Unbeaten Raptors crush Hornets
Leonard puts in best game yet as Toronto’s defence stifles Charlotte’s hot three-point game
It was one of those nights where you weren’t sure whether to marvel more at the offence or the defence.
Either way, the Toronto Raptors scored a rather convincing 127-106 win over the visiting Charlotte Hornets. It extended Toronto’s streak to a perfect 4-0 to open the season.
This team has shown long periods of offensive excellence already this season, but Monday’s game was easily the most dominant defensive performance of the year.
Under new head coach James Borrego, the Hornets have been buzzing opponents via the three-point shot all season. Toronto simply would not let the Hornets get that part of their game going.
In the three games leading up to their visit to Toronto, the Hornets had a league-best 49 threes, but on this night were limited to just nine as the Raptors’ ability to switch almost universally throughout the starting lineup allowed Toronto to stay right up on the Charlotte shooters.
To add insult to injury, Toronto’s long bombers stole one from Borrego’s playbook and jacked the ball up from behind the arc with wild abandon — eventually hitting on 15 of 39. And then there was Kawhi Leonard.
Leonard, who stayed in Toronto and skipped the road victory in Washington, was fully rested for this one, much to the lament of the Hornets.
Leonard finished with a team-high 22 points on 9-of- 14 shooting, his most efficient night in a Raptors uniform.
In 20 minutes off the bench, Jonas Valanciunas had his way against a smallish Charlotte lineup, going off for 17 points and 10 rebounds.
He joined three other starters in double figures in scoring, a list that included Kyle Lowry, Danny Green and Serge Ibaka.
Lowry was at his distributing best with 14 assists to go along with his 16 points.
The team has a day to reset before facing the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday.
It was to the point where, if the Spurs weren’t taking on LeBron James out in L.A., you would have half-expected Gregg Popovich to come around the corner.
Among the ex-Spurs in the building last night were Leonard, Green, Tony Parker, and Borrego, a one-time Pop assistant.
Raptors assistant Jeremy Castleberry even crashed the Hornets post-shootaround scrum, eliciting cries of “Security” from Borrego, who embraced the one-time Spurs video coordinator.
Parker, who at the age of 33 left San Antonio to join Borrego in Charlotte, admits having this many Spurs now playing for different teams is quite out of the norm.
“It’s very weird,” Parker said. “But at the same time I love the challenge. It’s been great being with those guys. The atmosphere with the team has been great, they have welcomed me, they want to make the playoffs, they want to win, they ask me a 1,000 questions, but I love it.”
Parker was asked if he’d been in touch with Green and Leonard since arriving in Toronto. “Yeah, yeah, but that’s private,” he said with this trademark smile.
Leonard sat out Saturday’s game on the back-end of a back-to-back but Raptors head coach Nick Nurse says that is not a hard rule going forward.
“There was a heavy moment at the beginning here (three games in five nights) and I think if you look down the road and it’s heavy again, I think we’ll do it again,” Nurse said. “But if it’s isolated and there’s some days leading in and days after, we’ll look at it aswego.”
The shot blocks continue to thrill, but Ibaka’s rebounding was a thing of beauty Monday night. It helped that the visiting Hornets went small a lot, but Ibaka was in there cleaning up the boards nicely. That has been an early issue for the team. Ibaka finished with eight rebounds and one block.
With the game already in hand, Nick Nurse went back to a five-man unit of Lowry and Leonard with Anunoby, Green and Valanciunas. He didn’t really need to extend that many of his starters at that point in the game, so we can only surmise he was trying to give his finishing five some time together.