Toronto Raptors: Looking back at a special opening night

The Toronto Raptors (1-0)

Coming into the new season post-Kawhi, the expectation, the necessity is that the Raptors are going to have to adopt a different style of basketball. Leonard is incredible at what he does and because of that, he’s the kind of player you center an offense around. You put the ball in his hands to finish plays, not to create them.

Without him, the Raptors are fully adopting a style of offensive play heavy on ball movement to go along with the defensive toughness and tenacity that Nick Nurse expects… demands to be the overall character of the squad. The idea is team basketball and the Raptors are already showing that they’ve bought in.

As you would expect, Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet led the way with six and seven assists, respectively. Pascal Siakam added five of his own to the Raptors 23 assists in total. The ball moved really well and there was some pretty impressive passing on display.

Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam each had 34-point games. For Steady Freddy, that was a new career-high. VanVleet came out with that champion air about him with a demonstrative celebration of an and one late in the first quarter. He’s been saying all along that he believes he’s good enough to be a starter in the NBA. It seems like he made a pretty strong case for himself in the win. Throw in five rebounds to go along with his scoring and assists and Coach Nurse has got to be pretty happy with the performance.

Pascal’s 18 rebounds gave him the opening night double-double. Before the season started in musing about where his PPG average might end up this season as he steps into the Kawhi Leonard shaped hole in the starting line up, I thought if he averaged 22 to 23 points the Raptors would be in pretty good shape. For him to have scored 34 without forcing his game, by just doing what he already knows to do I’m realizing that a 23-point average on the season may have been a little conservative. I have to imagine that those who questioned whether Pascal was worth the max extension the Raptors gave him have had some of those doubts silenced.

Terence Davis once again impressed with his performance. Earlier in the week, Nick Nurse pulled no punches when asked about how Stanley Johnson and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson were fitting in. Based on this, I was very interested to see who would get the nod at number eight Raptor’s rotation. I wondered if those guys would have shown enough in practice to earn the open minutes.

Apparently, they didn’t and let an undrafted rookie steal those minutes right out from under them. How Davis went undrafted is a mystery to me, and one that I suspect will be discussed for the duration of his career. His game is just incredibly well rounded.

Early in his minutes, he made multiple offensive rebounds to finish a possession with a bucket. One of his five rebounds was passed to Kyle Lowry before Davis got it back. With a stop and go move (the kind you can’t teach), he was able to create space for a perfect drop of to Serge Ibaka for an easy bucket.

It comes as no surprise that his defense is on point since Nick Nurse had been clear that defensive effort was going to be the determining factor in who got into the rotation. He’s the kind of defensive player that coaches dream of. The kind that can stop a play completely just by utilizing the movement of his feet, which he did near the end of the first half.

And iso call for Norman Powell at the end of regulation may have been a bit of a head-scratcher for many but I thought it was a smart move by Nurse. Norm didn’t get the nickname Playoff Powell for no reason. He’s shown an ability to step up in big moments. You know, moments like when the game is tied at the end of regulation and there’s time for one more shot.

If Norman can be someone who can step into moments like that it could be huge for the Raptors. Especially in games where Siakam and VanVleet or anyone else were the main scorers. It’s not something the other team is necessarily going to be prepared for. Why not draw up a play for him in a tie game at the end of regulation of the very first game of the season?

The Raptors didn’t take the best care of the ball with 16 turnovers. While they were able to pull out the OT win against the Pelicans, there are definitely teams that will absolutely punish that level of sloppiness much more severely than the Pelicans were able to.

They also need to be at least as aware of when they should take a shot as when they should pass. Both OG Anunoby and Marc Gasol, for instance, passed up 3-point shots that they probably should have taken. I love team basketball. As far as I’m concerned that’s the way the game should always be played, but there is such a thing as being too unselfish.