Finally, some breathing room.
After a rough 3 game losing skid, the Raptors 905 got back into the winning column. Yeah, Raptors 905 as the majority of the players that were active today have ties with the 905 club.
Confidence
It's obvious that Nick Nurse is trying to rehab his players' performance by giving them the longer leash and empowering them the more that they struggle. Right now, while the intent is good, Kyle Lowry went down with an apparent ankle injury while the team was up 30 in the 3rd period -- all for getting Lowry to shoot his way back into rhythm.
It worked for Ibaka, Siakam, and JV -- it's starting to work for Delon Wright. It was slowly working for Norman Powell.
Nurse is trying to make it work for CJ Miles, Lorenzo Brown, and Malachi Richardson. It looks like Malachi is starting to get there.
Had this been Nurse, CJ would have been in the doghouse after 5 games. Brown and Richardson won't be seeing rotation minutes unless it's really, really bad.
Looking at how Nurse's handling the Kawhi situation - especially the late game gaffes -- it looks like Nurse is doing the same with Kawhi.
Nurse knows that he needs to elevate his team's individual performance to get as deep as possible in the playoffs. Kawhi by himself won't cut it, regardless of how good he is. Kawhi's going to need an army of solid players to play off and play with.
Tonight was a good sign of progression. We saw Kyle got the leeway to get himself out of the slump. Siakam, Ibaka, and JV are playing better than expected. Malachi and Brown started off shaky but was able to shake off the cobwebs and contribute.
Jordan Loyd and Chris Boucher even got some good burn tonight.
Personally, I like the approach, and a team like the Bulls tonight was a good practice run.
No comments:
Post a Comment