Top 10 Raptors Plays of the Week: Defence and rage lead the way
It’s been just a few days, over a week since our last edition of the Top 10 Raptors Plays of the Week, and I apologize for the inconsistent upload days for the last couple of weeks, but we’re back, and let’s get into the plays. We left off last week on Wednesday, when the Raptors almost came back against the Thunder, so this week’s games include the tight home game against the Spurs, followed by a road win against the Wizards, followed by two meltdowns, one against the New York Knicks and one against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Shoutout to Raptors Nation once again, as all of these clips came from his channel.
10. Brandon Ingram’s soaring rebound
For the first play of the week, we start off with the lone win in Washington. Ingram reels in a crazy looking rebound over Anthony Gill, and kicks it to Jamal Shead, and the ball touches two more Raptors’ hands before finding the bottom of the net in a nice and fast-paced mini 2014 beautiful game San Antonio Spurs-like possession. Ja’Kobe Walter has been shooting the three really well lately, 41.4 percent beyond the arc, which is funnily higher than his overall field goal percentage at 38.1 percent in seven games post All-Star break.
9. Scottie’s chase down
It was a slow start for the Raptors against the San Antonio Spurs at the very beginning of the game, but this play started to shift the momentum towards Toronto as they made it a tighter quarter going forward. This wasn’t a great Scottie game offensivley but he added four stocks 1 block, and 3 steals as he’s now second in total stocks for the season, just behind Victor Wembanyama.
8. Collin Murray-Boyles locks Wemby
This is the last of CMB that we’ve seen on the basketball court, as Murray-Boyles once again aggravated his thumb injury in this game. The Raptors could’ve really used his defence during the last two games, as he gets a steal off of one of the league’s top players who towers over him, but that doesn’t mean anything to CMB.
7. Barnes locks Anthony Edwards
Another highlight of lockdown defence, this time in Minnesota, as it’s once again one of the league’s premier players in Anthony Edwards. The best part about this whole thing might be Scottie gets into Ant’s face after, and their reaction is just hilarious; they both couldn’t keep a straight face after Barnes did his signature scream.
6. Jakob Poeltl through contact
For our sixth-best play of the week, we go to the last game we haven’t seen yet, against the New York Knicks. Toronto got off to a solid start in this one, and this pick-and-roll between RJ Barrett and Jakob Poeltl was the best part about the early lead that the Raptors jumped out to. Yak only had nine points, seven rebounds and a block in this game, but since the All-Star break, he has looked much better, and it looks like he might be back to last year’s form when he was just so reliable for Toronto with anchoring the paint and setting great picks.
5. Brandon Ingram over a double team
Our first highlight of the Notorious B.I.3 is the game against New York. The fact that he makes this shot is kind of crazy, as Josh Hart is a great defender, and he plays solid D here too, plus the help from Landry Shamet, but it doesn’t matter. Ingram was great this game, 31 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, on great efficiency too, as he didn’t shoot below 55 percent in any of the shooting categories, plus he only had two turnovers.
4. Sandro posters Julius Randle
It’s not the craziest poster due to Julius Randle not going up for the contest, but still good enough for fourth-best play of the week as Sandro Mamukelashvili makes an appearance on this week’s edition of top plays. Believe it or not, this was just the second game since the All-Star break that Mamu went over double digits scoring-wise and the only one of this week, as his other double-digit scoring output came against the Milwaukee Bucks in just their second game back since the break.
3. Barnes outmuscles De’Aaron Fox
This was such a crazy play, it comes as no surprise that Scottie rips this away from De’Aaron Fox as the difference in weight is 52 pounds in Barnes’ favour (237 lbs for Scottie, 185 for Fox) what’s cool about this play is this was a possesion in where the Raptors had to get a stop which they did thanks to Barnes and it kept the game alive and the fact that Scottie just stops and stares at Fox for a second is pretty funny in my opinion. Scottie loves to flex on his opponents, and it looked like he forgot there was a basketball game going on for a second.
2. Darko gets fired up
This is technically not an official play, but it was too good to pass down, as it seems like there are a ton of opinions on Coach Rajakovic. The facts are that he’s improved record-wise every season since becoming head coach of the Raptors, and some say he’s too much of a nice guy to be a coach. Well, perhaps that might be true to some extent, but Darko knows when to turn up the energy when it’s needed, as seen here, and even a few seasons ago, when he stood up for his guys in the game against the Los Angeles Lakers comes to mind. It sucks Toronto keep blowing leads and has a terrible record against good teams, but the trajectory is headed in the right direction.
1. CMB locks up Wemby YET AGAIN
A very defensive edition, as thanks to Raptors Nation, there are actual highlights on the defensive end. CMB only had four points and five rebounds across 15 minutes of game time, but his impact was so much bigger than that when he could help limit one of the best scorers in the league; offence comes as a bonus. When I say CMB and the Raptors had Wembanyama locked up, I really mean it, as he only had 12 points on 3 for 12 shooting overall, along with three turnovers. Toronto could’ve easily stopped San Antonio’s undefeated February had they held on to their huge lead that they created in the third quarter.
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