Morning Coffee – Sat, Feb 22

Right back where we left off.

Raptors show no rust, beating Suns 118-101 – The Globe and Mail

Pascal Siakam looked every bit the NBA all-star as he put on a spectacle Friday night, leading his Toronto Raptors to a win in their first game back from the break.

The Cameroonian, fresh off his first all-star appearance, scored 37 points and added 12 rebounds as the Raptors beat the Phoenix Suns 118-101.

Siakam lead seven different Raptors who scored in double digits: Serge Ibaka (16),Fred Van Vleet (14), Terence Davis (14), OG Anunoby (12), Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, and a 13-point, 10 assist performance from Kyle Lowry.

The Raps kicked off the unofficial second half of the season with the first of a four-game homestand.

No Phoenix player could contain Siakam in the first quarter. The All-Star erupted for 17 fast points while shooting hot from beyond the arc, forcing his way to the rim and earning trips to the free throw line.

Had it not been for six sloppy Raptors first-quarter turnovers, Toronto’s 31-23 lead going into the second would have been larger.

The Raps were missing Norman Powell, whose left hand is still healing; and Patrick McCaw, who has the flu.

Toronto was also without its defensive anchor – seven-footer Marc Gasol – and he may be out a while. The Spanish centre sat out the eight games leading into the all-star break after he reaggravated the same hamstring that cost him 12 games in late December and early January. Gasol was initially expected back right after the break, but now the Raps say he will take more time.

Raptors back to winning ways, dispatch Suns in 1st game since all-star break | CBC Sports

Pascal Siakam began the unofficial start to the second half of the NBA season with some fresh legs.

He set the tone for Raptors with 37 points, including five three-pointers, and 12 rebounds to lead Toronto to a 118-101 win over the Phoenix Suns Friday in the teams’ return from the all-star break.

“When you’re making shots, it feels good and everything looks good,” said Siakam, who played in the all-star star game in Chicago last weekend for the first time in his career.

Siakam,had one of the worst three-point percentages when he broke into the NBA during the 2016-17 season at .143. He’s steadily improved that to a point where he’s become a threat whether he drives to the hoop or stays at the perimeter.

“It’s just that he’s put the work in,” said Kyle Lowry, who also had a double-double with 13 points and 10 assists. “He understood early in his career that the only way he was going to get on the floor was making threes.”

Siakam scored 17 of his 37 points in the opening quarter for the Raptors (41-15), who have won 16 of their last 17 games.

Toronto has won eight in a row at Scotiabank Arena.

10 things: Pascal Siakam reasserts his dominance with 37 points vs. Suns

One — Routine: Were there moments of rust? Of course. That is to be expected following a nine-day break. But for the most part, this was business as usual for the defending champions. Credit to the Suns for lingering around, but all it took was one hard push from the Raptors to pull away in the fourth. Admittedly, this game should have been a blowout if the Raptors were in form, but a 17-point win is nothing to scoff at.

Two — Dominant: A rejuvenated Pascal Siakam is bad news for the rest of the NBA. Siakam was everywhere on both ends, tallied 37 points on 12-of-19 shooting, and played one of his best games of the season. Siakam established early on that the Suns could not guard him without sending a double team, and his confidence grew from there. He overwhelmed defenders with his post-ups, but more encouraging still was the return of his face-up game where Siakam produced a stepback three among other highlight sequences. His motor was also high on defense, where he opened the game by blocking a three, and was consistently a hinderance with his help at the rim. Part of the transition to being a No. 1 option is the endurance that it takes to deliver night after night. Siakam was noticeably sluggish (by his standards, at least) heading into the All-Star break, and hopefully he can maintain this level moving forward.

Raptors able to handle Suns despite missing injured Marc Gasol at centre – Sportsnet.ca

As has been the case with almost all their injured players – the Raptors were fifth in games lost to injury coming out of the break – Toronto managed just fine without them, as Norm Powell (finger) and Pat McCaw (flu) were also unavailable.

Against a talented but young Phoenix Suns team, the Raptors were able to manage while shorthanded once again as they survived seeing a 24-point halftime lead dwindle to seven with 5:29 left before halting the Suns’ rally to win, 118-101.

It helped that Pascal Siakam came back from his first all-star game appearance playing like a future MVP.

“I just liked the fact I was more engaged and kind of showed some passion,” he said. “I think it’s important and that’s something that I kind of try to make sure of – that I get engaged and not find a way to not just be out there. I think it’s easy to just relax and I think when you play with more energy and you’re more engaged, everything else kind of falls into place.”

Siakam led all scorers with 37 points and 12 rebounds. He chipped in eight points in the fourth quarter, including a pair of dunks and a crucial assist to OG Anunoby for another dunk that helped push the Raptors’ lead back to double figures. A Kyle Lowry three with 1:28 left capped a 16-6 run to put Phoenix away.

But the Suns visit and Gasol’s extended absence did raise a relevant question: how will a centre rotation that starts at Serge Ibaka and ends at six-foot-nine, 200-pound Chris Boucher manage?

Lakers? Warriors? Heat? Execs Talk Pursuit of Giannis Antetokounmpo | Heavy.com

If the Raptors hoped to make a low-key pitch to Antetokounmpo, it’s not a very well-kept secret. Toronto will have the cap space to sign Antetokounmpo, who would fit nicely alongside another long-limbed, multi-faceted All-Star forward, Pascal Siakam.

Toronto will have to pay out for Fred VanVleet this summer and will look to keep players like Chris Boucher and Terence Davis on cost-friendly contracts, but with only $31 million committed in 2021-22, that shouldn’t interfere with the Raptors’ ability to attack the free-agent market.

It helps that Toronto general manager Masai Ujiri has a long-standing connection with Antetokounmpo and his family, reportedly having helped them immigrate to Greece from Nigeria.

“I don’t think he leaves the Bucks,” one league executive said. “But if he does, Toronto has to be the front-runner. Staying in Milwaukee, that’s No. 1. But if he can stand the cold, Toronto is the perfect situation for him, the next best thing.”

Raptors plan to expand Siakam’s offensive role in preparation for playoffs – TSN.ca

He had other options, of course. He had an entire roster of good options – team captain and reigning league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, human battering ram Joel Embiid, sophomore inferno Trae Young, the red-hot Kemba Walker, just to name a few.

We’re talking about the best players in basketball and, thanks in large part to the well-executed format change and a rousing tribute to the late Kobe Bryant earlier in the evening, it was the most spirited mid-season showcase in recent memory.

But with the game – and $300,000 for charity – on the line, Nurse turned to Siakam.

“I don’t know if that’s how good [Siakam] is or if it’s because Nurse [was] the coach,” joked Raptors guard Fred VanVleet, who was watching from Turks and Caicos. “But I was laughing at him and Kyle [Lowry] trying to close it out out there.”

That Siakam was matched up with James Harden, who isn’t exactly known for his defensive prowess, probably made the decision a bit easier, but make no mistake, Nurse – head coach of Team Giannis – had his day job in mind.

Nurse’s second-place Raptors have had a remarkable campaign. On Friday, they opened the unofficial second half of the season with a 118-101 win over Phoenix to improve to 41-15. Siakam led all scorers with 37 points, including 25 in the first half and another eight in the fourth quarter to help put the game away.

Siakam, last year’s Most Improved Player, has taken another big step after inheriting the featured role from Kawhi Leonard this past summer. There have been growing pains along the way, as you would expect, but he hasn’t looked out of place in the spotlight.

What do Raptors do if Giannis Antetokounmpo is unavailable in 2021? – Sportsnet.ca

But here’s a question to consider: What if he isn’t even a free agent next summer?

According to reports from ESPN’s Tim Bontemps and longtime NBA scribe Sean Deveney, Antetokounmpo is far more likely to stay in Milwaukee than test the free-agency waters.

According to what one NBA general manager told Deveney, “it’s hard to imagine [Anteotokounmpo] leaving the situation he is in. It’s a longshot he leaves. They’ve been very confident all along that he will want to stay in Milwaukee. They’ve never acted like a team that was panicking to make things happen.”

To this point, the Bucks are poised to earn the best record in the league for the second straight year with Antetokounmpo likely to repeat as MVP. The team has a realistic goal of 70 wins in their sights, as good a chance as any team to win a title this spring, and a window that seems to extend for many years to come.

This is why there appears to be so much confidence from Milwaukee that Antetokounmpo isn’t going anywhere. There’s even an expectation he could sign a five-year, $250-million super-max extension sometime in the forthcoming off-season, meaning he won’t reach free agency at all.

Which then brings us back to the initial question: What do the Raptors do if Antetokounmpo isn’t available in the free-agent market come 2021?

With almost assuredly one or two max slots open on their books that summer — a lot, actually.

Raptors’ unconventional 3-point shot-blocking on full display against Suns – The Athletic

As the defence shifted to the strong side of the floor to defend a Devin Booker-Aron Baynes pick-and-roll, a Booker pass made its way across the width of the court to Kelly Oubre Jr. Oubre is a career 33 percent 3-point shooter and a 35.9 percent one on the season. That’s not exactly a 911 scenario for the defence, but he is dangerous when his steely, emerald eyes have time to lock in clearly on the rim, and the Raptors’ strategy of “conceding” corner 3s is only that in broad, ungranulated data.

As soon as the pass left Booker’s hands, Fred VanVleet left his position as the tagger on Baynes’ delayed roll and began a sprint toward Oubre. While VanVleet is not slow or unathletic, his closeout ability is restricted to some degree by his 6-foot-2 wingspan. Even as VanVleet scampered closer, Oubre should have had what would be considered, on paper, a pretty good look: a catch-and-shoot corner 3 in the middle of the shot clock against a late, shorter defender.

VanVleet closed the distance and got an arm up. Oubre missed the shot. VanVleet is not a conventional closeout threat, but he proved effective. It was a fitting snapshot of Toronto’s performance this year on that end, where little has been conventional but almost all of it has proved effective.

The Raptors are the league’s No. 2-ranked defence in somewhat of a roundabout way. As explored in greater detail last month, the Raptors’ defence bucks defensive dogma and macro-level analytic trends. It allows a historic number of 3s, which the discourse around the modern game will say is a bad thing. What’s more, while the timing, contest level and shooter quality for those shots mitigates the raw percentages some, the Raptors have held opponents to lower 3-point percentages than one would expect from those qualifiers. They’re either getting very lucky — over nearly a two-year sample — or they’re doing something that the publicly available data can’t capture, or some combination of both.

Siakam scores 37 to lead Raptors over Suns in first game since all-star break | The Star

Pascal Siakam scored a game-high 37 points and added 12 rebounds to lead the Toronto Raptors to a 118-101 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Friday.

Siakam, who played in his first NBA all-star game last weekend, scored 17 of his 37 points in the opening quarter for the Raptors (41-15), who have won 16 of their last 17 games.

Kyle Lowry also had a double-double with 13 points and 10 assists.

Toronto has won eight in a row at Scotiabank Arena.

Devin Booker scored a team-high 21 points for the Suns (22-34), who have dropped seven of their last nine games. Deandre Ayton recorded a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

The Raptors, playing their first game in nine days due to the all-star break, showed some signs of rust early in the game by committing four turnovers in the opening five minutes and five in the quarter. The Suns failed to take advantage by shooting just 35 per cent in the first frame.

That’s when Siakam went to work, scoring 14 points to give Toronto a 31-23 lead after one quarter.

The Raptors pulled further away from the Suns in the second as Terence Davis scored nine points, including five in the opening 1:21 of the frame.

Siakam scores 37 to lead Raptors over Suns in return from all-star break – Sportsnet.ca

“When you’re making shots, it feels good and everything looks good,” said Siakam, who played in the all-star star game in Chicago last weekend for the first time in his career.

Siakam,had one of the worst three-point percentages when he broke into the NBA during the 2016-17 season at .143. He’s steadily improved that to a point where he’s become a threat whether he drives to the hoop or stays at the perimeter.

“It’s just that he’s put the work in,” said Kyle Lowry, who also had a double-double with 13 points and 10 assists. “He understood early in his career that the only way he was going to get on the floor was making threes.”

Siakam scored 17 of his 37 points in the opening quarter for the Raptors (41-15), who have won 16 of their last 17 games.

Toronto has won eight in a row at Scotiabank Arena.

Devin Booker scored a team-high 21 points for the Suns (22-34), who have dropped seven of their last nine games. Deandre Ayton recorded a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds.

The Raptors, playing their first game in nine days due to the all-star break, showed some signs of rust early in the game by committing four turnovers in the opening five minutes and five in the quarter. The Suns failed to take advantage by shooting just 35 per cent in the first frame.

That’s when Siakam went to work, scoring 14 points to give Toronto a 31-23 lead after one quarter.

The Raptors pulled further away from the Suns in the second as Terence Davis scored nine points, including five in the opening 1:21 of the frame.

Morning Coffee – Sat, Feb 22 originated on Raptors Republic.