnes missed a jumper in the lane on the Raptors’ final possession of regulation before Bam Adebayo missed a short jumper and Wiggins missed a game-winning tip at the end of regulation.
But overtime was a different story. The Heat — who were led by newly-minted all-star Tyler Herro’s 28 points and seven assists — began running their offence through Adebayo, and the Raptors couldn’t answer. Defensively, the Heat were able to switch everything with a roughly same-sized lineup anchored by Adebayo and aided by Wiggins and the Raptors’ offence ground to a halt.
Miami outscored Toronto 13-4 in the extra period as the Raptors shot just 2-of-9 down the stretch while the Heat were 6-of-8 from the field.
“Bam’s a really good defender,” said Barrett. “In those situations, even if we do get him the action, we have to keep going, try something new, try to get someone else involved and keep playing. I think in overtime, they just executed better than we did.”
It didn’t help that the Raptors were playing without Jakob Poeltl (hip), who is so crucial to so much of their ball movement and cutting in the halfcourt with his passing and screen-setting.
The loss was the Raptors’ second straight and sixth in their past seven starts, dropping them to 17-39 for the year. The Heat — in eighth place in the East and trying to push for a top-six spot and guaranteed playoff berth — improve to 26-28 after breaking their four-game losing streak.
The Raptors remain in 13th place in the East. Their next start is Sunday against Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns.
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GRANGE FOR THREE
Scary moment for Scottie Barnes: The Raptors wing has had his share of ankle problems over his four-year career and briefly looked like he was going to have more when he left the game after twisting his right ankle midway through the first quarter. Barnes had missed two games in December with a right ankle sprain and struggled for several games afterward before rounding into form again. He was helped back to the locker room by his teammates but seemed fine when he came back out at the start of the second quarter. He ended up playing a fairly typical 38 minutes and finished with 13 points, six rebounds and three assists, but didn’t seem to have his typical burst.
“He just needed to be re-taped, and he was good to go after that,” said head coach Darko Rajakovic. “From that point, he was not running, and he was not as explosive, but hopefully he’s going to be fine for Sunday.”
Barnes needs to play in 22 of the Raptors’ 26 remaining games to have 65 games and preserve whatever chance he has at earning all-NBA honours. Earning an all-NBA nod could earn him a bigger share of a ‘supermax’ contract extension, which could reach $269 million if all conditions are met.
Opportunity for O-Rob: With Poeltl out — he’s in the return-to-play-conditioning portion of his recovery from a hip pointer that has kept him out of the lineup for six games now — the Raptors’ starting centre was Orlando Robinson. It was the ninth career start for the 24-year-old, who began his NBA career in Miami where he appeared in 67 games over two seasons after going undrafted following three seasons at Fresno State. He finished with nine points, five rebounds and four assists in 31 minutes.
Robinson was waived three times by Miami, waived again by Sacramento earlier this season and needed two 10-day contracts with the Raptors before earning a two-way deal for the rest of the season. His willingness to keep after his NBA dreams has earned him a big fan in Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra.
“That’s his NBA ability, his perseverance and his work ethic,” said Spoelstra. “He will just continue to grind and work. And that’s why we thought he was a great fit with us, and that’s why I always respect guys like that when they’ve been told ‘no’ a bunch of different times and doors have been closed for them, and they find a way to get the door open the crack, and then, you know, bust player development. And he’s all about the work, so I continue to root for him.”
New start for Wiggins: Andrew Wiggins wasn’t surprised he got traded. “You hear the rumours, where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire,” he said. If he had to leave Golden State, where he played for parts of six seasons, there are worse places to land than Miami. But there is still plenty of adjusting to do. Wiggins and his partner Mychal Johnson have just had their third child — their first boy — so with two daughters in school, his family is staying behind in the Bay Area before joining him in Miami.
Wiggins also had to deal with the passing of his father, Mitch Wiggins, in the summer. His mother, former Canadian Olympian Marita Payne, was at the game to watch her son contribute 25 points, eight rebounds and two steals in his third start with the Heat.
Spoelstra is happy to have the Thornhill, Ont., product and put the months-long Butler trade saga behind them: “The biggest thing is we have clarity and understand what direction we’re going in,” the veteran Heat coach said. “With the team we have, we can start a new chapter, and we still have relevance, we’re still fighting for something.”
