Time in highlight brief for Raptors are eradicate them from NBA Cup

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The NBA Cup, now in its third 12 months, won’t have actually caught on but, however on paper Tuesday’s tilt towards the New York Knicks was the most important Raptors sport in a while. It was Toronto’s first one-game elimination contest since a wild play-in sport loss to the Chicago Bulls and DeMar DeRozan in April of 2023. Toronto blew an enormous lead in that one and was denied an opportunity to go to Miami for a winner-take-all for the eighth seed within the playoffs that 12 months.

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This time round they fell behind by 18 within the first half and minus some key gamers, couldn’t rally towards a Knicks workforce that has had their quantity with wins in 11 of the final 14 conferences the final 4 seasons. In truth, issues bought worse for the Raptors, who trailed by as many as 24 and by no means actually threatened in a 117-101 loss.

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Overall, the reeling Raptors misplaced for the sixth time in seven video games, surrendering a season-high 26 first-half factors to Jalen Brunson and manner too many straightforward baskets within the paint. Elite function participant Josh Hart additionally went off towards Toronto. That negated a robust effort from Brandon Ingram, who mixed with Brunson to attain half of the sport’s factors by way of 24 minutes.

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Various Raptors had talked up the NBA Cup within the lead-up, noting how moreover the status of profitable the event, the monetary incentives play an enormous function too. Advancing to the knockout spherical earned every Raptor a little bit over $50,000 U.S. additional and one other win would have doubled the quantity with it rising to round $500,000 apiece for gamers on the NBA Cup champions. “Not everyone makes the identical sum of money, it’ll imply one thing to everyone, however there’s positively some guys that you recognize it will imply a little bit extra for them,” RJ Barrett had mentioned.

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For the workforce’s greatest participant, Barnes it was an opportunity to carry out in an even bigger highlight. He’s been one of many 15 greatest gamers within the NBA thus far, particularly while you consider his defensive dominance (Barnes collected his November Eastern Conference defensive participant of the month trophy pre-game), however many hadn’t seen him play till Tuesday.

“With the schedule that we’ve, we didn’t have that many (nationwide U.S.) TV video games,” Barnes informed the Toronto Sun final week. “So enjoying in NBA Cup simply attempting to get to Vegas, simply gonna give us some extra publicity, give us some extra tv time. Keep attempting to place the phrase on us, what we will do and the workforce we’ve, clearly, it’s simply going to maintain bringing extra buzz,” Barnes had mentioned.

Unfortunately for Barnes he had a tough night time far totally different than how he’d fared in his playoff debut as a rookie towards Philadelphia years in the past when he was dominant. He struggled to hit pictures and couldn’t cease the Knicks on the different finish (he had a whole lot of firm there, particularly Jakob Poeltl, who didn’t look proper and appears to nonetheless be impacted by his again damage).

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Only Ingram and Immanuel Quickley had beforehand competed within the NBA Cup knockout stage, with Ingram dominant in a 2023- semi-final win for New Orleans (30 factors on 50% taking pictures), however manner off in a semi-final loss. Quickley had additionally misplaced in 2023, within the quarter-final, taking pictures simply 1-for-7 for New York in that one.

The Knicks advance to tackle Orlando in Las Vegas, whereas Toronto is off till enjoying Miami on Monday.

EMBRACING THE PRESSURE

Knicks head coach Mike Brown mentioned pre-game that is as shut as common season video games can get to playoff video games.

“I’ve mentioned this to our guys earlier than. Anytime you’ll be able to manufacture any sort of stress all through the course of the common season, you attempt to do it,” Brown mentioned. “If you’re in place to really feel any sort of stress in any respect, that’s a privilege. So you embrace it. And that’s the way in which I type of take a look at it greater than else. Hey, it’s a one sport elimination really feel, which implies there’s a little bit little bit of stress there. Embrace it, since you look ahead to these issues and people challenges, particularly when you’re a competitor.”

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CHANGING IT UP

With Quickley’s sickness worsening (he had been a game-time determination Sunday however ended up enjoying), the workforce’s place to begin guard was out towards his former workforce. RJ Barrett remained sidelined too, that means the return for New York for OG Anunoby for Toronto was in avenue garments for this massive sport. That necessitated a brand new look lineup for Darko Rajakovic. Jamal Shead was the plain selection at level guard, however from his prolonged solid of characters at taking pictures guard, Toronto’s head coach opted for Ochai Agbaji. Agbaji made 45 begins in 64 video games in a profession season final 12 months, however had struggled this 12 months till a latest sizzling stretch and had solely beforehand began one time. Shead made his first begin after doing so 11 instances as a rookie and was one of many higher Raptors offensively, scoring a career-best 18 factors, whereas Agbaji was quiet with solely three.

This was the primary sport Quickley’s missed, a far cry from the 49 he was out for final season.

Barnes, Ingram, Shead and Gradey Dick at the moment are the one Raptors to play in all 26 outings thus far.

Rajakovic had mentioned different Raptors must step as much as win the sport, however that didn’t actually occur.

@WolstatSun

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