LEONARD MAKES HIS PRESENCE FELT IN VICTORY
Raptors star serenaded with MVP chants during dominant stretch in third quarter
RAPTORS 113, CELTICS 101
The MVP chants might have been a bit premature, but you couldn’t really blame the fans.
From the beginning of the third quarter until he came out with 3:55 left in the third, Kawhi Leonard gave the Toronto crowd its first real glimpse of the player he can be in leading the Toronto Raptors to an early season 113-101 win over the pre-season favourite for the Eastern Conference title, the Boston Celtics, Friday at Scotiabank Arena.
After another slow start in the first half, when he was limited to nine points, the offence Leonard can provide was on full display for the first 8:05 of the third.
He scored 15 points in the frame, and they came in every which way imaginable.
It started with a driving dunk, then there was a 10-foot jumper, a turnaround fadeaway jumper, a three-pointer, a couple of freebies from the line, a running layup. He then coaxed Kyrie Irving into a three-shot foul and made all three before finishing off this eight-minute tour de force with a cutting dunk off a nice feed from Kyle Lowry.
The MVP chants began in the middle of those three free throws and got louder and louder as each free throw found the mark.
For the game Leonard ended up with 31 points to go along with 10 rebounds and three assists.
His first-half shooting struggles kept the numbers from getting too inflated, but that third quarter was easily the best we have seen from Leonard in a Raptors uniform.
And that’s to say nothing of his defence, as he took turns on both Celtics young guns in Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum and frustrated both.
Joining in on the scoring parade after a tough opener was Serge Ibaka.
Ibaka, who got the start at centre, couldn’t get a shot to drop in the opener until midway through the fourth quarter. Friday night he was hard-pressed to miss, finishing the evening with 21 points on 10-of-14 shooting.
Head coach Nick Nurse made a point of praising Ibaka for his defence and his rebounding after the Game 1 shooting struggles.
With Leonard shouldering a lot of the offensive load, Kyle Lowry became much less scorer and more all-around facilitator.
Lowry’s biggest sequence of the night may have been standing in and taking a charge from Tatum with two minutes to go and then heading down the other end to hit a three to extend the Raptors’ lead to eight.
Lowry wound up with 13 points on 4-of-7 shooting.
NEEDS WORK
The Raptors need to work on this part of their game.
The end of the first quarter was bad as the Celtics opened up a seven-point lead in the final minute and a half. The second quarter was equally bad.
The end of the third saw the Raptors fail to get a shot off with the ball and the shot clock off and almost give up an uncontested three. None of it was real pretty.
Fortunately, they were much better throughout the earlier parts of each of those first three quarters and actually had a three-point lead heading into the final frame.
NO REAL SURPRISES
The Raptors’ starting lineup included just the one change from opening night. Serge Ibaka came in with Jonas Valanciunas coming off the bench. That was the expected change with the Celtics starting small with a point guard and three wings along with Al Horford.
Horford is a better matchup for Ibaka, who can get out to the three-point line and defend him there, while Valanciunas will enter the game when Aron Baynes enters.
Baynes is a more traditional big man like Valanciunas, although he started shooting threes a year ago. The difference is Valanciunas isn’t going to have to chase Baynes out to the three-point line. He’ll just follow him out there.
There was some thought that OG Anunoby might replace Pascal Siakam as the starting power forward, but there still seemed to be some question as to how much Anunoby could play with the bruised orbital bone he suffered Wednesday, so Siakam stayed in that starting five.
CROSSING BOUNDARIES
Nurse has his hands pretty full these days finding the perfect mix from as many as 12 potential rotation players in his charge. But the coach is nothing if not expansive in his tastes, and one of them is football. So when Nurse happened to spot a guy taking in the pre-game warm-ups two hours before tipoff at a game last season, he had to find out who the guy was.
Turned out it was Argos head coach Marc Trestman and while the two can’t exactly compare notes when it comes to their respective sports, it was pretty clear almost immediately that they had a lot in common.
Both men take a unique approach to the offensive side of their respective sports. Both aren’t afraid to “think outside the box” or go against the norm. It’s that common interest in coming up with new and unique ways to score in their respective sport that the two have bonded over.
“I find offensive football really intriguing,” Nurse said when asked about his ties with Trestman.
“I study it a lot and I see a lot of similarities. In another coaching life, I had a similar numbering system that was really similar to football. I don’t use that as much anymore. I do a little bit. Some of that came from football. But I just find it intriguing. More with Trestman, it’s friendship and mentorship and leadership ideas, probably more than anything.”
NEW OG LOOK
It’s not by choice, but a bruised orbital bone has forced Raptors sophomore OG Anunoby to adopt some extra facial protection in the form of goggles.
He took a shot to the right eye area on Wednesday and did not return to the game.
He was sporting some glasses/ goggles at shootaround that got the thumbs up from his head coach.
“Pretty cool. Pretty cool,” Nurse said.
“I just hope he’s 100 per cent OK to play. We were joking around about (the eyewear) on Thursday. I said, ‘Are you going with (Kurt) Rambis or Kareem (Abdul Jabbar) or Horace Grant? And he said, ‘None of those, I gotta get some good ones.’”
The glasses didn’t last very long as Anunoby ditched them about three minutes after getting into the game.