It’s only been a couple weeks, but it feels like the Toronto Raptors have come a long way since their season-opening 98-83 loss to the Washington Wizards.
Despite the absence of their best player in Pascal Siakam, the Raptors have now won four in a row. Most impressively, they defeated the New York Knicks at MSG on Monday, missing not only Siakam and a rotation player in Yuta Watanabe, but also the very quickly important presence of Scottie Barnes.
While the Siakam-less Raptors are not exactly a reliable team for producing halfcourt offense, Nick Nurse has carved out a pretty consistent rotation that’s shown a considerable amount of promise compared to last year’s, shall we say, underwhelming, bench unit.