Stunning Collapse, Denver Win in OT

Good Teams somehow find a way to win...

The Raptors, up by 10 with only a couple minutes left against Denver, Lost in Overtime. It was a terrible ending by a young team who have a lot of learning ahead of them this year. The Nuggets haven’t looked good early and didn’t look very good in Toronto tonight either, but with Jokic they always have a chance. Let’s search the bodies while they are still warm and the police haven’t arrived yet…

The Good

Joker

40 points on the night, but it was the big ones to lead the last minute comeback along with the critical ones to open Overtime that mattered the most. Some points are simply worth more at critical times of the game…and his were the extremely valuable type. Got a lot of one on one coverage against Jak and destroyed him powering to the Rim over and over.

Aaron Gordon

Only dropped 16 but battled in the trenches all night and always seemed to be that guy who pulled out the dagger and got a huge momentum swinging bucket. 11 boards, 8 assists, 2 steals and a block…he was leaving it all on the court as always. The leader of the resistance tonight deserves a big shoutout when they Grind a win out on the road when they didn’t really deserve it.

Scottie Barnes

Strong game, forcing the Nuggets to deal with him inside and only taking 3 deep shots. 21/12/9 is a Star’s statline and the 5 steal bonus should have been enough to win the game. Got elbowed in the face and sadly was out when the game got forced into Overtime and decided.

RJ Barrett

Dropped 20 in his first game back, missing all pre-season and being completely rusty. Didn’t play a ‘great’ game but tried to power through it and help his team out. You have to take the situation into account when you grade players and RJ deserves credit for grinding hard and driving into the paint over and over.

Jak

Lost the battle to Jokic, but forced him to take 27 shots to get his 40 piece! Jak countered with 16 of his own and worked hard inside to bring down 19 big boards. There are levels to this game and Jak is a few levels lower than Jokic, but he worked as hard as possible and embraced the challenge which is all you want from a guy.

Ochai

Agbaji continued his run of good games with another one, this time off the bench. 15 points along with his usual strong defensive effort holding down several Nugget players really contributed yet again. He’s putting together a nice run here!

Davion Mitchell

Playing up as the Starting point guard he played a tight game, moving the ball and working hard defensively. Hit 50% of his limited shot selection was as good as you need from your back up PG.

Jamal Shead

8 points off shooting a solid 50% from the floor with strong defense out high on the Nuggets great shooters.

The Bad

Jamal Murray

6 for 20 and got the Davion Mitchell ‘off night’ treatment. Worked hard defensively in reply and showed the grit and determination of a Canadian kid playing at home and having a poor shooting night. So a bad game…but a moral victory.

Dario Saric

Missed 3 shots in 5 minutes and got nailed to the Bench. Gotta find a way to help your team…just a LITTLE BIT!

Darko

The Raptors coach failed to call a timeout with seconds left in OT to give his young team a set play to try and send it to Double Overtime. Failed to find a way to stop the Nuggets from coming back from down 10 with only a couple minutes left. Young teams like the Raptors need a lot more support DURING GAMES. They need a bit of extra time to know the situation, know the plan, understand what they are trying to do. I always put a little blame on coaches for big late game collapses unless it’s a deep veteran team who really should know better. Not holding a 10 point lead with only a couple minutes left lands on the coaches shoulders somewhat.

Summary

Good teams find a way to win…Bad teams a way to lose. This game had both…and that’s a difficult combination for home town fans that take the loss hard. The NBA is so competitive every night and the difference between winning and losing can be razor thin. The Raptors clearly should have won this game but in the long run will likely benefit more from losing it. They’ll get a better draft pick, they’ll walk away learning more as players about how to close out games. Second year head coach Darko will hopefully learn to use his timeouts more effectively with this young team. So the loss is hard to take but everything is going to work out for the best in the end.

The Nuggets have a lot of work to do to get this group into serious Championship contender status. Without Jamal Murray hitting big shots they have little deep threat in the lineup and not nearly enough scoring talent to support the Joker. They went with an athletic Westbrook when I might have considered a more traditional Big to run beside Jokic as a change up lineup and a defensive stopping Twin Towers style. They just don’t nearly have enough shooting to run Westbrook successfully and at least a Big gives you that defensive element that could carry you a bit more in the playoffs. Probably too late to make a big enough change in this lineup…but GM’s get paid the big money to find a way to fix problems.