Hey, it took them 11 tries, but the Toronto Raptors finally got a win on the road.
It came in a blowout, 119-93 over the New Orleans Pelicans, which made it even better as the Raptors didn’t have to sweat a close one for a change. The Raptors are now 5-14 on the season and 1-10 on the road as they head to Miami to wrap up their four-game road trip before they finally get a nice run at home beginning next week.
It was a career-high for Battle who has continued to impress since earning a two-way contract out of training camp. He shot 6-of-8 from three and was 9-of-11 from the floor overall, while Agbaji was 9-of-10 from the field.
RJ Barrett had 22 points and 11 assists while Scottie Barnes had 17 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists to offset a 7-of-23 shooting night. With Gradey Dick (calf) out, rookie Ja’Kobe Walter more than held his own in his first NBA start, contributing a double-double.
The Raptors shot 49 per cent from the floor and 40 per cent from three (more on that below) while holding the injury-riddled Pelicans to 38.7 per cent shooting as they fell to 4-15 on the year. The Raptors started slowly, leading 21-20 after the first quarter, but overwhelmed New Orleans in the second and third quarters and had a 24-point lead to start the fourth.
Where did that come from?
The NBA’s three-point frenzy this season seemed to have left the Raptors in the slow lane. The Boston Celtics are on pace to set a new NBA record for attempts as they are averaging 50.2 attempts from three per game, which would blow past 45.4 threes per game the Houston Rockets hoisted in 2018-19, the previous league mark.
The Houston Rockets and James Harden were the first team to put up more than 40 threes a game back in 2016-17. So quaint. So far this season there are nine teams averaging 40 or more threes.
The Raptors are not one of them. They came into Wednesday’s game attempting just 31.2 attempts per game, which was last in the league. However, it is the same number as the Golden State Warriors put up during their record 73-9 season in 2015-16 which led the NBA way back when.
The game is changing quickly, obviously, and the Raptors have been struggling to keep up. They made up for it in a big way against the Pelicans as Toronto put up 52 attempts from behind the arc — their previous season high was 39 which they have hit twice. What made it all look so good is that the Raptors knocked down 21 of their triples and had 38 assists, a season-high and a season-tying mark, respectively. It took Toronto a while to get going from deep – the team was just 4-of-17 from deep in the first quarter – but Battle hit both his attempts in the second quarter as the Raptors went 8-of-12 as a group and Toronto was off to the races.
Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic didn’t mince words when Agbaji was a no-show against the Detroit Pistons on Monday, going 0-4 and grabbing just one rebound in 24 unimpactful minutes in the Raptors loss at the horn.
“He needs to be better, simple as that,” Rajakovic said Monday. “He needs to bring more effort …. When you spend (24) minutes on the court and end the game with one rebound, that’s not good enough.”
Agbaji has been on one of the bright spots so far this season, stringing together one impressive performance after another even as the Raptors were struggling, but had gone quiet recently — the Pistons game was the athletic wing’s second single rebound game in his previous three.
Against the Pelicans he was engaged immediately. It was an Agbaji flurry that gave the Raptors their first sign of life as he hit a three after a hand-off from Barnes, made a spectacular block at the other and came down and set up Barrett for a triple that put the Raptors up 18-12.
In the second quarter, he was all over a 14-0 run that flipped a six-point deficit to an eight-point lead as Agbaji hit three corner triples — his specialty — and made a steal and took it the other way for a lay-up in the space of two minutes that changed the course of the game. And just for good measure, Agbaji knocked down two more triples as the Raptor rolled on the Pelicans in the third quarter.
He finished 6-of-7 from deep, the six makes tying a career-high. Oh, and he had six rebounds. Agbaji arrived in New Orleans shooting a career-best 42.2 per cent from three and leaves the Big Easy shooting 46.2 per cent.
First start for Ja’Kobe Walter
With Dick unavailable and a starting spot open, the Raptors decided to slide their first-round pick from last summer into the vacancy. The move gave Walter both the benefit of playing with the Raptors starters and allowed Rajakovic to keep his second unit — which has been giving him positive minutes lately — mostly intact.
After missing all of training camp and all but four games this season with a shoulder sprain, Walter was left behind when the Raptors started their four-game trip so he could get some game reps with Raptors 905 in the G-League.
The two starts did him well as Walter looked sharp for the most part. He hit a three on the Raptors’ first possession and made a nice defensive stop on the Pelicans Dejounte Murray at the other end. He fumbled the ball trying to run a pick-and-roll with Jakob Poeltl but stole the ball right back and made a nice pass to Agbaji for a score.
He finished an incredible basket on a reverse lay-up while getting fouled on a no-look pass from Barnes in the second quarter, and also made a nice interior pass to Poeltl that didn’t end up an assist as the big man didn’t handle it, but it was nice recognition.
On the whole, 14 points, 11 rebounds and five assists is an impressive night’s work for any rookie. He was 2-of-10 from three, but that’s of no matter at this stage, plenty of positives to build for the rookie from Baylor.
The Raptors have seen Zion Williamson at his best. Two seasons ago the Pelicans star decimated a Toronto team that had no facility to guard the six-foot-six, 285-pound cannonball. He went by them, through them and over them for 33 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, four steals and two blocked shots in what was a Pelicans blowout win that came at the low ebb of what ended up being a disappointing 2022-23 season.
The Raptors didn’t have to worry about Williamson being on the floor Wednesday night. As has been the case so often in his six seasons, he was injured (hamstring) and unable to play.
It’s on the verge of becoming a minor basketball tragedy. The former Duke star – where he was teammates with Barrett — was the first overall pick in the 2019 draft and has looked like a potential hall-of-famer when he’s played, with career averages of 24.6 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists on 58.7 per cent shooting. But he’s played just 190 of a possible 409 games in his career, not including 10 playoff games he’s missed. Barrett, who was taken third in 2019, played in his 345th game Wednesday night.
Given his hamstring issues appear to be long-standing at this stage — he had to leave the Pelicans play-in game last April with a hamstring problem, missed three weeks earlier that season with the same issues and has played just six games this season. Add in his history of weight problems, missing a season due to foot surgery and it’s not hard to imagine Williamson’s career becoming one of the NBA’s biggest ‘what ifs’.
It will be fascinating to see how the Pelicans deal with Williamson going forward. In theory, the Pelicans still owe him $126.3 million over the next three seasons after this one, but there were some significant protections built into the deal given Williamson’s injury history. In theory, the Pelicans can waive Williamson now and get out from the deal entirely.
According to a report in The Athletic, if he’s on the roster by Jan. 7, only $7.8 million of his future earnings are guaranteed. He can lock in another 20 per cent of his salary next season if he weighs in successfully six times this season with his weight and body fat combined to be 295 or less, and another 20 per cent of next year’s salary if he plays 41 games; 20 per cent more if he plays 51; and the final 20 per cent if he plays 61.
It’s a highly unusual contract by NBA standards, where deals — long-term deals with franchise stars certainly — are generally guaranteed on signing. Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but it was reported last week that the Pelicans star has fired his agent. Regardless, it’s raised speculation that if Williamson can’t get himself healthy this season the Pelicans might just walk away from one of the most dynamic talents to enter the NBA this decade.
