The Raptors had a lot of ugly film to watch on Thursday morning following Wednesday’s 136-125 home loss against the Dallas Mavericks. Dallas shot 54% from the field in the game, Luka Doncic had a triple-double, Kyrie Irving had 29 and Toronto offered little resistance.
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The good news for Rajakovic, if you want to call it that, is he’ll see how fast his crew can learn a thing or too, because another huge test awaits on Friday. Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors are in town for their lone visit. Dallas averages 117.7 points per 100 possessions, good for sixth in the NBA, but Golden State is just behind at 117.5 per 100. And Curry, the two-time league MVP has been harder to stop than anyone else historically when playing in Toronto. Curry, the greatest shooter in the history of the sport, has averaged 29.9 points per game in eight regular-season games at Scotiabank Arena (plus 29.3 points there during the NBA Finals despite at times being double or even triple-teamed). Curry sits just ahead of former teammate Kevin Durant (28.6 points in 14 games in Canada), Allen Iverson (28.4 in Toronto), LeBron James (28.1) and Damian Lillard (27.3). Pretty good company, with Curry topping them all.
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“Not really. I think you just try to take every game the same but Stephen, Kyrie, Luka, they’re different players, they’re on a different planet, the way they make shots or the way they create for others, how they see the game,” Brown said.
Curry has the best resume of the three and that’s even more the case at Toronto where he’s always looked comfortable. Maybe it’s because Curry spent two years around the building and the city when his father Dell played for the Raptors. He scored 29 in his first NBA game there in 2010, 34 early the next season, 44 in 2015 and 25 in 2016. Curry actually hasn’t played a regular-season game in Toronto in more than five years, meaning it will be a special treat for the legion of Curry fans in the city when he suits up on Friday, assuming he doesn’t get hurt during Thursday’s game in New York.
Wiggins is out of the lineup due to a personal matter though and Curry has slumped over his last three, shooting under 36% from the field in each of them and never once topping 20 points. Still, the team should present a sizeable challenge for the Raptors, even coming off a back-to-back.
“Yeah. I played in the play-in like two years ago, so it was great,” Brown said. “It was a good atmosphere. We ended up beating Cleveland when I was in Brooklyn, so it was good. We’ll definitely try to get there. I mean, we’ll definitely try to get there. You never know what happens in March what Miami was on a play-in and made it to the Finals so you never know.
“I think it’s great,” veteran centre Kelly Olynyk said. “You definitely have something to play for. Without that, it would be statistically really hard. If you could sneak into that 10 spot and that play-in, anything can happen. All of a sudden you have a playoff series and you get hot and now you’re rolling and now you build confidence and you never know what happens.”
As Brown said, the Miami Heat was a perfect example of that just last season.
Toronto sat 4.5 games behind Atlanta for the final play-in spot and 0.5 behind Brooklyn before the teams played each other on Thursday night.
