French connection
Big night for Quebec on both sides of the ball as Raps' Montrealers lead team to victory
It was a night to celebrate the kind of basketball coming out of the city of Montreal and the province of Quebec in general.
Three Montrealers — Oklahoma City's Luguentz Dort, and the Raptors' Chris Boucher and Khem Birch — became the first Montreal trio to ever start in an NBA game together.
Then Boucher and Dort took the Montreal dominance to another level, scoring 17 and 21 points, respectively, in just the first quarter in a game the Raptors would win 112-106.
All the Montreal success early on disguised the fact that the Raptors once again were playing without the bulk of their core with Fred VanVleet, Kyle Lowry, OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam all out of the lineup for the night.
Officially, only Lowry was held out for rest with VanVleet (hip), Siakam (shoulder) and Anunoby (calf ) all out because of injury.
Fortunately, the 514 was there to take over. Between them, Dort and Boucher were a combined 13-for-16 in that first quarter, with Dort a perfect 7-for-7.
Both players enjoyed career-high quarters in those first 12 minutes, but as is often the case in the professional ranks, adjustments were made and both players found the remainder of the evening much tougher.
The Thunder had control of the game in the early going, but a greater defensive focus in the second half on the part of the Raptors steadily pulled the Thunder back, allowing Toronto to get the lead into the final moments of the third quarter.
As good as the Montreal contingent was, it was the play of Malachi Flynn in the final half of the final quarter that was the difference in this game.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse mentioned Flynn as a guy he was going to be watching closely through the final portion of the schedule as the Raptors first-round pick gets tons of playing time to develop his game.
Flynn rose to the occasion down the stretch, finding the right shooters and coming up big on the defensive end, as well, as Toronto finished up strong.
Boucher, who got off to that stellar start, had a similar finish with 10 points in the final two minutes as Toronto pulled away from a game but overmatched Thunder team.
Boucher finished with 31 points, two more than Dort, who looked like he had won the battle of Montreal with two free throws he earned going hard to the basket against, who else, but Boucher in the final minute. Instead, Boucher hit a threepointer with just 10 seconds remaining to grab the Montreal honours.
Birch had a huge role in that deciding three-pointer as he flattened Dort with a screen, allowing Gary Trent Jr. to get the ball to a wideopen Boucher. The other area of focused attention the game was going to get from Nurse was on the glass where the Raptors with newcomers Birch and Freddie Gillespie are a much-improved team.
The rebuilding Thunder embarrassed the Raptors in the rebounding department when these two teams met two and a half weeks ago.
The Raptors matched the Thunder on the boards on the strength of a huge advantage on the offensive glass where Boucher got his team five extra possessions and Birch got them four more on the way to a solid team effort of 16 offensive boards to just nine for the much longer and much younger Thunder team.
ABOUT THAT FINE
Nothing is crystal clear, but it appears the Raptors were not so much fined for tanking as they were fined for inappropriately conveying the nature of certain absences in the lineup to the league.
This was how Raptors head coach Nurse explained the $25,000 fine handed down by the league to the Raptors.
“I've been told we kind of screwed it up administratively in the way we got it to the league or whatever,” Nurse said. “So that's a mistake we made, and pay for it.”
It is worth noting that the Raptors were much more specific about the four regulars who sat out Sunday's game and why.
Siakam was listed out with a left shoulder injury, Anunoby was out with a left calf injury, and VanVleet was listed out with a left hip injury.
Lowry, who has previously been listed as out because of a toe infection, was the lone Raptor out Sunday for rest.
NEW FACES, NEW APPROACH
Coach Nurse has traditionally been a coach who likes to have his defence running back on misses and get their half-court defence set. Rarely, although there are exceptions, does he want anyone attacking the offensive glass looking for a rebound.
But now with Birch and Gillespie in the fold (Gillespie was officially signed to a second 10-day contract on Sunday), Nurse believes the rebounding issues that have plagued the team all season-long may be coming to an end with this duo.
More than that, he believes, and seems to have green-lighted based on his comments Sunday, that Birch, Gillespie and Boucher will all be hitting the offensive glass in search of extra possessions from here on out. Take away all the injuries and the COVID-related absences and the biggest hole in the Raptors' game this year has been rebounding.
It's been an issue since Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol left and only now is it becoming less of an issue.
Nurse was interested to see how the Raptors, with Birch and Gillespie in action, would fare against an OKC team that out-rebounded them 64-35 in a game overall just more than two weeks ago and had a 19-7 advantage on the offensive boards in the same game.
Nurse was even talking about sending the likes of Yutya Watanabe and Paul Watson Jr. in after offensive rebounds.