PHOENIX — Remember when the biggest gripe around the Toronto Raptors was when they would play good teams tough well into the fourth quarter and then stub sneakers down the stretch?
Well, it wasn’t all that long ago, to be fair. Friday night in Denver, as I recall.
But as frustrating as many of those losses were, for the most part the Raptors competed. The Raptors haven’t been blown out very often this season.
They were blown out Sunday night in Phoenix, though. And by the same Suns team that the Raptors beat in Toronto just two weeks ago, which at the time was the Raptors’ first win over a team with a winning record in nearly two months.
Toronto had followed it up with an impressive win over Detroit and a blowout win over tanking Chicago last on Wednesday to start their current five-game road trip.
Those successes seem a long way away after the loss to Denver and especially the way the Suns, missing five rotation players, having lost five straight and playing on the second night of a back-to-back, plastered Toronto from start to finish.
The Raptors were less focused, played with less effort and deserved what they got. To their credit, no one tried to excuse it.
The final score was 120-98 and other than a two-minute stretch in the second quarter where a 12-0 run cut what was then an 18-point lead by the Suns to six, the Raptors were never even in the same neighbourhood as competitive.
It was one of those nights when so many things didn’t go right that the common post-game refrain was to forget about it, the sooner the better.
“Just flush it,” said Scottie Barnes, who was one of the few regulars who looked remotely like himself on his way to 17 points, five rebounds, six assists and two steals in an abbreviated 27 minutes as Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic pulled his starters late in the third quarter, down 30. “They did a great job of coming out with a sense of urgency. I’m sure they really want to get that one (after losing at home to Milwaukee on Saturday night) … and they came out here and played really hard. They had some guys out, but those other guys that came in, they stepped in right up. They helped them out big time.”
The Suns were led by Devin Booker, who had 25 points on 15 shots, and Jalen Green, who had 20 on his 15 shots, but more importantly, Phoenix seemed to get some kind of contribution from everyone who played. The Suns had eight different players hit at least one three and six that hit at least two as they shot 18-of-40 from deep. The Raptors had Ja’Kobe Walter hit three threes on three attempts, and only two other regulars even hit one. They shot 9-of-27 from deep, with three of those makes coming well into garbage time when the game was all but over. Take those away and take away Walter’s threes and the rest of the Raptors lineup was 3-of-21 from distance. That, along with 20 turnovers, will get you blown out almost every night.
The Raptors had everybody available, save for Collin Murray-Boyles, who missed his 11th game with his left thumb problem but was dominant in the Raptors pre-game ‘play group’ workout and is due to return to the lineup any time, perhaps even Monday night against the Utah Jazz.
But it’s not much help having an essentially full roster available and having the benefit of a full off day in sunny Scottsdale Saturday if no one is going to show up for work.
The list of the missing is long, but headed by:
• Jakob Poeltl, who struggled against the Suns’ smaller lineups defensively and didn’t take advantage of any size advantage at the other end. He finished with zero points and zero rebounds in his 17 minutes of floor time, bringing to a crashing halt his run of great play. He did manage a pair of blocked shots.
• Jamal Shead, who was 1-of-6 from the floor and was minus-22 for the game in 21 minutes, which included a three-minute stint in the first quarter when he picked up three fouls, missed two wide-open threes, made a turnover and got whistled for a technical foul for arguing the last of his foul calls. Shead is now shooting 6/25 from three over his last 12 games and 31 per cent from the floor overall. “Just keep being aggressive” was Barnes’ advice. “Our team, we believe in him, he gets downhill and creates so much for us. We know he’s going to be able to do that every single night, he’s going to come play defence now. I think that’s what our focus is on. (If the shots) don’t go in and then, all right, just go back and get it back.”
• Brandon Ingram, who finished with six points on 3-of-10 shooting and committed five turnovers as well. One was an offensive foul, three came when he got stripped on the dribble, which led to Suns fastbreak scores, and another on a poor pass out of a double team that led to another Suns fast break.
Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic wasn’t singling anyone out. He probably didn’t have time.
“It’s a whole team. It cannot be just one player,” he said. “We win as a team; we lose as a team. We never want to point out a player. So I thought that our whole team tonight did not have enough urgency for the game and enough respect for our opponent tonight.”
Fair. And these things do happen. It’s not the first time the Raptors have been blown out this season, but it’s probably their least competitive game since the Pistons dismantled them at home prior to the All-Star break.
After 10 seasons, Ingram wasn’t about to let one terrible game throw him into a trough of despair. And truth be told, the Raptors locker room very much had a, ‘let’s move on’ vibe afterwards. With another game in 24 hours — this time against the lowly Utah Jazz — it’s better to look forward not backwards.
And for now the Raptors remain in a strong position. Their nearest rivals in the Eastern Conference playoff race were all dormant for the night, so the Raptors remain in fifth place with their 39-31 record, but they are now only half game up on sixth-place Atlanta and seventh-place Philadelphia and a full game up on eighth-place Orlando.
“This hasn’t happened in a long time,” said Ingram when I spoke with him post-game. “It’s refreshing, but at this point of the season, all of this is learning needed for us to move forward. I think this is our last pass where we don’t come prepared and don’t have energy. We know that the standings are really, really close. We’d rather be in the playoffs than the play-in.”
If the Raptors need a reminder of how effective they can be when they commit as a full five, they can review the only 95 seconds of the game that they were competitive, the stretch early in the second quarter when they cut the Suns’ lead to six, only to watch it balloon back to 18 by halftime.
That 95-second oasis went like this: Barnes rebounded a missed RJ Barrett free throw and rifled a pass out to Walter for a three. Then Barnes stripped Suns guard Collin Gillespie and took the ball the other way for a solo fastbreak dunk. Walter then drew an offensive foul and on the next possession, was first to a loose ball and made another three, his third of the game on as many tries. Finally, the Raptors got another stop and Immanuel Quickley hit a triple. After being down from the opening tip, the Raptors had cut the Suns’ lead to six with 7:45 left in the second quarter.
And then the Raptors called it a night. It’s hard not to describe it any other way.
The Raptors didn’t show up, even if their schedule said they had a game to play and the paycheques cash no matter what. Was it too much sun? Too much Scottsdale? A day off that left them duller rather than sharper.
It’s one of those games in a season where there is no explaining and, once it starts crumbling, proves impossible to put back together.
“Oh, I wish I knew that answer,” said Rajakovic about his team’s lack of energy or purpose. “I tried everything. I tried encouraging, I tried not encouraging. I tried a lot of things tonight, and we failed. We did not have it tonight.”
You say tomato, we say rebuild: It’s not uncommon for Rajakovic — a man who is deeply committed to the process over results — to ascribe whatever issues the Raptors are having or progress they are making in the moment to his view that the Raptors are “in the second year of a rebuild”. I asked him how he defines ‘rebuild’ give the Raptors starting lineup features two players in their 10th season (Ingram and Poeltl), another in his seventh (Barrett), another in his sixth (Quickley) and Barnes, who is in his fifth. Collectively they are earning $156.4 million. “It’s applying to the moment that we parted ways with guys that were here for a long period of time [trading Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby in the 2023-24 season]. Because building a team is not such a thing that you can do in one year … in the NBA, it takes time to build a team that’s going to be competitive. So rebuild does not mean, ‘oh, everybody’s gonna be 20 years old and starting to shave for the first time in their life and we’re going to wait for 17 years before you’re going to be competitive.’ It’s not that. That’s a team (that) is starting kind of from scratch. For us, it’s not really from scratch because we had a big piece in Scottie Barnes that we have in place.”
A Phoenix Son: There can’t be too many job titles in the NBA better than ‘senior advisor.’ The Phoenix Suns made Canadian NBA legend Steven Nash a senior advisor heading into this season. His qualifications? A two-time MVP, 18 years of NBA experience, a spot in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and two-plus years as an NBA head coach. What Nash does isn’t too tightly defined, but he’s been a regular presence around the Suns’ offices and practice facilities, and rookie Suns head coach Jordan Ott couldn’t be more pleased about it. “I got to know him as a head coach in Brooklyn,” said Ott, who spent two years on Nash’s staff with the Nets in 2020-21 and 2021-22. “When we got off the road trip [where the Suns lost their last four games], one of the first people I saw at the office was Steve, so this is who he is as a human, who I’ve had a chance to meet and grow in our relationship. He’s just rock steady, you’re getting high character and he cares about the Suns, so it’s a perfect opportunity for him to get involved as he wants to be.” Nash was sitting courtside and was introduced to significant applause in the second quarter as a member of the Suns ‘ring of honour.’
Fultz time? The Raptors 905 are playing in Salt Lake Monday morning against Utah’s G-League entry. It was suggested earlier this week that it might be the right time for the Raptors to use their vacant 15th roster spot on a 10-day signee. The Raptors have been carefully monitoring point guard Markelle Fultz, a former No. 1 overall pick and a veteran of eight NBA seasons and 255 games played who is working to get back into game shape with the 905. He played a total of 50 minutes in a pair of back-to-back games in Portland on Friday and Saturday and finished with 27 points on 11/22 shooting and 12 assists against four turnovers.
