Gradey Dick Lone Brightspot in Ugly Raptors Loss to Pelicans

Gradey Dick dropped a career-high 22 points but Monday was otherwise a disastrous showing for the Toronto Raptors against the New Orleans Pelicans

That was ugly.

Nobody was expecting much from the Toronto Raptors coming into Monday night. After Sunday's double-overtime loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, just being competitive against the New Orleans Pelicans would have been adequate. Just don't get embarrassed.

Maybe that was too much to ask for.

A 138-100 loss to the Pelicans was the most disappointing loss in what's been a season full of disappointment for the Raptors.

Toronto just had nothing.

It was a burn-the-tape performance that came without any takeaways for almost everyone. The lone bright spot, if you will, came from Gradey Dick who set a new career-high with 20 points on 9-for-16 shooting in 30 minutes.

Dick converted four three-pointers, but what was the most impressive from the 20-year-old rookie wasn’t his three-point shooting, but rather what he did inside the arc. In the first half, he curled around a handoff from Jakob Poeltl, pump-faked a kick-out pass to the corner to hold the help defender, then nailed the driving layup. He then hit a pair of mid-range jumpers, both with crafty pump fakes to fool his defender before stepping inside the arc for the jumper.

His off-ball movement looked stellar two. Two of his early buckets came off baseline out-of-bounds plays he converted for five of his 15 first-half points, and it was clear the threat of his shooting began to contort the defense, forcing the Pelicans to space out defensively more than they would have liked.

Even defensively, Dick held his own. Nobody is going to mistake him as even an average defender at this point, but he broke up an alley-oop pass from Zion Williamson early and looked competent closing out to shooters without a hiccup.

Dick wrapped up the night with a pair of open jumpers in the fourth quarter to hit the 20-point threshold for the first time in his career.

Otherwise, though, Monday was a bit of a disaster for Toronto.

It wasn’t necessarily surprising the Raptors got run off the court after Sunday’s double-overtime loss, but still, it was rough. Brandon Ingram nailed a mid-range jumper to put the Pelicans up double digits just five minutes into the game and it wasn’t long before a Trey Murphy three-pointer stuck New Orleans to a 20-point lead in the first quarter.

Not that Toronto showed any signs of life, but a 20-point third quarter from Brandon Ingram that saw him nail six three-pointers in the quarter ended any hope of the Raptors even making the game competitive. Ingram’s 41 points set a new season-high in just 30 minutes.

Up Next: Charlotte Hornets

The Raptors will wrap up their road trip Wednesday night when they head to Charlotte to take on the Hornets at 7 p.m. ET.