Raptors takeaways: Non-stop injuries wearing down Barrett, others?

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With Immanuel Quickley the latest Raptor to be lost for a number of weeks due to injury, Darko Rajakovic’s options continue to be limited. Of the 10 Raptors considered most likely to be part of a 10-man rotation heading into the season, there currently are only six at Rajakovic’s disposal.

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No Quickley, No Scottie Barnes, no Kelly Olynyk, no Ja’Kobe Walter, no Bruce Brown. Others will have to step up, even if many are not familiar with this type of workload.

Ochai Agbaji has probably been the best early Raptors story (either him or Gradey Dick). He’s playing far better than ever before, posting stunning early shooting numbers with career highs in most categories. He’s also averaging 31.3 minutes a night (more after playing 35 in Tuesday’s night’s loss at Milwaukee), way up from the 23.6 per game in his first 27 games as a Raptor last year and more than 50% up from the 20.1 minutes he averaged in 110 games over parts of two seasons with Utah.

Nobody expects Agbaji to continue to shoot 59% from the field and 48% on three-point shots as he had been doing prior to Tuesday, but it’s even harder to keep that kind of work up (which includes NBA best shooting on corner three-point attempts) when one is playing that much. Plus, Agbaji often draws the toughest defensive assignment or one of them, which takes a lot of energy.

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RJ Barrett was averaging 33.3 minutes prior to Tuesday, which isn’t unusual for him since it’s exactly his career average, but, he’s never been tasked with being a No. 1 scoring option and a top play-making threat while playing those kind of minutes. Even at Duke Barrett wasn’t required to do what Rajakovic is asking of him. Not to mention Rajakovic has said all year he wants Barrett to give a top effort on defence as well. Barrett shot just 3-for-14 against the Bucks and is now slumping.

Dick, like Agbaji and Barrett, is also a candidate to burn out under the strain of having to make up for all of the absences. Dick has played about 30% of the total minutes as he did in his entire rookie season. We are only three weeks into the season. And he’s already had some rough games following his fantastic start as the minutes piled up. Obviously he looked just fine on Tuesday as he was probably the best player on the court.

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Starting centre Jakob Poeltl, missing Olynyk, in particular, had never averaged over 30 minutes a night until this season (he was under 20 a game in his first four years in the NBA before San Antonio, and then Toronto a second time around gave him more time). He has to guard the biggest and strongest players on the court and cover tons of ground. It will catch up with him if the cavalry doesn’t arrive soon.

Meanwhile, Davion Mitchell went from averaging 27.7 minutes as a rookie, to 18.1 and then 15.3 as his time in Sacramento wore down, but is nearly doubling last year’s average because Quickley has missed so many games. Like Agbaji, Mitchell has major asks at both ends of the floor and is having to adjust to a lot more minutes than he expected. Like several Raptors, Mitchell looked like he didn’t have much left to end this trip, scoring one point on two shots on Tuesday.

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Finally, Chris Boucher, an afterthought for Rajakovic in the coach’s first season in Toronto, has become a key reserve and like Dick is nearly at 30% of last year’s total minutes already.

Barnes should be back in 1-2 weeks, barring any setbacks, and that will take all kinds of pressure and wear and tear off of nearly every Raptor mentioned here. Olynyk is doing on-court work and his eventual return should benefit Poeltl the most.

A BLIP OR NO?

Milwaukee got up 56 three-point attempts against the Raptors. Lots of teams shoot tons of treys, but Toronto was surrendering only 32.9 attempts a game heading in, second-fewest in the NBA.

The Bucks only shot 28.6% on the attempts, far below the 35.6% opponents had been shooting against the Raptors.

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Will teams keep firing away against the Raptors from now on? Have they found something against a previously stingy squad? Or was it more you have to build a wall to try to stop the human freight train Giannis Antetokounmpo and that will lead to a lot of kickouts for three-point shots?

Toronto surrendered 37 and 26 three-point attempts against the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers, respectively.

AROUND THE RIM

Credit Bruno Fernando for developing his game in-season. He looked pretty rough early on, showing poor hands and little touch, but has come on a bit lately. That included a huge dunk over Antetokounmpo on Tuesday and a nice move inside. Fernando had 13 rebounds and eight points in 18 good minutes … Largely because the Bucks took so many three-pointers, they barely got to the free throw line. Only 12 attempts was a season-low for a Raptors opponent, the previous low had been 25. Toronto has allowed 53 and 41 attempts in games this season.

@WolstatSun

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