Barnes and Raptors follow the script in textbook loss before trade deadline

For three quarters, the Toronto Raptors were playing fast and loose. They seemed to overcome their inherent weaknesses, driving all the way into the rim, splashing triples, and cruising down the freeway with the top down and the sunglasses up. The Minnesota Timberwolves subsisted on a diet of tough jumpers over the top. Toronto built a lead, slowly but surely, brick by brick. Until the house came tumbling down.

Darko Rajakovic got creative early. He strayed from his usual lineups and found his way to a group that saw Collin Murray-Boyles as the lone starter with four bench players to end the first quarter. And the group survived. Sandro Mamukelashvili scored as a roller, Murray-Boyles in transition, and the Raptors scrounged their way to a lead. It wasn’t entirely necessary, but it allowed the Raptors to try to throw some haymakers to start the second. 

On the other side of the break, the Raptors ran a strong offensive lineup to run up the score on an Edwards-less Wolves group. Immanuel Quickley opened with a quick-trigger triple from the corner on an inbounds play. Gradey Dick drove for a layup and later threw in a two-handed putback dunk. Scottie Barnes drove for a two-hand dunk and hit a mid-ranger. 

Rajakovic’s gamble gave the Raptors a healthy lead, only limited by some outrageous hot shooting from one Bones Hyland. While Hyland cashed some jumpers, the Raptors in general limited the Wolves to a tough diet of jumpers. Murray-Boyles found his way into the game with stout paint defence. Jamal Shead did an excellent job guarding Edwards as Toronto’s primary defender. Edwards tried to take him into the post repeatedly, but Shead’s strength and low center of gravity repeatedly forced Edwards into fadeaway jumpers or kickouts. Everything for Minnesota went away from the rim, with very little traveling north-south. 

Meanwhile, Barnes was able to slide into a very productive role as offensive coordinator. He didn’t initiate too much and instead connected the dots, catching the ball in the middle of the floor, slinging it to shooters or to Murray-Boyles under the rim. He gathered six assists in the first half, shot 4-of-5 from the floor, and won his minutes by 16 points. Understated dominance. 

It helps, of course, when everyone hits triples. This is the vision — for a team that survives when it misses triples, hitting them is an easy way to bring a tank to a knife fight. A Quickley buzzer beater to end the half pushed Toronto’s 3-point accuracy to a clean 50 percent (8-for-16), good for 72 points, Toronto’s third-highest-scoring first half of the season. 

The Raptors tried to run it down Minnesota’s throats to start the third quarter, to end the game right then and there. Barnes pushed with the ball after makes, even trying a lob to Murray-Boyles approximately three seconds after a Minnesota bucket. Sometimes it worked, with Ingram finding a layup in a 3-on-5. Sometimes it didn’t, with the Raptors overshooting Barnes, open running down the floor, by a few feet, leading to a turnover. When the Wolves started to make a run, with Toronto’s transition game getting sloppy, and Edwards finding his way to some points, it was a pair of Quickley triples and an Ingram isolation that settled the ship. Shot-making triumphs. 

Toronto’s defence settled into its habits. Rajakovic continued to play Barnes and Ingram together to end the third, rather than staggering them as is customary. Ingram even played the entire third quarter. Though Minnesota made its shots, and man, did the Timberwolves drill some tough triples, the quality of its looks was putrid. Naz Reid couldn’t turn the corner on drives and had to settle for through-the-legs stepbacks. Which he made! But Toronto’s defence was a singular animal, every player an appendage of the snarling whole. 

Rajakovic squeezed some time out of further lineups without Ingram and Barnes in the fourth, and this time things got hairy. The Wolves closed the gap to one possession as the Raptors were kept out of transition and had some trouble scoring, while Minnesota continued hitting its triples. (Heard that one recently? It has become something of a trend in recent fourth quarters.) Toronto’s best-laid plans all crumbled in the matter of a few minutes.

But Ingram and Barnes entered with seven minutes left to close the game. Spotted a lead, winning the game for nearly every second of the game, the Raptors had to sustain and finish the thing. 

Instead, the well went dry. The Raptors started missing shots. Mamukelashvili was swatted at the rim on a drive. Barnes even missed a pair of free throws. There were bright spots — Mamukelashvili grabbed an offensive rebound, made to dribble out, spun back to the rim, and gently laid the ball to a cutting Shead for a layup. But in general, Toronto’s offence shriveled and retreated like a turtle in its shell. After a game of blazing away from deep, the Raptors wilted to a pithy 2-of-5 from deep in the final quarter. The puny number of attempts were far more meaningful, after a game of makes, than the misses. (And the second make came on a meaningless shot at the buzzer.)

“We gotta sustain,” said Ingram after the game.

Meanwhile, Barrett most of all saw his game collapse in the clutch. He committed sloppy, needless turnovers, and he saw Edwards score on him in isolation. Rajakovic inserted Shead to close for Barrett with two minutes remaining. Toronto gave up offensive rebounds, after cleaning the glass well all night.

There were attempted heroics. Barnes pushed after an Edwards make, took on three Wolves, and dunked over them all. But ultimately, down three points with the ball in their hands, another needless turnover — this time by Shead — doomed the Raptors.

There is a pattern to Toronto losses. Controlling the game is not enough. When the offence runs dry, such issues last longer for the Raptors than they seem to for other teams. The Raptors couldn’t find a sustainable source of points for too long a stretch in the fourth quarter. Was it the lineup without Barnes and Ingram? Was it the turnovers from Barrett and Shead? Was it the inability of the team to create enough attempts from behind the arc? No matter the answer (and surely all of the above are valid answers), the Raptors have written a script over the last month that dictates the flow of losses. And against the Timberwolves, the Raptors followed it perfectly.

The Raptors surely would like to rewrite the plot going forward, but with the trade deadline less than 24 hours away, it’s possible that Bobby Webster and company don’t give this group a chance.

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For too long, the Raptors have let games fall out of their grasp by virtue of their pitiful long-range shooting. They scored 41 points in an entire second half against the New York Knicks and made a single triple all half. They shot 2-of-9 from deep in the fourth quarter against the Orlando Magic in the next contest to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Shot 1-of-9 earlier in the month against the Los Angeles Clippers in the fourth and overtime combined to lose, again, from ahead. The Raptors see more zone defence than any team in the league. NBA teams are using high-school defences against the Raptors, begging them to shoot from distance, and the Raptors have by and large been unable to make them pay. 

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