The first three-pointer from Scottie Barnes went in, the second was good, the third was a nifty 27-foot step-back three and if he’d made his fourth a row — a true heat check pullup — the roof might have blown off the Scotiabank Arena.
It was an unprecedented long-range blitz, nine points on three shots in 52 seconds of the first quarter Monday that started Barnes and the Raptors on their way to a 30-point rout of the Atlanta Hawks.
And it threw a wrench into the point Nick Nurse had made about 90 minutes earlier when the coach was suggesting Barnes should start concentrate more on punishing opponents at the rim rather than letting them off with jump shots instead of layups, jump hook and dunks.