Fred VanVleet and Norm Powell didn’t get matched up against each other very often in the Raptors-Clippers game Tuesday night and that’s OK — because they really aren’t allowed to.
Too intense.
“He was like the first guy I found who matched my drive and my work ethic and my competitiveness,” VanVleet said of Powell, his Toronto teammate for four-plus seasons. “We had to stop playing one-on-one after a while because it was getting too crazy. That’s what I’ll always remember about Norm.”
Powell played his first game in Toronto as a member of the visiting team, having been dealt from the Raptors to Portland and then on to the Clippers in a series of deals as the pandemic played havoc with the NBA schedule from 2020 until now.