The Toronto Raptors have surrendered at least 118 points in each of their first five games so far this season.
Unsurprisingly, the poor defense has led to a 1-4 start, which includes a four-game losing streak. Raptors forward Scottie Barnes sent out a call to action for his team to try and get better on the defensive end.
“I just think we have to have more urgency, you’ve got to want it,” Barnes said via Sportsnet reporter Michael Grange. “At certain points of the game, even teams that aren’t really good in transition, they’re getting out in transition versus us. I think they have about like, what (27) transition points today? We’ve got to be better in that area. It’s more on us. We’ve just got to take that stand defensively.
“Teams have been averaging 130 points per game on us for the past four games. That’s just terrible. We’ve actually been doing really good on the offensive end, scoring the ball, getting downhill, kick-out threes. We’ve been doing that pretty good. But you know, just, it just comes down to how many stops can we get? We haven’t been getting them lately.”
Toronto Raptors guard Scottie Barnes looks to pass the ball against the Houston Rockets. / John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images
There has been a concerted league-wide effort to pick up the pace of the offense and the Raptors have felt the effects of that. Toronto’s offense is figuring things out, but getting stops has been a challenge for the team.
In the last three games, teams have shot better than 57 percent against the Raptors from the floor. This could partially be due to the fact that teams have fresher legs at this point of the season, but it’s something that needs to be prevented moving forward.
The Raptors pride themselves on being a defensive team, but it has not looked like that from the start of the season until now. There are no true stoppers on the defensive end, which makes it very hard for teams to not let star players get hot.
At the end of the day, the Raptors have to defend as a team. If they don’t, they could find themselves continuing this losing streak for much longer and that could put them in a major hole to start the season.
The Raptors are back in action in their next game for the NBA Cup opener against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
