Raptors Wrap Up Telling Road Trip With a Dud vs. Jazz
The Toronto Raptors began this two-week-long West Coast road trip with a ton of questions swirling. The OG Anunoby trade gave Toronto a new roster to assess and the time crunch ahead of the Feb. 8 trade deadline meant there wasn’t going to be much time to make big decisions.
So, what did we learn?
Well, the Raptors look better this month than they did last month. A 2-4 record on the trip doesn’t exactly suggest as much, neither does a 145-113 loss to the Utah Jazz. But really, it’s been better. They beat a solid Memphis Grizzlies team with a healthy Ja Morant, went toe-to-toe with a really good Sacramento Kings team, beat the Golden State Warriors, should have beaten the Los Angeles Lakers if not for some, um, questionable officiating, and their loss to the Los Angeles Clippers was understandable and respectable without Jakob Poeltl or Pascal Siakam.
The product has been way more enjoyable too thanks in large part to a much-improved offense that came into Friday night ranked fourth in offensive rating since the start of the month.
Sure, it wasn’t all pretty against the Jazz, but Immanuel Quickley opened the game with a 31-foot three-pointer, the kind Toronto has legitimately only seen three other times this year. The Raptors somehow connected on 17 of 34 three-pointers Friday, but it was their two-point range shooting that couldn’t get going. Toronto mustered just 18-for-47 shooting inside the arc and for whatever reason this team still can’t make free throws.
If the offense has taken a step forward, the defense has been a bit of a different story. Playing without Jakob Poeltl who remains out indefinitely with an ankle sprain proved problematic against the supersized Jazz who outrebounded Toronto 40 to 17 in the first half and bullied the Raptors in the paint.
Without Anunoby, Toronto’s defense has slipped, and the Jazz exposed the Raptors who couldn’t get out to shooters nor keep up with Utah’s quick guards Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson. Sexton nailed a step-back three early in the third quarter to put the Jazz up 26 and Toronto couldn’t do much to come back.
The big development lately has been Pascal Siakam’s three-point shooting. After a horrendous start to the year, he’s been shooting over 50% from three-point range since the start of December and over 60% since the start of January. On Friday, he was 5-for-6 from three-point range for 27 points in 30 minutes of action.
Barrett had been streaking lately too since joining Toronto, but Friday was a tough night for the 23-year-old who began the night 0-for-7 from the field and was eventually benched to start the second half.
The problem for the Raptors will be their record. A new roster doesn’t change their 15-24 record so far and that’s going to make it awfully tough to be a legitimate playoff team this season.
The road trip showed Toronto appears to be heading in the right direction, but changes still need to be made because there’s plenty of work to be done.
Up Next: Boston Celtics
The Raptors will have a couple of days off before their first game back home on Monday when the Boston Celtics come to town for a 7:30 p.m. ET tipoff at Scotiabank Arena.
