Shoot, these Raptors are pretty quick studies
When you score 132 points against an opponent, you are doing a lot right. And chances are your opponents are doing plenty wrong as well.
The Charlotte Hornets, the team that gave up those 132 points to Toronto, are a defensively challenged team at the moment. Only three teams in the NBA give up more points per 100 possessions than the Hornets.
But leaky defence only hurts if the opposition drains shots and the Raptors are a team quite capable of that.
As a team, Toronto shoots 46 per cent from the field and an Nba-best 40.5 per cent from behind the arc.
Toronto hasn’t always been a great shooting team, but even in the absence of two guys enjoying some of the best shooting seasons of their careers in Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka, the basketball keeps finding its target at a satisfying rate.
The thing, though, is the Raptors have made themselves a good shooting team.
OG Anunoby didn’t arrive in the league as the shooter he is today. Anunoby sank 10 of the 13 shots he attempted Monday, four of seven from distance.
Even as a rookie, Anunoby could successfully set up in a corner, wait for the pass and hit a standard three. But Monday, he was draining pull-up threes from 27 feet, completing a reverse layup, casually dropping in a 24-foot step-back and punishing the rim with a cutting dunk.
The arsenal is full and he uses all of it.
As Fred Vanvleet will tell you, none of that comes without hard work and Anunoby, after an up-and-down season a year ago interrupted by off-court issues and injuries, put in a hard off-season.
But the foundation for that kind of success is a sound, fundamental shooting stroke and that is where the organization comes in.
The Raptors develop their talent arguably as good as any team this side of the San Antonio Spurs, maybe better. You see it post-practice with assistant coach Patrick Mutombo patiently working with Anunoby and Norm Powell through 30 minutes of shooting drills long after practice has ended.
Pascal Siakam once missed 27 consecutive three-pointers over a 15-game span in just over a month. That was two years ago. Today, he’s shooting the three at a 36 per cent clip.
“I say it all the time: With Pascal, he shoots the ball pretty well,” Nurse said. “But he’s still 18 months or 24 months away from being really good.”
Siakam, like Anunoby, like Vanvleet, like a number of Raptors currently on the roster, are willing workers. Combine that with a staff that puts the time in and a head coach well-versed in the mechanics of shooting and never afraid to try something new and you get a group that shoots the ball well now and is only going to get better.
Vanvleet was asked who the shot doctor on the staff would be. In the past, the Raptors have employed coaches like John Townsend and Dave Hopla as shooting coaches, but there is no such designation on this staff.
“It might be Nurse, honestly,” Vanvleet said. “He’s the one crazy enough to study all the, whatever, dynamics that goes into shooting. But Jim Sann is our guy. Patrick Mutombo. All the guys on the development staff that take the time to get with the guy and try to tune up his shot.”