STARTERS TAKE SEAT AS RAPTORS ROUT THE BULLS
Powell leads way against Chicago team struggling to fill out injury-plagued roster
Well, if this wasn’t the poster game for playing out the string, the Toronto Raptors can at least count on two more opportunities later this week.
Full value to the Raps for putting the work in against a team that was so decimated by injuries they had to include two guys on the active list who didn’t even dress.
Chicago never had a lead in this one and spent most of the night trailing by double digits, but that’s hardly surprising given what head coach Jim Boylen had to work with in an eventual 112103 Toronto win.
Lauri Markkanen, one of the few regulars still in the starting five, played only 16 minutes and was a woeful 2-for-10, although he did have nine rebounds.
Wayne Selden Jr. was the biggest threat in the Chicago lineup, scoring 18 on 7-for-14 shooting. To put that in perspective, the start was just his fifth of the NBA season and 20th of his five-year career.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse took the opportunity to get his bench some work in this one with four different reserves getting more court time than any Toronto starter.
Taking full advantage of the opportunity was Norm Powell, who had 20 points in 22 minutes to lead all scorers.
He was 4-for-5 from behind the arc for his best game since he had 23 points in a win over the Indiana Pacers in early January.
The evening also allowed Nurse to give his starters a rather easy night with Kawhi Leonard’s 22 minutes the high-water mark among the starting five.
If there was a downside to the night, it came late in the fourth when OG Anunoby left the game after taking what appeared to be a Brandon Sampson knee to the head.
Anunoby was slow to get up and slow to leave the court.
It forced Nurse to bring back Pascal Siakam, the one guy who probably really could have used a rest on this roster for the final few minutes.
The Raptors now head out on the road for a pair of games starting with the New York Knicks Thursday and then the Bulls again Saturday in Chicago.
ABOUT THE BENCH PLAN
Nurse said he has a plan for those moments when the Raptors’ starters need a breather.
For the third game in a row, he steadfastly stuck to an all-bench unit to end the first and begin the second quarter.
Whether that is for the games now and he’ll change come playoff time, only Nurse knows for sure and he’s not telling.
Against Charlotte and before that against Oklahoma City, Nurse had a five-man unit that included Fred Vanvleet, Powell, Anunoby, Serge Ibaka and Jeremy Lin on the floor.
That group did not exactly flourish in either the second Oklahoma City game or the Charlotte game, but against a Chicago team that was already borrowing from its bench to fill out the starting five, it was more than enough.
Three minutes into the quarter, Nurse brought Kyle Lowry and Danny Green back out, thereby limiting those minutes of non-starters.
This is one situation worth watching because it’s a time when the Raptors are at their most vulnerable and how Nurse handles it is going to be pivotal come playoff time.
PLAYTIME IS OVER
Nurse is a coach who likes to give his charges as much rope as possible and as many chances. But with the regular season winding down, he is becoming more results oriented and less willing to overlook lapses.
“It’s a little different, like for me, as a head coach in this setting. I think you give these guys a lot more chances and you kind of throw them their 18, 20 minutes regardless of what they do ’cause there’s so many games and this and that and the other thing,” Nurse said. “But there comes a point in time where you, as a coach, the one thing that you use to either motivate them or motivate your team is certain guys’ playing time.”
He used Powell as an example. “I thought Norm had not played very well and I wasn’t going to use him (Sunday) and especially just give him his rotation,” Nurse said.
But with the rest of the bench floundering, he had nowhere else to turn. And when he did go to Powell, he was rewarded with one of Powell’s better games. In just under 12 minutes, Powell gave him 10 points and a couple of steals. Most importantly, he did not turn the ball over.
It was the turnovers in recent performances that put Powell in Nurse’s doghouse in the first place.
“We’ll see. Hopefully he’ll play strong tonight (Tuesday) and if he doesn’t he won’t play and that’s going to go for a number of those guys as we go down the stretch. If they want to play, they’re gonna have to earn their minutes,” Nurse said.