Scottie Barnes leads a 21-point comeback to trounce the Orlando Magic
After a four-day break, the Toronto Raptors were back in town to host the young and hungry Orlando Magic. At first it seemed like the break might be a detriment, but by the time the dust settled, the Raptors were the team left standing.
The Orlando Magic showed dominance in the first quarter, but the Raptors eventually won, coming back from a game-high deficit of 21. The scoring from Orlando came mainly from their starters, and all were on fire early. Orlando made all five of their first triples. More specifically, Paolo Banchero dropped 26 points and 12 rebounds while shooting 10/19 from the field. That was met with Toronto’s scoring barrage that was initiated by the bench and then built upon by the starters.
Scottie Barnes a double-double with 17 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists along with two steals and a block. He was quiet on the night but steady. His defence was consistently terrific, and he was a great leader, helping to build on the bench’s ability to fight back into the game in the second quarter. At one point he picked Banchero clean in the open court to take it the other way for a dunk. RJ Barrett led the team with an efficient 19 points, shooting 6-of-9 from the field. He continually got downhill. Including Barnes and Barrett, six Raptors had two 3-pointers each and shot 50 percent or better as the entire squad shot 13-of-25 from beyond the arc. The other four were Jamal Shead, Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown and Gradey Dick. The sophomore Dick had his best game efficiency-wise since Jan. 1. He was yamming on people and finished with 17 points on nine shots.
In basketball, it sometimes can take a one or two-minute run to completely change the course of a game. When things weren’t looking good for the Raps, Bruce Brown came out of the timeout on fire and initiated the turning point of the entire game.
In the first four minutes of the opening quarter, the Magic went on a 15-3 run. The Raptors’ defence wasn’t clicking consistently and rotations weren’t being made which is where the Magic took advantage. Most of their buckets came from All-Star Banchero, veteran Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and sophomore Anthony Black. Their entire team was barely missing and started off hot beating Toronto 37-24 in the first. But just when the Raptors looked dead, vet Bruce Brown came off the bench and sparked some fight into the team, scoring 10 points in seven minutes, giving them some momentum going into the second. The team clearly had life after his scoring, with energy flowing into their performance after a ho-hum first quarter.
That momentum continued, as the Magic missed 11 consecutive shots, and the Raps crept their way back to a two-point deficit. They were getting in the lanes and moving the ball for open looks. However, they were struggling with getting boards. It was hard for Toronto to keep its juice when it couldn’t finish defensive possessions. Especially when running a smaller lineup against a team that mostly has taller guys. The comeback was halted, and they would go back and forth ending the half at 50-45 for the Magic.
The Raptors continued to have their way in the third. Orlando tried adjusting by playing a 2-3 zone defence, but that got dissected easily as Toronto got into the middle of the zone and found corner shooters. Toronto took its first lead of the game at the same time as Dick began to heat up. Against the zone, the Raptors were extremely unselfish and decisive and hit their shots at a high clip. The Magic were starting to display their frustration with every basket and foul call to the point where Banchero got a tech. Understandably so, as the Raps scored 40 points that quarter ending the third at 85-70.
The game’s trend continued in the same direction with the Raptors maintaining the lead and keeping the Magic at a double-digit distance until eventually closing it out.
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