It feels like this is a recurring theme in Toronto Raptors lore these days, but another young player is being asked to step up amid injury early on in the season. With Jakob Poeltl out with back soreness,
it was time for rookie Colin Murray-Boyles to step up, and the No. 9 overall pick in this year’s NBA draft got his first professional start Wednesday night. It was against Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets, and CMB’s staunch defensive power was definitely a reason it was him who was called up to fill the vacancy in the Raptors lineup.
Despite the defensive strength of Murray-Boyles, the fact that both Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes had near 30 pieces, AND the fact that we were given free bags of Sour Patch Kids on media row, the Raptors couldn’t hang with the Rockets. Alpern Sengun was too much to handle, especially with Poeltl (the Raptors only true center) out, Durant was playing his vintage game, and a major discrepancy in rebounds made it hard for the Raptors to return results.
They lose 139-121 to the Houston Rockets and will now head to Cleveland for a mini road trip before coming back to Toronto before the end of the weekend.
Let’s take a look at a few pros and cons to this Toronto Raptors loss.
Positives: Getting efficient buckets
In the pros column, it was a pretty good night offensively for Toronto’s stars, as both Ingram and Barnes played well. Barnes led all scorers for Toronto with 31 points, adding on 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 1 block to a very good performance. He shot 11-18 from the field and 4-7 from three point range. Ingram followed closely with 29 points in the game, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal. He shot 5-7 from distance, 11-16 from the field, and was a perfect 2-2 from the free throw line.
Even the rookie got in on the distance shooting, something CMB told reporters last week at practice he was working on. Specifically, he said he wanted to match his offensive power with his defensive skill, and was working with Coach Ivo to improve his shot. He shot 75%, 3-4 from three point range tonight, and ended the game with 13 points on 5-8 shooting from the field.
Quiet funny that the Raptors’ offence was the thing keeping them in the mix tonight, given that it’s been such a struggle from them in recent years to get points on the board.
Negatives: Not defending, and letting opponents get MORE buckets than you
The Houston Rockets were playing bully ball with the Raptors tonight, with their 6-foot-11 centre in Alpern Sengun dominating. Collin Murray-Boyles was so shocked at his size and strength that he told media in postgame that he asked Sengun what his workout routine was mid-game. Clearly, he was hard to handle, and when he couldn’t get his own buckets, he was rebounding AND assisting. He neared a triple-double tonight with 18 points, 9 assists and 8 rebounds.
Without a true big man on the court, defending a tall team like Houston was going to be hard. We havent even spoken about Kevin Durant yet, with his 31 point night.
Another rough patch for Toronto came in their guard play, as Immanuel Quickly continues to have a rough start to his season. He shot well from distance tonight, going 4-7 from three, but not hitting the 10 attempt minimum that Rajakovic wants him to reach in every game. He shot 5-11 from the field, and also made 7 assists, so while he definitely isn’t reaching his full (and expected) potential yet, he could very well be on his way.
The team also got brutally out rebounded by the Rockets, only making 22 compared to Houston’s 53, and 36 of those were defensive boards. Again, hard without your big man out there. Overall the team just got out-hustled, and they still need to figure out their defense if they want their offense to mean anything going forward. Their difficult schedule isn’t helping of course, but the Raptors were in it enough tonight that they could have had a shot if they gave themselves more of a chance through defence.
