Raptors Survive Scare From Rockets As New Roster Settles in

The Toronto Raptors nearly blew a 22-point lead but got just enough to survive to avoid an embarrassing loss to the Houston Rockets following the trade deadline

Now maybe everyone can settle in.

This is the roster the Toronto Raptors are going to have the rest of the way. Sure, there’s a roster spot or two that will be filled but the 16 players here now might as well get used to it.

The past six months or so have been a whirlwind for the organization. Almost 75% of Toronto’s roster has turned over since last season ended. Only Scottie Barnes, Gary Trent Jr., Chris Boucher, and Jakob Poeltl remain from the group that ended last season.

But the storm has passed. What remains is a group that’s younger and suited to fit alongside Scottie Barnes moving forward.

Is it perfect?

No.

There’s plenty of work still to do as Toronto’s 107-104 victory over the Houston Rockets showed. Nearly blowing a 22-point lead for the second time in a week was almost inexcusable. But if the issue with the Raptors coming into the season was Toronto hadn’t picked a direction for the future, at the very least, that’s been addressed.

"It's good in the sense that like now we know what we've got and we can try and build on this," Jakob Poeltl said. "There's just like a new wave of young players and we're trying to build something. So we can look at the rest of the season for us to get a head start there."

It was Dillon Brooks who nearly played hero for the Rockets, scoring 11 of his 20 points for Houston in the fourth quarter including a trio of crucial three-pointers. But the Raptors got the stops they needed, getting Aaron Holiday to narrowly miss an open three-pointer before smothering Jeff Green at the buzzer.

It was fitting that Toronto’s first post-trade deadline game came against Fred VanVleet and the Rockets. It was VanVleet’s departure this past summer that helped usher in this new era. Toronto wanted VanVleet back but as the 29-year-old acknowledged Friday, the writing was on the wall.

“It was just kind of like a matter of when,” VanVleet said Friday of Toronto’s turnover. “Once you set off on that timeline and on that trajectory, like this is what it looks like. … I think it was time to turn over a new leaf.”

That’s what Toronto has done.

Neither of Toronto’s newest additions Kelly Olynyk nor Ochai Agbaji played Friday night despite clearing their physicals, but Toronto’s other mid-season additions showed out against the Rockets.

It’s taken Immanuel Quickley a little while to settle in, but the 24-year-old looked every bit like a starting point guard Toronto acquired him to be. He was 4-for-9 from behind the arc against the Rockets, dropping 25 points in 39 minutes.

"He was able to get some out of pick-and-rolls and in transition but also his teammates found him," Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said of Quickley. "We want him to shoot 10 threes a game and he was able to get nine tonight and he’s going to continue to get better.

It wasn’t hard to see what Toronto loved about Quickley whose dribble moves were on full display against Houston. He fooled Aaron Holiday with a spin move so badly that Holiday fell to the floor, unable to keep up with Quickley. In the third, Quickley got Amen Thompson to bite on a pump fake, sending the Rockets rookie flying out of bounds before the Raptors guard calmly nailed a corner three-pointer to put Toronto 22.

With Barrett, it’s more power than fineness but the Canadian forward has been stellar since joining Toronto — frankly better than anyone could have expected offensively. His offensive efficiency has been outrageous lately with a True Shooting percentage of 62.5% with Toronto. For context, that offensive efficiency metric is better than Luka Doncic and LeBron James.

But most impressive against Houston was Barrett’s playmaking. He repeatedly hooked up with Poeltl and Trent for buckets, finding Poeltl in the paint for easy twos or throwing kick-out passes to Trent behind the arc. In addition to his 21 points Friday, his seven assists led to 17 points for Toronto.

"He's doing a good job, he's a tough finisher. So a lot of times the defense collapses on him and when they do he's doing a good job finding me for late dump-offs," Poeltl said of Barrett.

The worry for the Raptors has been Barnes’ play.

Across the board, Barnes’ numbers have fallen since Toronto began to reshape the team around him. His scoring hasn’t been the same and he fades in and out of games more than he should for a player with the workload he’s expected to carry.

Through three quarters, he tallied just five points on 2-for-9 shooting and it was the Barnes-led bench units without Quickley that struggled, first to open the second quarter and then again in the fourth allowing the Rockets to claw back. 

Barnes did impact the game in other ways, though, smothering an Alperen Sengun layup attempt in the first quarter and finishing the night just two assists shy of a triple-double.

"I think that he needs to be more assertive that when he has open shots to take those shots but I thought that his playmaking tonight was outstanding," Rajaković said of Barnes who finished the night with 13 points on 4-for-16 shooting. "End of the game he was making huge winning plays, rebounding the ball. I thought that he played really well."

If this is going to work, Toronto is going to need more from Barnes. The growth from Quickley and Barrett has been remarkable, but it's Barnes' development that'll matter most if the Raptors are going to get back where they want to be.

Up Next: Cleveland Cavaliers

The Raptors will be back at it Saturday night when the Cleveland Cavaliers come to town for a 7:30 p.m. ET tipoff.