Nick Nurse’s wish for his team is a simple one — that the Toronto Raptors just a get little better, regularly.
Where it all ends up, no one knows, but that’s been the mantra as his club has weathered a season-long bout of injuries that have consistently made for an inconsistent lineup and made long-range planning a waste of time.
The latest? Just as centre Precious Achiuwa was finding bit of a groove, he was a late scratch against the Oklahoma City Thunder Wednesday night due to a recurrence of the shoulder tendinitis that cost him three games last month. OG Anunoby (hip) and Khem Birch (knee) have been out, roughly coinciding with Pascal Siakam’s return after missing the first 10 games of the year recovering from off-season shoulder surgery.
“It seems like there’s a growth period, we kind of get things figured out, we get jostled by some injuries, we go through some discomfort, iron it out again,” said Nurse the other day. “If we do get everybody back, there will be another ironing-out process and period. Then hopefully the team can be all right. I don’t think we’re amazing by any stretch of the imagination. But we’re looking more solid. That’s what we’re trying to do. If you get to solid and you get all your people back, you’re gonna [give teams]trouble every time you step on the floor.”
Maybe one day.
But there were competing interests at work Wednesday night at Scotiabank Arena. It was the first visit to Canada for the Oklahoma City Thunder and their impressive Canadian backcourt made up of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from nearby Hamilton and Montreal’s Lu Dort since the 2019-20 season, and they were determined to make an impression on friends, family, and countrymen.
Canadians styling: pic.twitter.com/JuySc4wSWR
— Michael Grange (@michaelgrange) December 9, 2021
And did they ever. The two Canadians were outstanding in a rollicking game that that it looked like they were going to run away with midway through the fourth quarter when they had staked the Thunder to a 14-point lead with 6:13 to play.
Things got a little crazy at that point, with the sold-out crowd of 19,800 enjoying every bit of it — well at least until the end.
Raptors guard Fred VanVleet served notice that while it might a homecoming for two Canadians on the Thunder, Scotiabank Arena is his house. He scored 14 of his 19 points to help Toronto to the unlikely comeback. It looked like he’d locked it down when he tied the game with a 30-foot three with a minute to play and gave the Raptors a lead when he made a pair of three throws with 40.7 seconds to play.
But Gilgeous-Alexander responded with a pair of freebies of his own to tie the score. A gorgeous finish by little-used rookie Justin Champagnie put the Raptors up once more.
But things were just getting started. Gilgeous-Alexander drove the paint again and fired out to a wide-open Mike Muscala — the Thunder’s best three-point shooter — and he knocked it down to put the visitors up one with 9.4 to play.
VanVleet tried one more bit of magic, but his left floater appeared to be blocked and did not hit the rim.
Yet there was even more drama as it appeared that Champagnie was able to tip in the game-winner off VanVleet’s miss as the horn sounded. However, after a full celebration, the officials’ review determined the ball was still on his fingertips when time expired.
After all that, the Raptors lost 110-109 and saw their modest two-game home winning streak halted as they fell to 11-14.
The Thunder have won two in a row and improved to 8-16.
The Canadians?
They had their signatures all over it as Gilgeous-Alexander finished with a game-high 26 points and nine assists. Dort chipped in 22 points and was a menace defensively all game long.
Siakam had 23 points and 11 rebounds as the Raptors shot 45 per cent from the floor.
The Raptors may be short-handed but it’s not clear they would have had an answer for Gilgeous-Alexander anyway as the rangy point guard with one of the best change-of-pace dribbles in the league was able to split their defence at the point of attack all night. He would score, draw fouls (he went 12-of-12 from the line) or kick out passes to open shooters.
“I’m really trying to concentrate on what we’re doing and see if we can keep [progressing], feel like we’re inching forward and I wanna just keep inching,” said Nurse before the game. “…If we’re solid and keep improving and play defence and play together and all that kind of stuff, then any night we go out there, we’re going to give ourselves a decent chance.”
The Raptors did good job of just that in the first half, but like lost ground in the second.
It helped to be playing the Thunder, who are in the midst of a multi-season plan to be not very good. The Thunder arrived with the youngest roster in the league, on which Dort and Gilgeous-Alexander qualify as veterans even though the two Canadians are in their third and fourth seasons, respectively.
Oklahoma City has some really exciting players — the two Canadians most prominent among them — and hold an astounding 18 future first-round picks and 16 second-round picks over the next seven seasons, but for the moment are most likely heading to the draft lottery again, and by design.
To their credit, the Raptors took them seriously and didn’t let them off the hook.
They announced their attentions when Chris Boucher — making his first start of the season and the 15th of his career — caught an alley-oop and finished on his first touch the game.
The Thunder’s knock has been their offence rather than their defence early this season – a little unusual for a young team. They came into the contest 29th in field goal percentage and 29th in three-point percentage. Defensively they were top-five in the NBA for the month of November after a shaky start.
For much of the first half Wednesday, both teams seemed content to compete in a track meet. The Thunder were led by Dort, who has come miles from the defensive specialist that he advertised himself as when breaking into the league as an undrafted free agent.
He showed why he’s averaging a career-best 17.3 points a game as he worked his way open for nine first-quarter points, relying on a combination of a well-constructed three-point stroke and the ability to manoeuvre his broad frame into the lane for floaters and finishes at the rim. Not bad for a guy who NBA front offices didn’t believe would be able to score enough to stay on the floor when he left Arizona State after one season.
“He’s got a great work ethic, he’s got a consistent work ethic — not only in-season but in the off-season where he really gets after it and looks at this as it’s a craft,” said Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault. “… Lu has certainly ascended and improved in a lot of ways since he’s gotten here in our program, but at this point none of that is surprising us as he continues to climb step by step. And the reason for that is because he earns it.”
Similarly, Gilgeous-Alexander had no problem using his shifty dribble to get anywhere he wanted, but his trademark crafty finishes weren’t there early.
Meanwhile, the Raptors were able to get almost anything they wanted early. Even with Dort doing his best to limit VanVleet, the Raptors got to their spots comfortably. The Raptors shot 68 per cent in the first quarter and led 36-26, as Siakam had nine points on four shots.
In the second quarter it was Gary Trent Jr. who was able find one soft gap after another as he went off for 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting. He finished with 19 at the half and Siakam had 16, which was enough to stake Toronto to a 64-54 lead heading into the third quarter, bolstered by 59.5 shooting.
But the Thunder tightened up defensively in the third quarter and the Raptors defence began to wilt against the dizzying array of dribble-drive moves that Gilgeous-Alexander has tucked in his jersey that he can pull out in any situation, against any defence. Add in his six-foot-six frame and nearly seven-foot wingspan and it’s a handful.
He gave the Raptors 16 points in the third, in part because the Raptors kept putting him on the line where he was 8-of-8. Meanwhile, the Thunder put the clamps on — Dort helped hold VanVleet to 0-of-6 from the floor in the period — and Toronto shot just 5-of-27 from the floor. By the time it was done, Oklahoma City had turned a 10-point deficit at the half into an 87-76 lead to start the fourth quarter.
Things got pretty wild at that point and the Raptors kept working hard, but whether it was because they were short-handed or not, they didn’t have an answer for the two Canadians from Oklahoma.
