VanVleet puts Popovich party on hold
All-star guard returns from five-game absence to bring some order to Toronto offence
He took a three-pointer but missed it, drove and was fouled the next time he had the ball, hit a little runner in the paint and then split defenders to finish at the rim, all in the first four minutes of the game.
Things looked and must have felt normal for the Raptors with Fred VanVleet back in the lineup Wednesday night in San Antonio.
VanVleet, who missed five games with a knee bruise, provided a measure of order in his return, scoring 26 points and adding a couple of assists and six rebounds as the Raptors snapped a three-game losing streak by beating the Spurs 119-104 and denying San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich the chance to take over sole possession of first place on the NBA’s all-time winning list.
While it was far from a perfect Raptors performance — the Spurs shredded Toronto’s interior defence most of the night — there was a sense of normalcy to Toronto’s offence that had been missing for about a week.
Scottie Barnes had two points in 16 first-half minutes but 10 in the third quarter and 20 overall, and Pascal Siakam added another 20.
But it all started with VanVleet and his steady hand on the rudder. He has a way of getting the Raptors organized offensively that puts everyone in the right place at the right time and the shot distribution makes more sense. He helped Gary Trent Jr., who had 17 points and made a couple of three-pointers.
“I just think (Trent’s) rhythm gets thrown off, the spacing gets thrown off, or whatever,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said beforehand. “He should hopefully have a little better rhythm and feel out there with Fred alongside him tonight and a little more of somebody else (that the defence has) to stay a little closer to.”
The solid offensive effort allowed the Raptors to stay in touch in transition defence; the Spurs got nothing of substance on the break and only their ability to score in the paint kept the game close.
It has been an interesting week of soaking up coaching history for Nurse. He and lead Raptors assistant Adrian Griffin were at Duke University last Saturday to see Griffin’s son play the last regular-season game in the 42-year coaching career of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, and then Nurse was in San Antonio as Popovich chased the NBA wins record in his 26th season. Popovich remained tied with Don Nelson for the top spot with 1,335 coaching victories
That kind of tenure is anathema to Nurse. “By the time I was 30, I had had eight different jobs already.”
Popovich and Nurse are more colleagues than close friends, although their relationship grew when they coached the U.S. and Canada, respectively, in the 2019 World Cup. Before that, Nurse studied the Spurs icon from afar.
“It was probably kind of cool for me to kind of get to know him a little bit better, I hadn’t been around him very much” Nurse said.
“He’s always been really nice to me and really, really gracious in support and just day-to-day kind of actions. Obviously I got a tremendous amount of respect for him and spent a lot of time as a younger coach watching him coach and his teams play as a lot of people did, but I really studied a lot of what they were doing when I was a younger coach. It’s certainly an interesting night here for sure, and fun to be a part of it.”
The Raptors made in fun for themselves with a dominant second half. After falling behind by three at the break and being chewed up defensively in the second quarter, they won the third 3323 to take control.
Barnes had just two field-goal attempts and two points in the first half but was 5-for-7 with 10 points in the third.