TORONTO — As belligerent Charlotte Hornets guard Kemba Walker finished the third quarter with only eight points on 3-of-18 shooting, it seemed unlikely that such good fortune would continue for the Toronto Raptors.
Sure, Cory Joseph had done an inconspicuously good job guarding the all-star. And, yeah, Walker had to be a little leaden after playing 32 hard minutes in a loss the night before.
But a player that good won’t often play that poorly for that long. Walker stringing together four sub-par quarters would have been a bit much. Even the three were a stretch.
And, wouldn’t you know it, Walker showed up for the fourth in an awfully big way Wednesday night, hitting momentous shot after momentous shot as his Hornets poured in 44 points in the quarter—hitting a near-unbelievable eight of 10 three-point attempts in the process—to surge past the Raptors, 110-106. Marco Belinelli and Marvin Williams had great finishes as well, but once Walker got rolling, it was hard to imagine the Raptors finding a way to halt the blood flow and pull out what looked like a very winnable game.
“Against a guy like Walker, you can’t give him the same look. Because if you do…” said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey, trailing off without finishing his thought. “Everybody’s got to be on the same page. One guy can’t be doing one thing and the other guy another. Communication. Talking. That’s what we have to improve on.”
A sluggish start
“It didn’t all just start in the fourth quarter, believe me,” Casey also said, aptly. “Some of the mistakes we were making started at the beginning of the game.”
They sure did. This game did not get off to what one might call a blistering start, as the two teams combined to shoot 1-for-11 in the opening three minutes. Charlotte played the night prior, so some sluggishness was to be expected on their end. But the Raptors, who had no such excuse, matched the lack of energy, mustering just 14 points until Patrick Patterson and DeMar DeRozan hit a pair of tough attempts in the final 30 seconds of the first quarter to enter the break down only three. Still, with a more productive first quarter, the Raptors could have taken advantage of a Hornets team that took most of the game to come alive.
One Raptor who did bring some early vigour was Cory Joseph, who shot at will throughout the first half and often sprinted the ball up the floor, perhaps trying to drag his teammates into the game. Joseph had a great start to the second half, too, picking off a Williams pass before creating a bucket at the other end and nearly forcing two other steals as he looked to disrupt Charlotte’s inbounds passes.
Serge Ibaka did his best to spark things as well, throwing up five three-point attempts in the first 24 minutes, hitting two of them. He had perhaps the half’s best sequence when he blocked Marvin Williams at the rim on the defensive end before running up the court and drilling a three-pointer. But shortly after halftime, Ibaka found himself in deep foul trouble, which limited him to just 10 second-half minutes and removed one of Toronto’s more dynamic presences from the floor.
“I felt we were kind of playing our way into the game tonight,” Casey said. “And you can’t live like that.”
JV’s third
Things began looking up for the Raptors shortly after halftime as the team generated some rare momentum on the night, much of it thanks to Jonas Valanciunas, who had himself a quarter. The Raptors centre blocked three shots in the frame’s first five minutes as he played exceptionally active defence, helped hedge screens, and held Hornets centre Cody Zeller far away from the Raptors’ basket.
Valanciunas played the entire quarter, grabbing nine rebounds (four on the offensive glass) while shooting a perfect 2-for-2 from the field and 4-for-4 from the free throw line. It’s not hyperbolic to call it his finest quarter of the season, and perhaps his career.
One of his more emphatic moments came late in the quarter, when Patterson badly missed a three-point attempt, which Valanciunas fought through several Hornets to collect. He gave the ball to DeRozan, who drove hard to the rim before dishing a no-look, over-his-shoulder, perfectly-weighted dump off to a streaking Valanciunas, who finished with a strong dunk.
“He was blocking shots, he was protecting the rim, he was up on the pick and rolls,” Casey said. “I thought JV did an excellent job.”
Not enough from the bench
There was no shortage of small things that, if they broke Toronto’s way, could have given the Raptors a win on Wednesday, which would have been their seventh in a row. But one big thing was the play of the team’s bench, which was outscored by Charlotte 52-28. Charlotte’s reserves were a collective plus-52 on the evening; Toronto’s were minus-60.
“Those guys have to come in, relieve our starters, and not lose anything,” Casey said. “And it’s on us as a coaching staff to make sure those guys are ready to come in the game.”
Kyle Lowry’s absence has thrown Toronto’s bench rotation into some serious flux of late, and Delon Wright and Norman Powell provided some strong moments Wednesday night. But the Raptors are in a position where they simply need a more consistent contribution from their second unit, especially on nights when starters are in foul trouble like Ibaka was.
“That’s what we’ve got to learn from. If we want to get where we want to go, those are the things we’ve got to take care of,” Casey said. “Everybody’s got to be on the same page.”
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