A Brand New Barrett & Gradey’s Growth | Raptors Show Full Episode
Hello and welcome to the Raptor show on the sports radio network brought to you by Campbell’s new chunky spicy soup it’s time to get fired up make sure you find the Raptor show wherever you listen to podcast and please rview the program I’m your host way Lou Blake Murphy for the
Third week in a row I know he’s feeling weird about this three weeks in a row not working not talking to a microphone not obsessing over every tiny little detail in a Raptor’s Hornets game so we continue to have a rotating uh panel of co-hosts to join us and so for today and
For tomorrow we have Samson folk Raptors Republic front of the program you’ve been on at least five or six times now on the Raptor show but Samson I appreciate you man how you doing doing well oh we got the the drop yeah that’s nice to see uh that was actually Blake
Had uh proposed that when I initially took over the Raptor Republic podcast from you the yeah Dave Chappelle I want to talk to I’m doing well basically though and happy to be on thank you for uh allowing me to co-host by the way no I as I tell everybody who has done this
And everyone keep keeps saying thank you it’s it’s a huge favor that you’re doing for me so yeah if anything I owe you like I should grab you actually get you lunch or something but oh we could we could arrange that or something like that but I get it it’s like offloading
Work is one of the true pleasures of life I think absolutely um yeah I mean listen you and I both offloaded a little bit work last night after [Laughter] sport uh per sources that were they were quite it was quite limited uh sparsely attended by by media the upper bowl
Maybe in the lower bowl maybe they re more I know you typically sit in the lower bowl yeah is that where the where’s the Grinders is it upper bowl is the Grinders are lower bows the Grinders you would think the upper bowls are grinders but realistically not to snitch on people
But like half the people up there aren’t doing any work yeah so yeah it’s a good place to take in the game it’s absolutely a great a good game yesterday quite honest with you like I enjoyed the process I didn’t watch it from the inside the arena but you know it was a
Fun game with some fun I don’t know schematic stuff from the Raptors some fun performances from the Raptors and every game is a little bit less fun now because there’s no SC Scotty but there were things to like for sure okay let’s let’s get to that game Raptors beat the
Hornets last night 111 to 106 Gary Trent Jr misses a free throw to make us all sweat and then he steals the ball he lit I love Gary steals they’re just like just clamping ripping you and then goes the other way for a dunk Raptors win last night against the Hornets I mean
Look uh the Raptors are obviously having a tough season and they’re down bad and they lose uh Scotty over the weekend and then they lose yakob uh on top of that at least for the second half of last night’s game but they still had some a couple players they still had quickly
They still had RJ you know that those two guys played really well I saw you tweeted that it’s really fun to see those two guys lead and generate a lot of offense we’ll have a bigger discussion about RJ but what did you make of those two players who primarily
Were the driving factors leading the rapers to Victory I thought that the Hornets did Emanuel a very big favor by blitzing him okay and think that Emanuel took that response and made good on it and I think it it was really nice because as we’ve kind of talked about
Emanuel has had kind of dwindling efficiency as a scorer in the pick and roll he’s been more effective as a passer and yaka purle is a really effective short roll passer so as Kelly o Lin so if you’re going to send two to the ball on Emanuel quickly it
Automatically triggers a response where you can make that easy lob over to yakob or Kelly and then you’re playing in these four on three situations where if you have a decent playmaking big you have will and cutters on the wings the Raptors find themselves in advantageous positions to score and while the half
Court offense on the whole last night was not good and I think they’ve only had three above average half court offensive performances over the last 18 games since Pascal got traded great it’s not going super well but they’ve been heavier on the offensive glass they’ve
Been able to do some stuff and this is about growth so to see Emanuel quickley kind of take that heavy defensive response provide what he can and then they score out of it it’s nice it’s good to see yeah quickly last night to your point uh 11 assists this is already five
Games of him with double digit assists with the Raptors it’s a different role to be the lead guard for the team Farm here too yeah you don’t feel like they’re a low inflated do you there okay they’re super inflated man there we go all right go ahead it’s it’s an assist
Farm like I don’t there was I think it’s started with Dennis and I know Dennis is like FR of the show I don’t mean to be that’s F anything on Dennis but fine the rappers have this thing where they make like a pass and there’s like 4 seconds
Of fill MH and then a shot is made yeah and there’s an assist yeah it’s they definitely they’re Juiced right now I guess we could compare Raptor’s home assist versus the away assist and then I guess regress that against like what teams typically do less on like perform
Less on the road but that’s an interesting one because yeah it does feel like whoever’s running point guard for the Raptors it’s partially also the system yeah probably as well um but in any case it was good as you mentioned that he was able to at least identify
And read and and and play out of those uh blitzes and and Darko actually had a clip about it just urging Emanuel Quicky to continue to make the right reads going forward so here’s that clip from postgame that was part of our conversation where I had up with both uh
Quickly and RJ before the game you know don’t think that you got to do more now when Scotty is there that you got to you know take more shots necessarily you guys are both great great players you’re gonna get your shots in the game just allow it to to come naturally and make
Sure that we have a good ball movement and they’re playing together we are reestablishing identity you know I don’t know how many times this year right now but that has to be they they they that has to be our identity that we move the ball that we play together that play we
Play off of each other and I thought for the big part of the game we did good job outside of those uh those 14 turnovers so hopefully next game he has 10 assists and zero turnovers yeah so um quickly and RJ both uh drove drove a lot of the
Offense last night RJ finishes with five assists 10 of 15 shooting for RJ I mean the three-point shot is do you believe in the RJ’s three-point shot not I think he’s like 40% as a raptor yeah I don’t believe in it to that degree I believe he can be serviceable between like what
34 and 37% depending on the year or something like that but I think the biggest change for RJ which we’ll talk later is obviously the rim pressure the driving efficiency and the finishing at the bucket the three-point shot I don’t know the mechanics don’t sell me on it
The numbers would have to be so overwhelming yeah because you know there’s guys like Tyrese halberton who has this really crazy shot and those types of guys they have to prove a little bit less dynamic they have to prove it more often with like larger volume higher percentages and RJ it
Doesn’t sell me on it currently but I’m glad to see it I mean this is where I I always talk about this but you do the same thing go early the game watch them warm up go through their routines there’s certain guys where are like it’s inconsistent in warm-ups so like I don’t
Understand how you’re shooting and performing at a higher level pre he was a really big one he’d airball all the time yeah he would yeah Grady honestly at the start of the season I was like oh I don’t know and then as The Season’s gone on for me I’m like okay yeah he’s
It’s like eight out of 10 nine out of 10 who’s the who’s the biggest like prove it guy that was beating the allegations of like the pregame warm-ups pascow pascow pascow had a real consistent like and whatever I wouldn’t say like Pas is like a knockdown shooter but he would it
I don’t know whether it was focused Scotty has a little bit of as well you know like he will miss a lot in in warm-ups but in the game I feel like he’s focusing in I mean he started uh slowing down a lot yeah post pcot trade
As well but yeah RJ is Def one of those guys for me I mean the free throws I continue to not understand why he continues to smoke free throws um 61% I think there it’s it might be even lower than that now for the Raptors but he just continues to have these nights
Where it’s like he’ll miss both you know mhm there’s certain guys where it’s like you’ll miss the first one and then youjust make the second one that’s always a yakob thing for me but I understand with yakob because he’s shoting one hand and free throws
RJ I I don’t know I would love to see him I’d love to see him more because again as you mentioned the core of what he’s doing is really good already yeah there’s a lot of flick on his jumper you know and he like loads it really low he
Gets it year I don’t know Drew hanin worked with him when he made that first big jump from like year one to year two I think he shot what 38% or 39% in year two and then obviously it’s been dipping since then but I’m just glad to see him
Take like open looks with the Raptors and hopefully the response is something we saw Scotty develop over the course of the Season which is you start developing like longer and longer Closeouts as a response from the defense but as far as like am I sold on 40% absolutely not
Fair enough not to be a hater but no it’s it’s fine um another big topic from yesterday was just who’s going to replace Scotty Barnes in the starting group uh as we move forward into this new period of the Season which uh they get a little bit sadder without Scotty
Available uh if you haven’t heard already he is uh he he broke a finger in his hand and so oaji was the one who ultimately stepped in and filled in for the starting group um bit of an interesting stat line you don’t see him take 20 shots he’s not that type of
Player but six to 20 from the field for oai abaji uh did hit the glass hard four offensive rebounds nine rebounds overall two blocks including a really nice block and then I think he got the pass back from Kelly and took it the length of the Court little hesitation and got past his
Man finished at the basket what did you make of oai filling in for Scotty in the starting group I think that oai filed he did like the very first play that he scored on he was like a fact simile of Scotty and basically what happens is
When oi goes to set that screen for Emanuel on ball it puts the Raptors in a position okay what is the defensive response the Hornets play it really high which means that if oai slips he gets below the level of the bottom Defender and can create a seal Raptors fans we’ve
Been watching Scotty seal players and create these postentry passes all season long it’s a great play oai does that quickly immediately like automatic read to yakub to create a different angle for the Post entry he does that that’s like great that oi can with his motion and like he’s pretty muscular frame out
There kind of fit in that way but as far as like 20 shot attempts six of 20 and the volume was insane man he looked really over extended as like an on ball Creator um the jump shot one for seven from downtown obviously didn’t work out
Well the hustle is there the hustle is there like that the hustle is there and defensively it made sense to be guarding like Brandon Miller and Miles Bridges late no I mean they they certainly need his defense right I mean because when you’re replacing Scotti it’s like you
Got to replace like so many different roles so many different parts and oai he actually he’s not much like Scotty at all no I’m trying to I’m trying to make it a little bit better but I think in his performance in particular I mean I’m not going to
Justify 20 shots but did you have any exception with any of the 1 for seven from from three like those were mostly open Catch and shoot looks no I think basically he’s in the Raptors aren’t that good of a team oi came over here to
Like get more out of his game yeah and he’s a very willing cutter and the Raptors are a team that very willingly moves the ball it’s going to find the open player yeah if this team if this team were good enough then you could kind of like turn your nose up at oai
Attempted threes but they’re not good enough for that you have to see you have to get the extra legs out of GR game you got to get out out of oi’s game emanuel’s game RJ’s game and Scotty when he was healthy you just got to see about
This kind of stuff yeah but I mean I the reason I see CU like when I watched the back it was like I I didn’t think that any of them were like contested shots where he’s not like stepping back and taking really bad ones there was a
Stretch there in third quarter he missed two wide open ones and he still took the third one and he knocked it down now whatever I’m not saying one for seven is good but you know those weren’t bad shots to me he also crashed the glass a
Couple times and tried to tip it in a couple times a couple tip backs so you know it looks bigger on the field goal percentage you know uh in terms of the total but those weren’t necessarily bad ones again you just liked if he converted I think for me it was just
Couple times especially in the fourth quarter he thought the ball swung to him and he had to make a decision off the bounds and that’s where I was like ah you’re picking up your dribble and it’s like you’re taking off from like the dotted Circle and you’re trying to
Stretch to a layup or I mean he got blocked by dois Berton he kind of like it was a it was a play where they inmed to him and it was I think the first action they wanted to give the little you know other triple hand off or cut
For Grady who cut um to one side of the floor and the Hornets defense actually did a great job denying the catch to Grady and so instead of oai resetting the offense to quickley who’s at the top of four like okay whatever the first action work get back to me work pick and
Roll he was like no I’m going to do like a little fake it keeper play and then I’m going to take it strong against IIs btimes which I’m okay fine I guess he’s not a strong Defender but he is bigger than you and oai did try to do that
Against him and maybe he could have stretched his way to a lefty layup it would have been more difficult he would have had to really stretch and again he took off from pretty far out but he went back to his right hand and beron just completely stuffed him and I’m like look
If you’re getting stuff by Davis Burton’s like you you got to make yeah you know more conservative choices offensively well he was at his best like half of his makes were just a result of being an active cutter you know we we detailed and basically diagrammed through the a
What he did on his first score of the game but the other two scores were just like short roll situations where yakob is able to and Kelly is able to dictate that they get a rotation to the middle of the floor and OA just cuts from where
His Defender left him one for that big lob where he did dunk on beron and he got stuck in the middle awesome super athletic feet that’ll be in his like highlight mix for his career hell yeah you want that play as often as possible and the other one he just cut from the
Opposite corner but that was half of his mix mhm that was was three out of the six out of the 20 attempted shots and yeah it was he was overextended with a live Tribble which I think we’re going to see happen to quite a few players
Sure by design for these Raptors as they try and like exist without OG and then Pascal and then Scotty like guys just have to be willing to try more things so the volume is an indicator that like hey he’s trying he’s participating yeah he took 20 field goals uh last night and he
Made 24 total passes yeah which is that’s an awesome stat that’s that’s that’s rare to do um yaka played I thought yaka played really well in the first half organized the team played good defense screened short rolled got guys in and out of difficult situations played pick and roll allowed quickly to
Get going and then unfortunately he leaves right before half with the dislocated pinky hopefully he’s able to play going forward because I mean if you don’t I mean the Raptors I guess they do have jonte and we saw jonte a little bit yesterday they still have Kelly who they
Slid into the starting role um yeah I don’t know yaka might be their like their best player right now in terms of like the biggest floor Riser he’s so important because there is you want to walk that fine line because obviously the Raptors what they want to
Be this season as a team has changed expectations have changed absolutely and there’s some like there’s a return in in the NBA in being bad that you might get a better trick all that kind of stuff but you don’t want to fall so far down that like the type of basketball you’re
Playing returns so little in terms of like impact and value in the Reps you’re getting and yaka being out there just as like a good screen Setter a guy that they go to in their delay action to make Progressive reads and we talked about the short role him being an important
Piece there he helps connect together good basketball plays yes and if you’re just out there vibing we’ve seen like Raptors fans for a long time have laughed at other teams in that dysfunction like oh you guys are never getting out of this situation mhm it’s important
You are you have to be bad to get a good pick yes but you also want to play productive basketball yeah and yakob is so pivotal so imperative to playing productive basketball that I don’t know how long it took for them to like locate that pinky back in I don’t know what the
Recovery situation is but he’s very important he is he is incredibly important he plays confident basketball he plays with a S I think this is honestly why the Spurs like obviously they were willing to move off of yakob and the Raptors met their price ultimately um and we don’t have to go
Over like whether that was the right decision from the rappers or not priced we it’s been talked to death we know we know it wasn’t the right choice and and this is why the Raptors can’t control their own pick right now uh and maybe for the foreseeable future if they can
Retain their pick this year but like he provides the structure as you mentioned that a lot of young players do need somebody to play off of and I feel like I If he’s not available I do feel really badly for quickly in a way because he’s probably the guy that’s most impacted by
This but of course whatever I mean I don’t know the next match up against the Pelicans is also terrible it’s just like they have so much size and it’s like yakob is probably the only guy you can throw against that size unless you really want to start two bigs which I
Really don’t want to see the Raptors do that but um it’s also please stay healthy yakob that’s all who who is g to be there when Zion like turns the corner it’s like a big question well they had yakob guardian’s Zion last time and I I
Would prefer him in a help role me too yeah yeah who’s our ruy haimura so ad he he can be the ad sliding over on on yic it’s probably like oai again or God all right kazai is probably gonna start again yeah I think by the way he should
Continue to start right did you agree with that I’d rather Grady starts you rather Grady start yeah defensively then that’s that’s a lot on everybody but like it’s it’s the whole court and I think Grady getting reps is really important and like okay I I’d like
Graded to start and then you can go towards like 30 minutes per game if he’s gassed he’s gassed I get it but Grady has a pretty good sense of where to be defensively which means that he can exist out there if he’s not put in like the grinder in the Wheelhouse yeah and
The Pelicans they probably would to some degree they got a lot every team is going to do that to some degree but also like I don’t know he’s going to have to be out there at some point in time and these Raptors are not they did beat the
Hornets yes but they’re not out here to like Win Every Game maximize every some of it is development so and I would rank Grady above oai in terms of like who do you want to see more out of and whose I don’t know high-end outcome matters more I hear that but you also
Just made the good point about yaka being really important to the Raptors still playing competent basketball and I’m not saying that like it’s going to be that much of a drop off to go from like Grady to oad but I don’t know I I feel like Grady especially the way he
Started this season and and he had another good game last night the Grady dick that Lan came in at 11 points four of seven at three of five from three we’ll talk about him as well after this break but um just in general I feel like
He started the season so like in in such a weird place and got really you know one down to the g- league didn’t even perform well at the g- league level quite honestly and then he came back and he’s found this Rhythm I’m like almost a little cautious to be like all right
You’re in such a comfortable place right now you come off the bench you you’re succeeding let’s just like let’s stay in this comfortable place and of course if you’re playing really well just extend some of your minutes off the bench right that’s that’s for me but I’m more of a
Cautious person I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here you’re a cautious guy I’m a cautious guy yeah I’m pretty I’m not saying I’m conservative I’m definitely not conservative but like yeah you don’t want to to be very clear um yeah interesting yeah I think I just
Don’t want him to like fall back into a lot you know what I mean like I want him to finish out this rookie season strong there’s definitely it seemed like he already hit a rookie wall you don’t want him to hit that second wall maybe I guess there’s
Some I suppose yeah there’s some wisdom in that and there’s you know this is something that coaches always have to worry about that like pundits like ourselves we can say whatever we want but there’s really no impact on the player um a coach might be worried about like protecting Grady and like putting
Him in the right spots and not overextending him and he might be seeing things like Darko might be seeing things and Pat might be seeing things in practice where they’re like oh yeah we don’t want to put Grady out here but I don’t see practice so I’m like I don’t
Know just give us minutes no fair that’s that’s probably my point of view which could I guess there’s not like could be a little bit takey but yeah I would like to see as much Grady as possible going forward that’s fair he was he was also
Very fun to watch last night he’s going to do even more more Off the Bench the I suppose especially with Scotty getting injured now that moves no are back into the group if yaka misses more time that moves uh you know jonte porter back into the group and the Raptors seem to be
Committing to this DJ card in that backup point guard thing because again if you’re replacing Scotty he was playing backup point guard for you as well wait let me ask you do you know anything as to why carton like Le frog JFL no I don’t um I don’t think he was
Playing that much better than him let’s say that in the G league but I think the only thing with JFL is just like and and he did get uh you know converted into a standard contract so congrats to Javon um I think yeah he’s primarily playing
As a score not necessarily as a point guard sure but I don’t know I mean it’s not so important for me to like table set so much as like if you can bring other skill sets in addition to that and I don’t think that it’s fair to bringing
A guy who was kind of a combo guard plays like a combo guard and you’re like yeah but the problem is you’re not a point guard you know what I mean and I don’t think DJ car necessarily is like a traditional point guard either but regardless like those are the three guys
That played for the second unit last night is there anything intriguing you from war Cardin or Porter I think honestly as far as like if our ranking between like wara aaji Grady Grady is like the inflection point of he’s interest thing provides a certain level of impact and you’re looking at a
Certain level of upside if I want to play I think the best player right now of aaji Brady and War I think he’s War probably as far as like what a guy can do on the floor and I know ai’s bonafides on defense are a little bit
Better than War’s but I think War’s utility offensively especially you look at a Raptor’s team as we said in the last 18 games only three above average half court performances War can do a lot of stuff he can connect a lot of those like initiation plays and in a game
Where like RJ was impressive but was overextended at you know five turnovers in a game where quickly did get to 11 assists but like over like either half or over half of them came in transition they want to connect like the middle play like the the first play maybe it
Doesn’t work the first action doesn’t work in the half court the second action what makes it dangerous like war on ball or aaji on Ball and I think War would like elevate a lot of the in between stuff offensively so I hope he gets more
Minutes and and DJ I have to see more film on him but you have to see any film on him let’s be honest no but just like watching him with the Raptors then like you you go into like the the three videos you can find of like his g-
League highlights right and that’s like oh he’s making shots but he seems pretty slick on the inside of the arc and the problem with all these you know g-league guards is that you wonder can they create these big defensive responses to them to where they give other players
Advantages or are they like just that level of shot maker bring it to the league right now and I don’t know if I have any indication that he’s that level of guy currently but have you seen more of JFL yeah definitely because I saw him at summer league and I watched like a
Lot of his Windy City Bowl stuff because I was like oh he’s going to be part of the team whereas DJ you know we were wondering it kind of sprung on us and then just like early season preseason JFL some of JFL during this season um my
Lean is that JFL is a better player but um DJ is probably better defensively which matters maybe to the guys we saw him scrap a little bit we he forced that what 8sec counter against meich trying to bring the ball up past half and he did get that offensive rebound that led
To I think RJ knock down a three or something like that but yeah I don’t know I don’t know enough about DJ Cardon quite frankly you’re Jud when you’re like you’re talking about like we have this g-league guard we have gag guard we have this g- league big man you know
It’s like yeah it’s tough to square exactly how everybody’s going to translate the when the were getting guys like popping off from the g- league it was in this incubator of like a a team that wins over 50 games every single year has such a clear-cut identity and
It’s like well we don’t know which guy’s the best right now but we know which guy fits and has an Avenue to minutes and the Raptors are just so like influx that like anybody could play honestly well um yeah when you’re playing War DJ car and
Jon in the same game anyone can play uh without due respect actually um last thing just on just on those three guys in particular like are you confident that they can at least replicate some of what the bench was doing cuz I really did enjoy the Rhythm that the bench was
Going and of course a lot of that was Scotty with the bench and there’s nobody on the team that even remotely replicates that skill set but can they still move the ball can they still run the same sets with those three options in addition to Grady who’s obviously
Going to be you know continues to be very featured off the second unit the short answer is I think that they can and it’s because I think Darko has done a really good job of insert the framework of this offense okay yeah is there a longer answer yeah I can give
The longer answer I think that like well I want to keep a sure but it makes sense because Darko has created like an offense where there isn’t that much improvisation like a lot of the players are working through you know automated reads and there’s room for improvisation
Within that but the Raptors are coming from an offense that was a lot about like get into space Boogie woggie make something happen whereas now it’s kind of like what is the next action it’s continu motion it’s a lot of screening and if you’re a player like
And you see you come out of the corner out of like a Chicago Action which is you come off of a screen into a dribble handoff there are different things that the guy who set the screen initially and the guy in the dribble handoff can do and the defensive response if they’re
Playing up dictates that like okay there’s a cut here the guy on top knows in practice we run this if they’re if they’re playing High I know what pass to look for on the same side if they bring the help from the weak side I can look
To make a skip and a lot of these reads are kind of been trained into these guys and maybe DJ might be a little bit behind but they’ve he’s probably played in delay action and that kind of stuff coming up out of college and into an NBA
Player so I think Darko has done a really good job of like incentivizing guys to move to work through the offense and that’s why despite not being a great offense you see why there’s not like a huge drop off from like point A to point B because they are just running a system
Now and I think it’s a system that will be good going to the future and that will multiply when you get good players no for sure and I think that honestly that that’s a pretty important point because you know when you think back to the like this comparison is always to
Spurs and the Spurs are like Championship standards so Raptors are very far from the Spurs I obviously make that very clear but like that’s what made the Spurs even more impressive at times where was like okay Pop’s going to arrest certain guys from National televis games but like here’s Matt
Bonner and he’s just going to step in and they’re going to still beat and play at a really high level and it’s Testament to the system and guys able to step into it so hopefully those guys continue to make the Raptor basketball at least watchable cuz I don’t need to
Be winning necessarily especially at this stage if they lose cool it helps the tank if they win cool it’s nice to see young players succeed but I want it to be watchable maybe that’s just selfish but I I think that that at least should be a goal and they played until
Their offense died in the fourth quarter and honestly a lot of that was just guys miss some shots and things like that but um you know it was actually watchable and it’s even though they missed out on some very very key pieces um they were still competent basketball being played
Last night against the Charlotte Hornets so before we go to this break I want to let you know uh grmy award-winning rock bands the national and the war on drugs are touring for the first time together and they’re coming up Budweiser stage on September 20th with special guest Lucius
As part of their Zen diagram tour and we have tickets to give away that’s right it’s not basketball tickets this time it’s concert tickets to all to all you have to do is text the daily code word to 59590 today’s code word is National text National to 5959 right now for your
Chance to win we have another pair of tickets to give away on tomorrow show if you don’t win with us tickets are officially on sale at ticketmaster.ca yeah I’m really excited to see the national I saw them over the summer uh last summer and it was quite good and
You know I don’t know do you have do you have that one band that like you went through a sad period in life with and even though you’re no longer sad and in that period once in a while you will go back to the album and just press that brw
This is definitely like this is where Blake is missing out cuz I’m not like edgy white guy like punk rock edgy white guy like he was cuz he have like doesn’t have to be rock band it could be any band you have emotions man yeah yeah
There’s like uh there’s an album by um 070 Shake which is like uh it’s her uh debut album which very there’s like a lot of Sonic sounds in it it’s very very emotional that’s like a big album in my life sh that I could listen to I’ll get
Sad to it sure do did you have a heartbreak like real life heartbreak Associated to the album or no cuz like no no my heartbreaks were associated with like maybe TV shows oh interesting yeah okay nice well that’s the national for me so text the national to
590590 so you can I don’t know cry the concert with me I don’t know well anyway we we’ll take another we’ll take a break I’ve been your host will you’ve been listening to the Raptor show on the sports radio network brought to you by Campbell’s new chunky spicy soup oh yeah
Shouts to shouts to welcome back to the Raptor show on the sports radio network I’m your host way mov yeah shouts to producer Derek for playing a little the national this this Fake Empire um you know maore Ma made a remix of this once and uh ruined the song a little bit for
Me but I still love this song anyway Samson you’re here you feel like lros when you hear it you’re like damn I could cry right now uh a little bit like a little bit like I feel like it it’s it’s shifted my mood instantly just hearing those little
Piano keys so I know you can’t hear this on the podcast that’s why you gota listen live you always talking about this um okay last last last segment we talked about the fact that we wanted to get a little bit deeper into RJ season and and Grady
Season where do you want to start do you want to start with gry or RJ we were talking about RJ on the break so let’s keep it there and let’s talk about RJ so RJ clearly since joining the Raptors has been the most efficient period of his entire career um you know expectations
For RJ was fairly low like I mean I think in New York they were quite High because they drafted him third and and they they extended him he was like the first rookie since like somebody in the 90s that they actually extended off their rookie scill contract so the
Knicks have just not done a good job developing or actually like retaining the the players that they develop at least historically I think right now they’re doing better but in any case um RJ was seen us a little bit disappointing maybe a little bit polarizing coming from New York since
Coming to Toronto though I feel like he’s certainly exceeded expectations he’s certainly been efficient still scoring a high volume and whatever the free throws and the three-point shooting are quite confusing to me but that’s I think the the overall look at RJ what
Have you made of RJ as a raptor so I did this deep dive you know a couple weeks ago where I watched every RJ pass that he made as a raptor and then as a New York Nick I love the Deep Dives because you can kind of notice some things and
One thing I was really looking forward to because there’s the easy stats that I can just read off that they don’t really require a deep dive but he had 53% true shooting in New York it’s 62% in Toronto that change is radical that’s basically from being like an
Empty calie really bad stats guy to as far as being a tertiary scorer one of the most efficient in the NBA given like his touch time the amount of touches he gets a game he’s basically he’s supercharged every time he touches the ball yeah and in a trade like a a a
Change of landscape whatever he has the highest assist percentage of his career by a wide Mark he shoots 55% on his drives in Toronto it was 38% with the Knicks that’s an insane change okay he passes out of 40% of his drives here it was 27% with the Knicks better decision
Out of only 27% of your drives is an absurdly low number you know who else has that number Zion Williamson RJ is not Zion as far as a finisher and like all the best drivers in the league typically sit between like 35 and 38% passing out so RJ is more in line with
That and he’s shooting 72% at The Rim as a raptor he never cleared 60% at any point in his career so and also as a raptor he’s the team high on drives points out of drives and assists out of drives that’s like clearing well Pascal had more assists out of drives when he
Was here but he’s driving more than Pascal did as a raptor scoring more than Pascal did as a raptor and he’s clearing Scotty on everything all of this on low touch is in low touch time right he doesn’t dominate the ball no he’s like he has less of the ball than Emanuel he
Has less of the ball than Scotty he has like a similar amount of the ball to yakob and the touch times are low like he’s not putting a lot of dribbles in he makes good decisions but the Deep dive was to figure out advant assist and we
Talked about like the assist farm and how you know the scorekeeper can kind of like hand you a couple and like hey I’m not I’m not B ACC we got to come back tomorrow with harder facts on this one in general not like the rapper scorekeeper but yeah and assists in the
NBA I talked to Scotty about this last year because I did a deep dive on his Advantage assists and when I asked him he was like I think it’s easier to get assist in the NBA than it is in college why because they can like you give a guy
The ball they’re better score ores you can just like lock your way into assists but an advantage an advantage assist is an assist you know designation that I created like not all assists are created equal if you give a guy like the Patrick Macau 11 assist game where they’re
Running like horns and a guy comes over the top and he gives it to him like there’s a shot made like it’s an assist but you didn’t really create an advantage RJ was 33% of his assists were Advantage assists which is like you create like this big change in the in
The defense and create like a wide open Corner three or you get all the way into the lane you create like a lay down to hand it off for a layup or something like that like big advantages you did all the work and you gave the guy a shot
Or or a make and it went from 33% on the Knicks to 42% as a raptor and it was because he’s creating more layups for teammates and he’s creating more Corner three-point shots so the like surface level numbers are all there the more in-depth level numbers are all there
He’s making better passing decisions he’s been way more efficient as a d driver and he also happens to be shooting the three ball well everything is like coalesced into like he’s just a way different level of player here I think because that I think that’s the
Thing for a lot of people is like is this real is this sustainable from RJ and I think that you know at certain times you still wonder that yourself because it is such a big jump but what are some of the factors that have gone into this is this just a change in
System is it a change in the personality he’s playing with is it the fact that he lives within walking distance to an Osmos like what’s happening with this I we talked about this before the show and this is something that my friend who’s he’s a terrific Scout Josh codera
Pointed out as soon as he got traded the disparity in lefties on the roster and I kind of wanted just to like talk about that with you and give you like what do you think about it because you brought it up to me yeah yeah the Lefty
Corollary well I mean it it’s talked about so much in baseball right um do you have the right mix of left-handed right-handed like that’s balance in the lineup every sport like really like baseball’s the one that talks about your left-handedness your right-handedness the absolute most baskball is close right there’s certain guys it’s
Obviously a bit of anomal I mean it’s obviously rare to be a left-handed player um just left-handed in general but I think the fact that the Knicks had three guys um in Brunson in Randall and RJ and they were obviously primarily playing through those three guys more
Than anyone else they were all lefties it is just a really strange coincidence like you just didn’t see that in most other teams now of course you don’t call it a coincidence when your top three guys are all right-handed players you know what I mean like uh I guess before
Harden got there it was like kawhai PG Westbrook they’re all right-handed players right so it’s not like necessarily an issue there but I do think for for RJ and to an extent the Knicks played a lot of pick and roll played a lot of just like stand still RJ
You’re going to get a screen but generally speaking you’re going to Barrel your way to the hoop and we’re going to play off of that and I think for the Raptors they’re putting him in better situ situations where either he’s he’s curling or he’s already in motion
In a way or there’s an advantage dribble created elsewhere the ball swings over to him there’s certainly more ball movement in this system versus New York whatever New York has a more efficient offense but um yeah I do think that there’s other kind of conditions that
Have created for RJ to be more efficient and honestly maybe just him being a lefty is just part of that I mean there was a play Yesterday where he was driving in transition he was pushing and he had the ball on the right side did a
Euro Step kind of into his Defender and then he still went up for a left-handed layup even on the right hand side with the inside hand layup with the left and I was like he is entirely predictable when he goes to the hoop and yet nobody
Can stop him there has to be a special skill and a talent in that it’s a lot of it I think is just that like that strength creation like he bigger guys if he’s not being loaded up on it’s a one-on-one I have if there’s a guy 610
And under basically all the faith in the world that RJ is going to like put that guy closer to the stanson than he is to the Rim like RJ’s going to get that shoulder right on the chest move him out of the way without chicken winging without getting the offensive foul going
To clear space that’s really important he’s a bulldozzer a snowplow and the Lefty stuff it is funny that it’s in baseball because baseball is like discreet players have a less tangible impact on one another than in any other game because it’s like you walk no they
Don’t go to the Batters box with you but you’re the Lefty and the righty whereas like basketball everyone is like these intermingling you know skill sets and everything like that and RJ goes from playing on the Knicks and defenses that are very used to loading up on isolations and pick and rolls from
Jaylen Brunson and Julius Randall that somehow always end up going to the left side of the glass which as you discuss like RJ is trying to get there he’s like I can’t sneak attack anybody you know there’s this like path dependency right is like you’re going to the spot that
You you’ve been trained to go to this spot you go to the spot this is your best spot and it’s funny that like just the change from Nicks to Raptors the change of like offensive environment and honestly to a worse by the Numbers offensive environment for sure has
Created you know the conditions for him to succeed a little bit more well way more and then on top of that too I think you talked about the curve drives and coming off of curls there’s um I don’t know if you’ve ever seen like polar his
Name is Skyfall on Twitter he’s a he’s a biomechanics he’s a Korean doctor and he works in sports but every once in a while he’ll kind of descend down and give like a biomechanical EXP explation of why players succeed and he’s long been really interested in RJ Barrett and
How just for like his type of athleticism straight line drives aren’t as friendly as curve drives and for the Raptors to switch from being like not a pick and roll offense or an isolation offense like the Knicks which incentivizes straight line drives pick and roll to come off of like more
Dribble handoffs out of the corner more of these blade Cuts you know alongside the the pick and roll happening at the top it puts them on more curved drives with which he gets to kind of like grind guys down and still get to his left hand
At The Rim I think the Raptors have just been like they’ve been helping him out I think honestly like there’s obviously a lot of talk this year was like dark’s goingon to come in he’s going be a developmental guy and I feel like you know there’s going to be hit or misses
With it I think with arj it’s absolutely a case of him identifying or the rest of the Raptors identifying that like there’s a little bit higher in what he can do you can make a more efficient version of what RJ bar has been able to do and that’s what he’s shown us over
And over again now I think probably still there’s still lots of clear limitations right like it’s still a huge surprise when he finishes with his right sometimes in the game um it’s the three-point shooting we still don’t I mean to our previous discussion we still don’t fully buy into it the free throws
It’s certainly there I think even just one-on-one shot creation late in a game I’m thinking back maybe to the Pacers game when when Pascal came back and the play was like I guess it was supposed to go to Scotty but the ball didn’t go to Scotty went to RJ rg1 101 and he
Ultimately ended up taking a turnaround jump shot that was like a little bit short I I still think that like I don’t know if we want to talk bag but like I still feel like there could be a lot more done there but probably for the
First time in his career like R.J has gotten to a spot now where he can consistently show he can do this one thing really really well at like an above average repeatable level because that’s what we see every game now is RJ between 20 and 25 points and he’s
Shooting honestly between 50 and 60% y um that’s that’s such a good thing to build off of now we can try to add in the secondary skills um and it’s almost in a weird way kind of somewhat to the Grady discussion right because Grady started the season and the the conceit
With Grady was like he’s gonna be this really awesome shooter and guys were still chasing him around and he was doing a good job of you know he draws two he’s you know uh throwing the pass out and or he’s he’s he’s getting into the guy slipping to the
Basket you know but he just wasn’t doing the main thing which was knocking down the threes after a while and I think it really messed with his confidence for a while he went down to jie came back since then he’s been really really good um I know you’ve always been really high
On Grady yeah and I I you know I’ve seen your tweets you feel personally Vindicated that Grady’s comeing around too so I know you’re you’re closely tied to this um talk to me about Grady as well in his season yeah so the big thing with Grady obviously is that you have to
Shoot it if you’re a shooter nothing matters if you don’t shoot the basketball Grady you know Bobby came out and I’m paraphrasing here not the direct quote so if it’s sloppy my apologies to Bobby Webster but Bobby you know was asked about Grady and kind of like his
Off ball presence and he said as far as like off ball Grady’s in a league of his own his own category and you watch Grady and that starts to make like a lot of sense is like how heady he is as a cutter you know because there are
Certain things that happen on an NBA Flor let’s say you’re playing like basketball at the pickup level or you’re like a kid getting coached your coach might tell you that like the trigger for you to cut is if you see the numbers on your defender back something like that
But for an NBA player it’s like the overall shape of the four in the defense so like what triggers you know when the Raptors set the season record for the NBA in points scored off of cuts this season against the you know the Pacers what triggers a Grady cut from the
Baseline it’s the same thing that triggered like oi’s Cuts against the Hornets it’s if a guy pulls off the corner that creates a lane for you to cut if there’s a guy driving from the opposite side you can cut to the 45 from the 45 straight into the lane and create
Like a secondary path to the left side of the basket for a drop off pass the these types of things it’s very like heady stuff for an NBA player to always know the proper cut and Grady knew it before he came into the NBA it’s just like if you don’t hit the three-point
Shot though yeah then people don’t care about where you’re kind of going around on the floor so we’re seeing a marriage of like three-point efficiency he’s basically up to 39% on the season after hanging around at like 23% over the last 20 games he’s shooting 47% from three
He’s shooting 77% at the ram he’s shooting 55% from the long mid-range like like everything is popping off for him because he’s so good at doing the early work to put himself in positions to succeed and the shot making has been there okay so this is one question I’ve
Always had about other guys because I it’s not so simple as he’s a shooter he’s a movement shooter whatever right um I feel like especially things like the instincts of when to move and when to cut there has to be something special about gry in that sense because you
Don’t for example see a guy like Gary like I would love if Gary moved and and had the same sort of reads off the ball as a guy like Grady because I think that you know it would take his game to another level and I’ve been you know
Hoping for that but we’ve seen that he’s he’s not that type of player like can a player learn to move and cut like Grady I think definitely players can learn especially within the framework of an offense you know we talked about the Spurs for example like Gary Neil when he
Started playing for the Spurs well Gary Neil when he when he first started playing sit around a podcast talk about Gary Neil yeah that’s like the the dude’s Rock thing is just like naming sports players Gary Neil everyone’s like oh yeah Gary Neil um but he wasn’t
Always that great at like the two-on-one out of the corner making the pass down when he gets like a bit more attention as the shooter but within the the concept of like what the Spurs are doing offensively you learn those reads and those reads become comfortable Grady’s a
Guy who came into the NBA comfortable with all those reads did a lot of it at Kansas like those empty side actions and we see a guy like Gary Who as a shooter is far more comfortable getting to his own shot off his own dribble or doing it
On like the same side of the floor shaping to someone else’s drive as like a catch and shoot player I can’t tell you exactly why Gary has been so limited as like a decision maker as a playmaker or why his cutting hasn’t NE especially towards the inside of the you know the
Arc has been so I don’t like not impressive I can’t tell you why that is but I think that like within the concept players can definitely learn when they’re supposed to cut that’s why you see like Pascal this year was a far more effective cutter than he was the season
Before and it’s just like playing in a different type of offense that requires more cutting means that you have to recognize those cuts for yourself and like anytime I talked to precies last year when he’d have a good cutting game he’d always kind of like you know
Bristle at me and say like it’s a read and I’d be like what type of read can you give me the secret sauce and he never would but it is like it’s the coach has to put the framework in and there are like there’s guaranteed reads
That some players have to make yeah and Gary needs to make more of those and GR makes those plus more of these like interpretive reads of the floor where he’s making like to go back to another Spurs guy like that Danny Green Baseline cut to follow a guy into the corner
Because there you’re going to overload the corner and it might create a driving lane or it might create like a three-point shot for you he’s just got such a great sense of what his motion means for the offense for other players and what it means for creating his own
Shot he’s very very potent with it yeah no he’s he’s really the exact type of offb player that you want to surround most stars with and of course course you can everything ties back to Scotty so if you want to tie to him but even independently of that I think that for
Grady like this is something that you can see and I think one thing that’s impressive from him too is he’s got a good catch radius got good hands you know like sometimes I mean the Raptors definitely throw a lot of high low passes and and he’s often in motion a
Lot of players with fluos he seems to be able to catch and convert with good efficiency I mean the other game he even caught and like finished essentially on like a lob you know and the way I was comparing it was almost like he’s like a soccer player with like a really good
First touch so you can like whip any kind of pass to him he can control it and then he can get to a shot Zlatan ibraim ack that’s the that’s the one right there and ALS he has like the Scorpion Kick you know it’s like the no
Di three something like that he’s got all the little tricks you know and at this point I’m just happy that you know he’s been able to create more and more I think we’ll have a minute on this but like is there more that he can create
His own shot totally or is that just like a next step for next season kind of deal so well it’s definitely in the future and we we saw it a little bit last game kind of when they’re running him off of those curls and he’s actually catching in the
Middle of the floor and going up with like a mid-range jump shot a lot of people will not take that shot because they’re like you don’t want to take that shot the mid-range is the you know the home of stars all that kind of stuff but Grady is so comfortable because he has
That sling type of Jumper and he’s not like a necessarily a set shooter in that way that he can be a little bit more diverse in the types of shots he tries to get off like there’s this he came out of in a preseason game against I guess
It would have been the 76ers because it was Kelly UB but he came out of this corner handoff and he did a throw aead dribble into the the middle of the court to go chase and set his feet up and Kelly UB came with a dig down he picked
It up beforehand and like fading to his right hit a mid-range jumper and that type of Jumper is not available to all catch and shoot guys but it’s available to Grady dick and he can he has like different footwork that he can get into that he showed at Kansas that he showed
Is like a raptor that allows him to get into more shots which I think as a shooter will help create or control for his volume and then on top of that we’re also talking about a guy who we’ve seen him like make the lob coming downhill
Out of the pick and roll we’ve seen him navigate the middle of the floor to be a guy who can get to his own shot like there’s there’s a lot of room for him with an improved handle to kind of I guess um get get to his own looks more
Often fair enough okay we’re going to take another break you been your host Willie you’ve been listening to the Raptor show on the sports radio Network brought to you by Campbell’s new chunky spicy suit welcome back to the Raptor show on the sportset radio network I’m your host
William L continue to be joined by fellow guest co-host samung folk and we are joined by Savannah Hamilton sideline reporter Sav what’s going on another long road trip ahead of you later this week but you know we don’t have to talk about that for now were you at practice
I was at practice practice today yes okay good cuz I I have a couple questions about what happened at practice but actually we were before the break we were having this discussion me and Samson about just what sets Grady apart as as as a shooter especially as a
Movement shooter so I want to ask you that question as well what have you SE from Grady that makes some different from other shooters that we’ve also seen on the team both past and present yeah I think the difference is that um he’s a sharp shooter he’s a
Specialist at shooting um I think the past shooters that we’ve had you know they kind of bit he kind of did a little bit of everything but this like Grady was literally brought in for his shooting strictly pretty much um but you know we see offall cutting from him he’s
Athletic um I think the best shooters that we’ve ever seen in the league know how to move off the ball and like that’s Klay Thompson that’s the um JJ reck and I think he’s kind of following that mold um I’m not saying that he’s like right
There with them of course but the way that he’s going and if he’s continuing his shooting percentage the way he is like it’s not going to be a stretch in the future um but yeah so I think I think his mentality of you know positioning himself getting ready
Getting set for the ball like the the pass to to come to in order to get the shot off is really strong and that’s something that he’s he’s gotten a lot better at the NBA level uh took a while of course but you know you there’s not
Much flaws that you could point out in terms of his offensive like shot right now just like strictly looking at his shooting and and how he’s moving off ball yeah a lot of been made of as far as like the conditioning was a pre-draft concern for a few teams it was something
I talked to Grady about at Summer League was the size of the Court changing like having conditioning for an NBA you know size court and also like he’s talked about it a little bit mze talked about a little bit Darko talked about like we’re putting him on the the routine or
Whatever the hell it is have you heard anything lately like is there an update they’re like yeah you put on like four pounds of muscle or something like that are there any murmurs around Grady I guess and his conditioning or like the the weight he’s putting on anything like
That I mean I haven’t heard anything like in particular it comes to like you know a number of pounds that he’s put on but I mean if you want to look at the eye test like I don’t know about you guys but I didn’t see striations in his
Shoulder to season and now I’m starting to see that like well just notice like you lit you just like see like he’s shooting the when he’s shooting like um I just noticed that like his muscles are becoming a bit more defined and I think that’s a matter of like when you’re
Playing in basketball season like you do get a lot more even in a cardio like great shape but on top of that you know Grady has talked to me about how he’s putting a lot of work into the gym with Johnny Lee which is one of the trainers
Of course for the Raptors um and I I think you could just visually see the like the difference like it’s maybe not like the biggest difference in the world but like it’s definitely for me at least I maybe I’m around him enough to like just start to notice these things you’re
Hitting on something that like I noticed as well like the bicep striation I’ve never heard that term before though that’s incredible oh really muscle stri I I had no idea I would say like vascularity or something yeah you’re not a real lifter yeah no I’m definitely not
A real lifter I don’t know any of that kind of no I never heard that one either sa’s the only real lifter here I think my only other thing with gr um want to ask both of you guys about it’s just like if we want to get gredy more
Involved can we have him screen for the ball more often would you like to see more actions with gredy screening for the ball in particular so I don’t know s I’ll let you go first yeah absolutely and I I think it’s just one of those things where like and I talked to Kelly
Oen a little bit about this too because I asked Kelly I’m like when when are we going to see you in more pick and roll actions yourself because he could bring a world of options like arguably to this team but um you know something he said
Is like he’s like Kelly told me I’m just trying to learn this team right now and then we’ll get into the specialized place after so I think that’s kind of though like even though Kelly in particular saying this because he’s new I think it kind of goes the for the
Entire team just because like they’re all learning each other now especially without Scotty you basically have to like reface an entire team for the rest like of the 20 games remaining basically so I think with Grady now um ahead of this like I definitely would like to see like even like necessarily not
Necessarily on ball screens but off ball screens I think they do a little bit of actions like that so far but like whether it’s a baseline or a down screen um stuff that like that can just get them open like I mean wide open maybe even on the wing not just like the
Corner but even at practice today I’ll touch on the fact that like I I was asking him like what makes the corner shot so special um and he said that it’s just where they have him currently in the offense so it’s a shot that he practices the most at practice because
He knows that that’s where he’s currently positioned like supposed to be um and so I think in the future as his shooting percentage I mean Samson knows this probably the best his shooting percentage uh what do you say you always tweet keep that elbow oh keep that elbow
Tight baby yeah it’s been 47% over the last 20 games but like just but even but like and what’s he from the corner I think he’s like 60% the corner yeah it’s it’s just insane yeah so I think that yeah I would like to see him expand that because if
He’s because if that’s a shot that he practices and he’s focused on then let’s see how we could expand it to the wing and if that requires a few more actions to get him open on a wing because obviously that’s probably a bit more of a contested area um you know let’s let’s
Just see what happens like I would be very curious if dark Goan to experiment with that yeah and and just to add on to that too like the split action is probably you know we talked about JJ reic we talked about Klay Thompson one of the best ways to weaponize a shooter
And it does depend on above the break shooting as tab was talking about we saw it it was the split action that the Raptors ran last night that led to Grady’s big rainbow Corner three Kelly is on ball we have Emanuel quickley and Gary Trent Jr the split action quickley
Comes down catches the ball off the bounce pass sprays it to the corner Grady hits but the the game before when Scotty was still playing some of this is not as fun because Scotty’s not there but the Raptors ran a Grady Scotty split action five possessions in a row with
Kelly on Ball and they also hit like Grady hidden above the break three because Scotty has so much gravity as the guy moving downhill right that Grady pops out open off that split action he hit a you know above the break three in the game prior but they ran it five
Times in a row it wasn’t like a home run every time or anything like that it’s a fairly simplistic play that you don’t have to dedicate it’s only a three-player play you don’t have a lot of seconds come off the clock but it’s something d dous that you can insert
Basically as like your primary action to get everything going and it might even be able like a really good way to move the defense around to initiate another type of play I know the Raptors a lot of times like to have like a secondary action to promote movement before they
Run like an RJ Barrett pick and roll just so that the the lane is more open so Grady you can start in early offense I know he starts in the corner a lot but you can start like more Above The Brak stuff to open up not just him for shots
That he’ll hit but for teammates to have more driving L and more opportunities for themselves yeah that was really fun watching him Kelly Scotty run uh a lot of offense for that second unit and Bruce and I guess we didn’t mention Bruce was unavailable yesterday cool he
Was yeah I um not to be rude but you know it didn’t really impact too much um but yeah him and and oai just kind of like getting out of the way in a in like either that’s in the corners or just whatever but um it has been fun I I
Think for great on the season yeah he’s 61% out of the left corner 39% out of the right corner and 30% at the top of the floor above the break so I mean this is also the full season rather than just the last couple months where clearly
He’s played at a different level but uh it it’s been fun I mean one of the major things to watch for now I mean you know how we used to have a segment every day we would talk about Scotty Barnes on every single episode it’s probably going
To fall to quickly RJ and and and Grady and uh we have now done that so what other potential story lines that popped up at practice Savannah please tell me there’s other things that were discussed like who who did they bring to the podium who who they get who did uh who
Did Phil bring you guys wow you guys you just really wanted me to do your job like I get it I can’t be in two places at once I want to go to practice today you know you never know you might get b or pizza um yeah what happened uh they
Bought RJ as well um RJ was just kind of talking about like nothing honestly you didn’t really miss tooo much he just kind of just talking about like what he was seeing out there um I as I asked him about uh the Pelicans even though he
Didn’t play the first time he saw them yeah because kind what he needs like what the team needs to do tomorrow because Zion is a threat Brandon Ingram had a really great game against them um and he kind of was a bit more a shorts
Spoken as he tends to be um but just kind of like summarizing like yeah just coming out with a lot more intensity of course both those guys like you know what they bring um and so focusing on that but yeah I think also they talked
About like what rle RJ needs to kind of feel now that Scotty’s out and RJ was just talking about the fact that like he doesn’t feel like he needs to um you know do something that he’s not already and so he said that if you look at the
Game yesterday he said that he felt like he was just L be just playing his game like like any other time he would um and so it’s just more so I think about like refining at this point with this group rather than like you know no one no one
Individual is going to step up into that role you know yeah that’s good cuz that’s what said yesterday post game as well so you always want to see um the players and the coaches on the same page well and you also can you conceive that
RJ can like ramp it up farther than like 21 and five on good efficiency probably not that much higher and like the five turnovers that he had yesterday one of them was like just a little bit sloppy but all of them were like you know back
CL back end of the clock trying to like extend himself as a Creator and he’s already doing so much is like it’s probably like a little bit much and honestly if your guy comes out every game and is like I’m giving you like 21 and five on 50% shooting that’s dude
I’ll take that R yeah I’ll take that and run exactly yeah I guess this is a this is more of a a point to like the craft of what we do but Sav and Samson like how when you have a situation where the player is like not trying to give you
Much and they’re like yeah we just got to play with more intensity what are what are some of the things what are how do you change your approach to get a little bit more detail of the situation which is our job obviously I try to this
Is what happened with MSI on media day as well is you try and like take what they said and make them reckon with what they’ve said prior is like you said this it’s not like it might seem that might see that might make them seem like you’re trapping them but like
It’s like oh you said this so then because a lot of times players know what you’re saying is true but they’re like I don’t want to answer that which is their prerogative like I don’t have to answer stuff about my work after work is done I
I get it but like I mean it’s part of their job reference reference something they’ve said said so that they’re like okay I did say that so now I have to answer that um I made the mistake a few times with OG is like you try and wide
In the question and then he just picks something that you said and it’s like that’s the answer now it’s like ah yeah tough you really have to be careful with OG s what about you what what what about give me some tips give me some tips of
Your craft mean you you have all the tips like I should be asking for tips from you will but uh I just approach them as as their friend every time and most of the time they fall for it see see you have we all have our tactics um
For me it’s more so just like oh can you explain that what that looks like for you or like kind of just diving deeper if they give me a generic answer we got put more intensity okay like what do you mean by that oh and then they’re like
Okay well hustling for rebounds and da d d da okay well then have you practiced that and just kind of like giving them a line of questions that kind of follows the ball of where you eventually want to end up which is B basically like enough
To work with for a story so it’s like oh intensity is a priority but how does that look like okay well they want to execute with um prisions on Precision Precision on offense um but then also like defensively they want to make sure they keep the like crash the
Boards keep the opponents off the boards and you know it’s like so you can eventually like shape it to what you need it to be but that’s through the kind of also guiding I find the shorter spoken players to a conversation I kind of like even you guys use an example of
OG like with OG when I were whenever I was I was talking to him I made it so it was very much conversational it was just like it it felt like more of a um instead of a question intense like interview like what we would normally do
It was more like okay hey OG like you know you guys got the Pelicans coming up uh you know what stands out to you about them and he’s probably G to tell you oh they have a big guy in Zion they have bring okay so when it comes to guarding
You know a guy like Zion like what what’s the first thing you look to do and then just like going from there he might be like oh just take away his strong dominant hand okay well I know that you you told me before that you watched a lot of film so
Like what what about the film that Zion like makes him so good as a big man and and then and then like by the third question in yeah more conversational he’ll actually open up a lot so then that’s just an example with OG I find
That RJ’s a little bit in the same line but RJ’s actually he he gives you a little bit more um but yeah that’s that’s more so my tactic I’m not I don’t I don’t um make them come to terms with the what they said Samson’s tactic but I do like
That it’s you know it’s interesting because like a lot of times I’m because I’m writing like analysis pieces so it’s it’s a different job to be quite honest like there’s like I’ll never be as good as like you or Lindsay at getting like these interesting anecdotes and tidbits
Like I don’t know anything about Norman Pal’s rap career but like she got that right whereas I’m like hey I saw what was happening on the flooor but the people read my work like they don’t really care if I say something’s happening they’re like make the coach
Say it so that I know it’s real I’m like oh yeah they blitzed and like they’re playing a different level of screen they’re like you’re just some schmuck and I am so I try and like frame the question like this was happening correct and like why and then hopefully they
Validate it no it’s good yeah you know cuz yeah I mean honestly I I I miss out on a lot of the media scrums now but when I go I I I watch both the reporters and the and whoever the player or the coaches is is asking questions it it’s I don’t know
It’s always interesting to me at least I hope it’s interesting to other people too how media people do their jobs in a way um pting pivoting off of that because we have seen a lot of movement at the end of the roster and it kind of
Got me thinking um so mares Noel by the way just got waved um so unfortunate for him uh Muhammad ugay gets converted that’s great um you know you get to see the Raptors have brought in a new 10day guy I’m sorry like I was not familiar
With this game so I maybe we’ll have more information on it tomorrow my point is that there’s like a decent amount of like end of the roster turn and especially now with some injuries to the group so Bruce B didn’t play last night that extended the rotation we didn’t see
Yaka Perle for the second half that extended the rotation Scotty’s out I’m just curious for some of the under other guys at the end of the roster what they if there’s one or two things that they need to do to stick around for not just the remainder of the season but maybe
Potentially going forward so uh s I’ll start with you with with Jordan MOA what’s or two things that he really needs to do that the rapist will keep him around next year and Beyond I think it’s a lot of playing with consistency um there the game against
Atlanta not the last time but the time before that he was awesome felt like a Breakout game I was like who is this guy he was bringing a spark on offense like he couldn’t miss but then defensively he was holding his own own enough and I
Remember like a lot of fans and even my own dad like messaging me being like this guy’s awesome and I was like like wait wait wait wait wait let’s just see if he can do it again and then he had another good game in there I can’t
Remember which one it was now but you know it’s just like so out of maybe like the past like six seven games like he’s had two games but you know given the opportunities that he’s had it’s kind of been limited although he did have the opportunity to start in in Atlanta the
Last game but I believe he had zero points Qui wasn’t yeah just wasn’t as efficient I think even defensively and so I think for him it’s like I’d like to see more consistency um and to be like a like a grit grit player on defense if you could establish
Yourself as a guy that’s going to do the dirty work and like you know not necessarily look for your shot because let’s be realistic we don’t need a guy that’s looking for his shot per se with this team like we need a guy that can facilitate can be a connector and like
Get once again get the dirty work done on defense um if you could if you’re having a hot shooting night bonus type of thing um but yeah those are the two things I would like to see from him is more consisten um in his like play and when he does get
The opportunities and then also his like better defensive presence for myself I’m looking for him to play Within scheme I think that he as far as like skill set he sits well above some of the other Raptors as far as like the combination of handle shot making and like athleticism I think the
Inflection of those things he’s pretty high on the roster and it’s just about like playing within scheme and making sure that like when you get the advantage you make the right read like the check down to the guy rolling to the rim if you if you can make that read
Make that read um making that automatic like play across the court and then cutting through the paint to get to the opposite side to clear for another action like always making it from like one play to the next and when you have an opportunity like space to hit a shot
You know a bit of time like maybe you get the ball with like eight seconds left on the shot clock that’s your possession now you make of it what you will and then it like you can try and create Against All Odds get the ball in transition big left-handed in and out
Finish at the bucket with the left hand like all that kind of stuff he he when put in positions to succeed quite often can he has enough Talent enough size all that kind of stuff and just like staying within scheme I think is very very
Strong for him and even when I talked to Kaylin Cooper about like his time in Indiana he succeeded in very specific context there and I think that makes sense for the Raptors as well he does very much look the part which I feel like I just feel like it would be a
Really great story for the last like 20 odd games or so left the season if War could show you some of that consistency that Savannah’s looking for and some of that ability to execute that you’re looking for Samson uh real quickly with jonte Porter Sav I mean we already know
Jonte we’ve seen him a little bit uh when yakob first got injured yakov’s already rolled out for tomorrow against the Pelicans so that’s going to be a tough one but it doesn’t mean that he gets more time to play what are some of the things what are some of the Swing
Skills for him that if he Nails those he’s he’s back on the roster next year and potentially be on as like a third string or even better than that backup big or something like that um I think something that’s keeping uh jonte well on the like on the roster right now is
The fact that he is like just passing the ball he’s a passing big and like he has a knack for that I think what I’d like to see more of is his rebounding maybe like just a bit more assertion in going up for boards um and not saying
That you know he’s not right now but I think it just could be taken up another gear um and that’s just kind of you know knowing like how to hunt the ball um he’s still a guy that I mean I keep in mind that he’s floating between like I
Mean it’s essentially the same system between the Raptors 105 and the Raptors but when you’re playing with different players it’s completely different at the same time and so kind of like getting more familiar with the system I don’t really have to be quite honest like too
Much to critique with him um I think on defense like the defensive end it’s like it’s hard to tell if he’s a step slow at times or if he’s still still learning where to be on defense and so um that’s like kind of like the grace I’ll give
Him in these next 20 games is if if I could see where he’s at defensively but overall like in the immediate future just like a lot of assertion and aggression if you can grab like aim to try to grab 10 boards a game you know doesn’t necessarily have to put up all
The points in the world here once again he’s a player that doesn’t need to do that but if you could estab establish himself as like a really dominant rebounder I think that and he’s already doing a great job at passing that’s that’s that’s a good player to keep
Around I think I think of what I’m expecting from jonte is I got to asked this question actually last night about like can he replicate what Kelly and yakob do on the short roll and like he certainly can but it’s more so about the defensive response we see this with
Draymond Green a lot like if you Blitz Steph Curry Steph’s going to make the over the-top pass to Draymond Green but Draymond is so bad as a shot maker that he can’t dictate that he gets that big rotation to start spraying the ball to the corner or making these like law
Passes to the ram like he used to he just doesn’t have pop as a shot maker it’s on jonte to come in now and see those opportunities that he’ll probably get and like make good on some of them as a score whether that’s like the the 8
Foot push shot or you know pressing all the way to the rim depending on like how big the rotation that comes in it’s he’s a very talented playmaker at his size at his position that was the eval coming out of the draft and the shot too um
He’ll be doing some pick and popping of course I hope he hits on a lot of them but I think it’s the stuff his shot making there his presence in the middle of the floor offensively that will allow him to kind of be like the connective
Piece to allow the Raptors to get to a lot of the looks that they want to and defensively I think that he’s able to do a lot of the early work because he there’s like an athleticism deficit that he has at sometimes but like if you read
The game well enough and you like have the Scout of the other team you can recognize a lot of what they’re trying to do and you can kind of like do the early work to get ahead of the play a little bit and sometimes you can get
Burned on that cheating but a lot of times at the NBA level that actually works quite well defensively okay well these are the story lines you guys hype that’s excited this is stick yeah Savannah I appreciate you I’ll see you I’ll see you at the game tomorrow yo we’ll be honest
With how many how many media members made it down for yesterday’s game um I think I mean the good news is I could count on two hands probably gez yeah wait we had this question who are the Grinders the the gondola people or the like 116 117 people who are the the
Grinders you know what uh considering that I’m a gondola girl um what I’m not doing Sports Net I will actually give it to the 11 Sixers yeah if I’m if I’m being quite honest yeah like don’t me and will we I mean we’re it’s Vibes up
You’re there a lot too but like yeah we Vibe up there for sure we’re at pretty much every single game um well not not when it’s Sunday against the Hornets and uh it’s also my dad’s birthday I I covered that one from home see exactly but that was valid that’s valid okay
That’s valid but that being said guess who’s still there the Doug Smith the Eric Corin all of them you’re right real Grinders in 116 all right Savannah I appreciate you and I’ll see you tomorrow sounds good okay bye yeah you know it was uh look you got
To pick your choose your spots you know like I’m not saying I’m kaai or anything but like you do got to load manage once in a while this this my dad’s birthday man happy 59th birthday to my father love you and uh I know your co-workers work watch the show sometime so
Hopefully they tell you in the break room that I’m talking about you again which always makes you feel a little uncomfortable so salute dad that’s all yeah all right is that it uh yeah you know what we’re going to take our last break come back talk to NBA basketball
Uh because there’s only so much you can get out of this yeah yeah it ra to be the Hornets last night man uh and we talked about it for an hour and a half but we’re going to take our last break if your host will you list to the Raptor
Show on the sports Set Radio Network brought to you by Campbell’s new chunky spicy soup welcome back to the Raptor show on the sportset radio network I’m your host wayl once again DJ Derek another great hit shout out to Oasis some might say you know what’s the story Morning Glory
Great album you know one of the greatest of all time I would even make that argument a lot of bangers off that one Samson you’ve already clarified this is this is not not the type but this is is not up my alley I’m like uh I’m more of
Like hip-hop and R&B honestly like if we had like D’Angelo on here all right Derek that’s your that’s your challenge for tomorrow and again for everyone listening to the podcast you just heard the generic uh in intro intro outro jingle um Samson I got to get to know
You a little bit better tell me what’s your origin story all I know is you grew up in the Prairies like yeah what was that like um honestly I’m not like a pro prairies guy sorry to people watching at home okay wait hold on what do what what
Are the positions one could take on the Prairies like you could be Pro Prairie what what does that mean like it means like if regardless of you’re Pro or or anti or well I think that like there’s some well this will be a little bit political but like there’s some like
Regressive politics I find in the Prairies that you that you can find more well represented there okay um however it doesn’t uh it’s cheaper to live there which is good it’s more affordable i’ I’ve found since moving here like I lived in the Prairies I lived in Mexico
Now I live here Toronto is the most expensive wide margin absolutely between those three places absolutely um also like my relation to basketball was really it was hard to find good basketball like we had to travel I ended up playing a little bit in the states
And like with a with a club basketball team but we had to drive so far to like go to practices and we had to like we picked miles and miles of ditches because there’s this thing you can do in Saskatchewan where like you pick the garbage out of ditches for money and
They save the ditches garbage for like fundraisers so we basically would fund our basketball trips to go to like gona and do like ID camps and tournaments by picking ditches so I would go through this phase of like picking ditches and just being like Oh my God every Sunday
Morning you go out there and then we’d go play basketball wow that was like three years that’s okay so it was tough to find good basketball in the Prairies but um I know like so many great people from there and it uh shaped who I am
Today obviously W yeah I did not know that about you yeah that’s I mean to be fair I don’t know much about it that’s why I asked this question what’s what’s your story will my story is I immigrated to Toronto and one day on a playground uh and again I was still like
Fairly new to all the culture here and they were asking me and they were like you support the Raptors or the leae and I’m like it’s it’s a or and then they’re like yeah you got you can only pick one and I was like honestly man only seen
White people plays hockey I’m thinking basketball and I think it’s I kind of stuck with it but I mean yeah it just when you grow up in the city like everyone plays basketball like it’s like the number one default like gym thing it’s like oh yeah gym te is not here you
Guys playing basketball today yeah yeah Jim soccer and basketball so that’s what’s like stuck with me there was not a lot of um basketball where I grew up like hardly any at all and like to see it from growing up there were like two basketball nets in town the town I grew
Up in only had 700 people I grew up like in a crazy small town where’ you grw up um Sturgis Saskatchewan gotcha so I grew up there but there were like only two basketball hoops but when I went back there and was doing carpentry in the
Summer with my dad like two years ago there was like 80 just like the growth of basketball can really be seen on that level that like so many more people it helps that Filipino people move there cuz they’re hoopers forever but it was it’s cool to see that growth on that
Level from like the time I left for University and lived elsewhere to come back to see that growth was cool yeah the highest cultural Hooper per capita is is definitely with absolutely man Shifty games every single one of them always a Shifty Game Crazy Cavs too always yeah my whole Tuesday run is
Filipinos yeah so I’m like I’m like very familiar with just the whole like the the passion and the culture run and it’s awesome I feel like Bas if you’re a basketball player you’re going to be familiar with at least some parts of like Filipino culture there going be
Crossover yeah shout to Jordan claron um all right there’s no pivot from this to around the NBA but I it’s good I’m I’m gonna ask you another personal deeply personal question tomorrow and I’ll just surprise at a given moment um yeah we’re going to go around the NBA a little bit
Uh so last night I’m watching OKC play Phoenix Phoenix looked really good start Nar was grabbing all the rebounds 12 rebounds in the first quarter um you know they have KD they have Bradley be Deon Booker wasn’t available to play uh seems like he’s going to be out for
About like two weeks or something like that but in any case Fenix is rolling they’re playing well and then OKC just like turns it on and Shay turns it on and Chad starts going and Jaylen Williams starts going and of course they win again OKC is once again a top in the
Western Conference by half a game over uh Minnesota and also over top of Denver who also won um I guess my question to you is just like OKC is the best young team since which team top of your mind maybe maybe since like OKC the last OKC team yeah you you
Could probably make that argument I think they got to get real about Josh giddy though like I I thought this is what I disagreed with about okay see I’m going to take over the segment but like I really disagreed with like Gordon Hayward gives them some attempt of like
A swing at upside I get what they’re trying to do but they did it without risking anything yeah and like Shay is an MVP candidate yeah I understand like their front Court just got obliterated by nurkic like he had what 31 rebounds you know like nine of those were mapin
But that still leaves that still leaves 22 that is nkit yeah he sucks around the roof somehow I don’t get it anyway well if that’s always like guys who aren’t 6′ 11 are always always like man I feel like I would kick ass or I can’t curse
Anyway my apologies but anyway I feel like I would do well if I were that big around the r but basically I thought that they should have gone for it and because you only have so many years where like the guys are really good like jayen Williams is good enough to be a
Starter on a championship level team Chad I guess we’ll see if he can hold down the front Court in this run but who knows but SGA is definitely like MVP level guy he’s so good he’s so good you should have gone for it because these
Guys are so good that like they give you an opportunity every year there’s I guess that it’s like the Daryl myy thing if you have 5% you go for it but like really I thought that they were too passive at the deadline and I think that
Like the catch and hold stuff with Josh is really going to come back to bite them honestly during the playoffs but well there were the clips I went around of like they were basically like leaving him wide open and completely ignoring him there’s one where nurk was guarding
Him saw him and just kind of turn around almost like Scotty Barn we see Scotty sometimes just wave at a guy be like all right I’m not closing out on you except with in the case of giddy it’s absolutely the right thing to do um yeah
I just don’t yeah it’s just not it’s not it’s not that serious until they play him I mean you saw some might beo like I’m curious too in terms of just how OKC is going to do in the first run but I don’t know there sne a suspicion
For me that like they’re not going to do that well in their first run with this group in a playoff series seven game playoff series and I don’t know where that comes from for me I don’t know if you share that same skepticism about OKC I think because everybody assumes you
Somebody won’t do something until they do it sure yeah it could be yeah that’s like that was the same thing with like Golden State everybody’s like oh Golden State will not win this year and they won and like there’s sure some injury stuff or whatever but they did win and
Basically like the NBA what happens as far as like the consensus or opinions on it is like once somebody proves they do something that becomes the prevailing Narrative of like how you achieve things so like currently like the nuggets are the winners until they don’t win and
Like why would you have any other position besides like the nuggets are the best team and they’re going to win and we’ve seen their style of play one in 2023 someone else has to prove that a different style can do in 2024 and even with OKC it’s not necessarily that you
Expect them to be Champions but like some people might be like oh this could be a first round out and a they play the Lakers in the first round like would you would you pick OKC against the Lakers I’ll pick OKC yeah like confidently confidently I’ll do that right now the
Hypothetical Series yeah I’m on OKC but but that is like that’s momentum inertia of LeBron James versus like the guys who are really good right now and people are like we’ve seen it from Leon as like the overdog and the underdog yeah so let’s just expect to
See that again and like Shay hasn’t been like the star of a playoff series yet I guess but I don’t know I just I hate waving away 82 games yeah for sure even though it’s different I know like un s and Danny Green had a bit of a
Conversation about like how different is playoff basketball I get it but like I just if a team is really good in the regular season I feel inclined to give them a bit of a go so that’s how I feel about OKC yeah yeah uh Chris Herring at
ESPN wrote a really nice piece about OKC this year and just kind of Drew a little bit of comparison actually to uh the Warriors back then actually the 73 win Warriors which is kind of nuts but the stats kind of super themselves and this is from christas pie at
39.6% the Thunders shoot the three better than any other team and with a 56.7 effective field goal rate they recently pulled ahead of the 7 three win 2015 2016 Warriors but held the best Mark in the shot tracking era according to ESPN stats and info much like Golden
State they rarely run pick and roll sets despite being the most efficient team in the league when they do so said they have a lot of their guards do the Dirty Work similar to the tubs and he went on to describe a lot of what OKC does which
Is have guard set screens and you know since we have you here why is it why is it now that teams are figuring out more and more that a you can screen with other people other than bigs and B why is it so particularly effective for certain teams like OKC when they use
Their guards to set these screens so the big thing that everyone will understand really quickly that’s really easy is like if you’re a big man or if you’re anybody who isn’t Shay Gus Alexander like check MH guarding him is insane yeah like how do you possibly do that
And guards if you’re GNA guards typically sit above the break in relation to the ball handler which means that teams don’t get to pre-switch so a lot of what happened was like when teams were playing the Warriors and they wanted to put Steph Curry in a picking
Role what Draymond Green would do he’d be positioned closer to above the break if they’re trying to pull somebody from the corner Draymond would push them out of the action and he’d go occupy the pick and roll as a Defender when you bring like a guard from one spot over
There’s no opportunity for pre- switch so you can control for the isolation that comes after the screen more readily and then also guards are typically better Shooters than bigs and getting guards loose is really easy to do if you’re like ghosting a screen because a ghosted screen creates tension for the
Defenders that they like freeze up because the screening is about to happen whereas the ghosting screener has an opportunity to like take that hesitation and burst into open space where they can be really dangerous as a shooter I know Isaiah Joe is like popping he’s like he’s having a really great season doing
A lot of that for the thunder so those are the two big things and you can get into like a lot more of the minutia of like identifying certain matchups and also like some guys like Jaylen Williams for example who is a guard screener is really really good at navigating the
Lane as a cutter and what we talked about at the top of the show with oi creating that seal slipping into the lane like Jaylen Williams is one of the best at that in the league and has been since he’s a rookie so and he’s also comfortable short rolling and like
Playmaking as a short roller to see both Corners to make like a lay down so they have a lot of players and Mark they know has just done like a tremendous job coaching that team it’s they’re fun they’re great yeah going to beat the Lakers in the
Hypothetical no I think the Lakers the Lakers argument in this hypothetical is like all right they have so much size and they put pressure on you with LeBron and AD and right depending on how the game’s going to be officiated you might foul out a couple key players and you
Know I mean again like I saw big bio in the game last night I’m like oh yeah he does play for OKC you know like you might have to see a lot more of that but I think the flip side is they make it so difficult to guard against them and that
Lakers team feels old feels creaky to me the way the Nuggets move off the ball whatever the nuggets are reigning Champions but every time they play the Nuggets I’m like yeah there’s s there’s a certain level where they just reach a point where like you know they look
Really good they look really threatening they huff and puff and then like when it comes down to it there are clearly clearly classes of teams much better than them and of course the Nuggets beat them over the weekend uh that was a classic example of that and I think a
Similar effect would happen with I’d probably pick OK as well but that series might give them more trouble than you would anticipate I mean you know there’s that tweet the one where it’s like Ron is 30 years old this won’t go on for much longer it’s been going on I do
Wonder when it stops like can you make that tweet when he’s 40 I’m think people are actually like actively looking forward to that someone has that in their drafts for sure you know how thirsty Twitter is these days yeah yeah we won’t talk about the other trending
Twitter topic that took place over the weekend um something else that took place over the weekend Boston be golden stayed by 52 points so a couple stats on this um Boston this is their second win by 50 or more points in their last six games they also beat the Nets by 50
Points uh before the All-Star break the Celtics in their last six games have won by an average of 29.8 points they’re they’re smacking teams by 30 a game and they smacked the Warriors last night by 52 um yeah I mean it basically wasn’t close and you know it
Was actually kind of interesting because Draymond mentioned after the game he’s like yeah you know we were essentially had the strategy of just ignoring Jaylen Brown um and we decided about this about 15 minutes before the game we’re like hey why why don’t we why don’t we just try
Leaving Jaylen Brown wide open and I this got me thinking Samson like what’s like the the wackiest weirdest like I guess scheme or decision that you’ve seen in a game this year Raptors or not Raptors related because to me I was just like Josh giddy you leaving wide open
Fine absolutely other players yeah fine Jaylen Brown wide open the whole game like yeah it clearly didn’t work that’s not the only reason why they won by 50 but clearly it got the Warriors down 20 points right away yeah I think that that is that probably Takes the Cake for the
Most like interesting wrinkle I’ve ever seen um there’s a lot of unique stuff that happens with Luca that triggered like this screen your own action that the Mavericks have as a response is like they did so much pre- switching and so much switch the blitz that the Mavericks
Instead of having the guy who’s coming to set the screen screen Luca’s guy he would screen his own guy who’s already triggering a switch so like there’s like lots of like back and forth between the teams and Luca the best players always create like these really unique responses Jaylen Brown isn’t the best
Player but he’s like an All-Star level player he obviously went nuts with that opportunity and was like posting about it he’s posting his W’s he’s like yeah you guys should do that all the time I’m a Rockstar right now yeah um especially after a tough dunk contest it was a good
Like get back for him but I think that probably is the craziest I’ve seen and then prior to that you know we talked about Josh giddy being a guy who you can get away with that stuff but last year seeing like Indiana and that like six game run against Scotty where you know
Scotty’s obviously popped off as a shooter considerably since then but teams started playing like in the restricted area yeah that was crazy they’re G the benim treatment basically even this year when the Raptors played Boston in the inseason tournament when in Toronto when they almost like the ra
Close but in the first game when they got shellacked what porzingis was standing in the restricted area against yakob and was just like if anybody wants the rim I will be here and yakob was like I don’t know how to navigate this space yeah cuz he’s like I don’t want to
Take 14 foot push shots I would have L to see that man yob drop a triple double with just pushup funny you know I asked Joe moula you see it like kind of get aggregated that he’s like maybe sometimes a tough question and a tough answer but when he’s here I asked him
About that I was like you guys played like really deep drop what was going he’s like no we played that all the time I was like Joe you do not put porzingis in the restricted area all the time but he wouldn’t give me an inch yeah I was
Hoping to figure out more there but yeah unique unique defense creates unique offensive responses if there’s trouble sometimes it just creates jump shots one that is always going to stick with me is um a couple years ago when Harden was MVP a level when he came to Toronto and
I think maybe this was either the championship year or the year afterwards obviously Nick was coaching and he was just like yeah going to trap hard on half court he’s going to walk past half and a second guy is just he’s not even doing anything he’s just bringing the
Ball up with his beard and his wine and there boom instantly he crosses half and he’s trapped and they chose to play the whole game four on three defensively or three on four defensively and they didn’t win um mostly because Ben mmore hit like seven threes yes uh but I just
Thought it was like you know what there’s so many of these games there’s 82 games honestly a lot of them are fungible like past tomorrow how many people are going to remember Raptor Hornet probably not right at least use some of them to be a little creative and
Just think you’re through and give me a look a little bit of experimentation like I’m not expecting you to just do like I mean I don’t want you to lose my 52 like before you did last night but I appreciate at least when people think about it and try something even if it
Doesn’t work out so yeah I think interesting defense is always interesting especially from like the third party like I know Raptor fans were a bit fed up with like the exaggerated rotations of the nurse era Raptors but other teams like it’s no wonder that like if a reporter kind of steps in and
Starts looking at the Raptors they like hey this is cool you guys notice what’s happening here um it’s cool to be like not the not there witnessing it but to be able to like kind of like hover over and check in on it yeah yeah I find I I
Hear that also the defense has gone off of has been much worse since nickas left but I mean Hey listen that’s that’s a separate conversation uh a team with a much better defense right now is the Milwaukee Bucks I know this has been so much discussion about Doc Rivers and AAR
Weekend that doesn’t really help himself when he like gives some of the press conference some of the quotes things that came out about him the JJ reic thing but the number one reason the Bucs brought in Doc Rivers is they wanted to bring a better defensive effort out of
Their group and we have now seen the Bucks hold four straight games of their opponents under 100 points and they have done that six out of the last nine games so do you buy this new defense from Milwaukee I think yeah to some degree you have to you have to see larger
Sample sizes of course cuz the Raptors you know we watched the Raptor team for the like past three years have like really good two months really terrible month then like okay two months and then that was a season and you end up ranked 11th or something like that um I’m not
Sure exactly to buy it or not but I know that the Bucks have the talent to be like better than they have been on that end and a lot of like a lot of this stuff can come down to like effort and not just effort but effort in like
Holding hands with intention M and sometimes you can have effort without intention you can have intention without effort but like the Bucks just being able to like play in scheme more often and like simplify things and let their big defensive Playmakers kind of eat I think is a really important step for
Them and that might not be something that makes them a championship winning team CU like Championship kind of going back to what they did before but yeah yeah Championship winning defenses typically are quite diverse we had marcusa hedging you know Steph Curry above the break it was incredible man
How was he doing man 300 lb 7f footer just like well above three AR against Steph Curry met the moment active hands but I I don’t know if that changes like the ceiling for the bucks but it certainly it changes the shortterm I’ve been impressed with them but I don’t
Know probably going to have to see more of it and against like a more diverse set of teams I was going to say yeah they’ve uh they’ve done this against the Chicago Bulls the Charlotte Hornets the Charlotte Hornets the Philadelphia 76ers the Denver Nuggets which is awesome that
Was a really good win for them probably the best of the year and then again against the Charlotte Hornets so three of those six games are against the Charlotte Hornets which you know know they I mean they only had 106 against the Raptors last night so I do I do
Expect that from the bucks but um I don’t know I guess I I’m not a Doc Rivers Defender but I did feel like everyone like immediately jumped off on Doc and I was like dude he’s been there for two weeks they have problems Beyond doc right now and you might not agree
With him being the the choice and it’s easy to get jokes off about a guy but like at least let him Coach a little bit like let him let him blow the 31 lead before we kill him we’re blowing three1 leads that’s I think that’s just what it
Is though is like if you’ve if the Red Carpet has been rolled out like you’re the joke jokes guy you’re the jokes guy how you you’re right the return from being the jokes guy I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen somebody walk that path what come back from it from being the
Jokes guy have you ever seen that that’s a good question I think like people like ease off on joking about a guy after a while like it just gets old like like Westbrook I feel like when he was with the Lakers like it was like a joke all
The timeo and then they lay off I mean Ben Simmons I to a degree um people have also laid off but it’s also like they a like in s case they just he stopped playing mhm and so there’s nothing else to really say about it other than just
Like okay I guess he hasn’t proven it was wrong and then in the case of Westberg was like he want a different situation expectations changed all of sudden people were okay with the way he played Paul George was a jokes guy yeah he’s not as much a jokes guy but why was
Paul George’s jokes guy again I don’t really understand because everyone pretended like he was bad in the playoffs even though he wasn’t he really wasn’t have you SE okay 2016 Raptors Paul George was terrifying terrifying man he was terrifying man he he’s been incredible forever he single handly
Carried Solomon Hill to game seven he he beat the Jazz with Kawai yeah like and that was a good jazz team yeah and just because he didn’t beat the Suns like tough I don’t know everybody on the Clippers team was injured Paul George rocks so hard I’m so sick of people
Pretending like he doesn’t yeah damn so who are the number one jokes guys now in the league it’s not gonna be about Scotty anymore I’ll tell you that much no yes no uh there’s definitely I don’t know who like I feel like it’s related Jordan
Po is a big jokes guy P there’s certain guys where I’m like they don’t make it easy on themselves Dr P is absolutely that for me man it’s the intermingling of the off court stuff A lot of times now like Michael Jordan didn’t have to be like have people like cracking like
Parlay jokes under his tweets or like under his highlight but he would have if social media existed whereas like guys who participate in like illicit activities off court and are maybe not paying the like societal punishment that like regular people do yeah to come up yeah yeah and and
Honestly they should it should be brought up at certain points like if they’re allowed to still be employed and they’re still put in in this like Spotlight then people end up talking about what they do and rightfully so CU I was not happy to see him on the court
Last night for a variety of reasons but uh all right I was going to ask you who’s the number two team in the East but we only got 90 seconds is it the Bucks yeah let it be the buck sure all right I mean they’re literally the number two seed right now
In the East but all of a sudden like Cleveland cooled off a little bit the Knicks got so banged up that like yeah Duce McBride played 47 minutes and 13 seconds Off the Bench last night and I know Brunson got hurt in early and he’s their only other point guard but like if
Other teams 47 and 30 minutes off the bench is a record man yeah like if other teams were healthy it might be a conversation but honestly we’re talking about a 76ers team that was really awesome but then embiid got injured and is probably out for the rest of the
Season the Knicks were awesome yeah they were doing what the kind of what the Celtics have been doing lately is just bludgeoning every single team but they had a million injuries in succession right and you know and now it’s just Josh Hart grabbing 20 rebounds a game as
They grind out of wins and they did it again last night so yeah it’s going to be interesting but uh the West is so much better than the East right now anyway that does it for us today been your host will you been listening to the Raptor show on the sports radio network
Brought to you by Campbell’s new chunky spicy soup it’s time to get fired up make sure you find the Raptor show whever you listening to podcast subscribe and please interview the show big thanks to our producer amtm for producer dere brandale Jennifer David says Jer manit helping behind the scenes
Thanks to Our Guest Savannah Hamilton and of course Samson folk uh I will talk to samon more
Will Lou and guest host Samson Folk kick off today’s show discussing the Raptors’ weekend of action and recent roster moves. Later, the pair weigh in on RJ Barrett’s growth from his time in New York to his current stint in Toronto. Later on, Savanna Hamilton, Raptors sideline reporter for Sportsnet, checks in following practice to chat about Jordan Nwora’s security in the rotation and the changes in Gradey Dick’s game.
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0:00 – Raptors Weekend Recap
29:48 – RJ Barrett’s Growth Since Becoming a Raptor
49:28 – Savanna Hamilton on Jordan Nwora & Gradey Dick
1:13:59 – Around the NBA
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12 Comments
so hard to watch with Will but I get it done because I love my raptors and no one else covers them like this
New media north
SAMSON FOLK THE GREATEST GUEST CO HOST ON EARTH
Where is Alex!!! Bring him back. The show is not the same without him.
can we sign samson to a 4 year max?
Comment for Sam.
The tan is real!
easy to forget samson was averaging 12 5 5 with 1 steal a game only three years ago
Sam was great! he knows his stuff and I love the analytical approach, it makes for a very interesting show! he's my favorite co-host thus far
Really enjoyed the last two segments in particular.
Sam you were awesome. Really impressed me. The take you gave on the Korean Dr. was fascinating.
Will you’re becoming a waste of time. You said RJ has been scoring 20-25 per gm on 55-60% and called that above avg/something to build on. What planet are you from? You build to GET to that lol. That was a senseless statement. You said there are still problems and named not believing in his 3pt% as one of them. What 😂? That’s a you problem. He’s hitting them so there’s no problem there lol. He can’t control what you believe in. Again, senseless. The last shot in the paint vs Pacers was a good shot. He created a good shot, just didn’t hit. There wasn’t any issue there. I find your analysis head scratching.
Success is not in what you have, but who you are. – Bo Bennett
19:39 justin trudeau getting that will lou vote in 2025