Samson Folk & Trevon Heath discuss the latest with the Toronto Raptors.
From Samson’s piece:
“The Magic offense was comprised mostly of Wagner drives, and the Raptors had gotten a lot more clarity on how they wanted to guard those. Wagner finished the first half with 7 turnovers.
Rotate, chase, recover, attack. The Raptors ran their cycle repeatedly on the Magic offense and overwhelmed them to close the half on a huge run. Punctuated emphatically by a stop, an outlet pass from Barrett, and a 360 dunk by Barnes that forced a timeout from the Magic. Ultimately, the home team walked into halftime with a commanding 16-point lead.
“When it comes to taking care of the basketball, you mentioned different guys being wolves or hunting and trying to go steal the basketball, that’s certainly part of it. But, how you play in terms of your spacing is really important. Where you are on the floor.” Coach Sweeney told me before the game. “Toronto does a great job, anytime you get towards that sideline they become more aggressive. So, being mindful of where you are on the floor and where you wanna be is something. How you set and use screens is really important. You can go back to when I coached in College and using more two-guard fronts against teams that used more full court pressure instead of one-guard fronts in case you need that outlet. There’s a few different things you can do, as it pertains to what they do.”
Sweeney summed it up with this:
“I think in general it’s how you run the court, it’s how you space the court. It’s how you screen – use them, set them. And then ultimately when you attack, if you’ve done those things then you’re probably going to have more opportunities to find the right guy.”
Have a blessed day.
