Raptors finally show they can get up 3s at a modern rate in win over Pelicans

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NEW ORLEANS — They shouldn’t be called role players. They should be called roles’ players. Davion Mitchell wants you to know that.

The singular implies these guys have one job to do. Though it’s true many players on each NBA roster have a most-important, nonnegotiable task to perform each night to maintain their minutes, it isn’t as if they can do just that one thing at the expense of everything else.

Mitchell, the Toronto Raptors’ starting point guard for most of Immanuel Quickley’s extended absence, lives on his one-on-one defensive reputation. Depending on who he is sharing the floor with, his job morphs.

“It ain’t as easy as (observers) think,” Mitchell said during a one-on-one conversation Wednesday morning, before the Raptors beat the New Orleans Pelicans 119-93 for their first road win of the season. “People see (me miss) and say, ‘Oh, he can’t hit a wide-open 3.’ But also, I bet 90 percent of people can’t guard 94 feet and then shoot the 3. … And then (sometimes I need to) run the offence. It’s a hard thing to do.

“I’ve got to have a little bit of legs for offence. So I got to guard 94 feet — sometimes just to change the game up a little bit. … They don’t understand.”

Unless you play and fill Mitchell’s roles, you cannot know. However, it remains true that taking those 3s, and making a passable percentage, is part of Mitchell’s job. The “taking” part is an element of every Raptors player’s job, save for Jakob Poeltl and Bruno Fernando. As discussed earlier in the week, the Raptors are way behind in this fundamental element of the league, attempting and making the fewest 3s on a per-possession basis in the league before Wednesday’s games. All of that is intensified without Quickley and Gradey Dick, who has a calf contusion, the team’s best shooters off movement.

It is easy to say the Raptors should take more 3s. They do, from the average shooters (RJ Barrett shot 36 percent on his 250 attempts last year and eclipsed 40 percent in his second season) to the developing shooters (Mitchell has made 32.5 percent of 736 attempts for his career) to the completely inexperienced ones (in 19 NBA games, Jonathan Mogbo has quintupled the number of attempts he got up in two NCAA seasons; he has taken 10).

Taking more 3s means rewiring their basketball brains, though.

“He tries to make the right play every time,” Mitchell said of Raptors rookie Jamal Shead, who, like Mitchell, entered the league as a defence-first guard who had the ball in his hands in college. “And sometimes it affects him because he tries to make the right play, and the right play was for you to shoot the ball if it was a wide-open shot, not to look for somebody else. You’re wide open. This is the best shot we got, and because you passed out of that shot, we got a worse shot.”

Mitchell expressed confidence Shead will figure out the process.

“I’ve got everybody telling me to take some more open shots and to be confident in my shot. I try to do that,” Shead said moments after Mitchell made his assessment. “If I have coach Darko (Rajaković) and half the coaching staff and half of the players telling me, ‘Hey, when you’re open, shoot the ball,’ that’s what you want to hear as a basketball player. It might not have been my role for the past four years, but that’s what the NBA’s about.”

Without their best shooters, the Raptors’ less-acclaimed shooters find themselves in difficult spots. Quickley and Dick can take the most difficult types of 3s, thus creating more driving lanes for Scottie Barnes and Barrett. Other than offensive rebounds and transition, those drives usually produce the best 3s. Without those threats, the Raptors’ playmakers have less space to work with and thus less space to begin those drives, making the creation of those looks even more difficult.

Against New Orleans, Rajaković inserted rookie Ja’Kobe Walter into the starting lineup for Mitchell, trying to make up for those absences. Walter has a nice shooting stroke, but he is a speculative threat instead of a proven one, playing in just his fifth NBA game. The Raptors’ first three looks were 3s, including two in the half court that found Walter in the corner. Walter hit the first. Seven of the Raptors’ first 11 shots before the first television timeout came from deep, but the Walter make was the only one. They were largely wide open. Toronto took a Boston Celtics-esque 17 3s in the opening quarter, making just four.

Mercifully, Jamison Battle knocked some down as the game progressed, with Ochai Agbaji joining him. The Raptors positively regressed in real time, making eight of their 12 3s in the second. Battle and Agbaji both had 24 points, a career high for the former and a season high for the latter. By the end, Battle, a rookie on a two-way deal, was taking a heat check. (“I thought it was going (in),” Battle said, smiling.)

The Raptors took 52 3s to the Pelicans’ 35, making 21 to New Orleans’ 11. The Raptors have often been on the wrong side of that math this year. It was the first time all season they attempted more 3s than 2s, taking 54.7 percent of their looks from deep. Their previous high was 42.4 percent.

They should be happy they were creating the looks. Without Dick and Quickley, the Raptors’ other shooters have to get used to taking more difficult shots than they might otherwise just to keep the opposition honest. It’s not a comfortable way to get comfortable from deep. Shooters were connecting on 35.8 percent of 3s across the league before Wednesday’s action; only Battle (43.3 percent on 3.3 attempts per game) and Agbaji (46.2 percent on 4.1 attempts) are above that threshold among regular Raptors rotation players. Two of the five Raptors to take the most total 3s this year (Mitchell and Chris Boucher) are more than 3 percentage points below the average; Barrett snuck up to 33.3 percent Wednesday.

“I think we need to be willing to take good shots, good rhythm shots,” Rajaković said. “For me, if you’re open, there is a short closeout and you have an opportunity to (take) catch-and-shoot 3s. I think in the NBA level, that’s a really, really good shot. So I’m encouraging all of the guys to (take them) in those situations.”

As Mitchell pointed out, it’s easier said than done sometimes. In the modern NBA, though, it’s not optional.

“The 3-point shot is really important in today’s game,” Shead said. “I just have to keep getting that better, regardless if I’ll be on the ball or not.”

Notes

• The change to the starting group was worth a shot, if only to get a bit more theoretical movement shooting into the lineup. The hope is Walter and Barnes will play together a bunch, so it is good to see that pairing in different contexts. Walter had 14 points and 11 rebounds, both highs for his young career.

I can’t believe this transition play worked out, but it sure was fun:

Walter’s aunts from Alabama, whom he had not seen since the season began, were at the game. When they caught his attention as he approached the tunnel after the game, he flashed a sweet smile.

• If the Raptors could dream a sequence, it would be Agbaji funnelling a driver smart toward Poeltl, and Barrett and Barnes going the other way in transition. Simple, beautiful stuff:

• I was starting to worry about Agbaji after a few rough games. I shouldn’t have. Nothing new here: smart defender, demon in transition. He had recorded just 13 points, six rebounds and two steals in the previous three games after a stellar start to the season.

“I had a friendly conversation with him, and I just called him out because I know how much he can do, how much he can contribute to this team,” Rajaković said after the game. “And I know how good of a player he is. I never had a doubt. I just wanted him to be aggressive. And he was aggressive.”

• In what might have been (but might not have been) his final game in New Orleans, the closest city to his hometown of Baton Rouge, La., Garrett Temple said he asked for just six tickets. He saw most of his family Tuesday. Veteran move.

• Please note the Pelicans were starting Dejounte Murray and CJ McCollum in their first and second games back from monthlong absences, a sixth-year journeyman (Javonte Green), a rookie centre (Yves Missi) and a two-way wing (Brandon Boston Jr.). Beggars can’t be choosers when you’re winless on the road — at least until Wednesday. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

(Photo of Scottie Barnes reacting after scoring a 3-pointer: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)





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About The Author

Christi Melton is a writer from The Newspring. She writes about lifestyle, books, sports, education and technology. Her hobbies include reading and playing tennis.

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