Scottie Barnes sets career high as he and RJ Barrett star in win over Pacers

Before the game had started, Rick Carlisle pointed out how important slowing down the Raptors would be, and while that’s important for every team, they were facing the Grizzlies & Raptors in sequence – two of the fastest teams in the NBA. With Scottie Barnes pushing hard in transition to create a dunk for Ochai Agbaji, push ahead opportunities for others, and a 3-pointer of his own, the Raptors jumped out to a very fast 14-5 lead, and it came expeditiously.

RJ Barrett had 9 points before you could blink, the best of which came on big, sweeping, left-to-right cross on fellow Canadian Bennedict Mathurin before finishing high off the glass with his right hand. On the other end the Pacers were marred by what seemed like malaise. Pascal Siakam got a post-up on Ja’Kobe Walter that he didn’t take very deep. Passes bounced off of hands and feet. In short: their execution was poor to start the game. However, the wheels fell off a little bit with Barnes taking his first break, and Haliburton connecting on a couple triples to bring the game close.

Luckily, the Raptors have a counterpunch, and his name is Barnes. They ran Horns Chin Punch to isolate a mismatch post-up for Barnes — that the Pacers are eager to help onto — which opens up a corner triple for Chris Boucher. Then Barnes finds Jamison Battle in the corner pocket for a 3-ball out of a pick n’ roll with Jonathan Mogbo. THEN Barnes runs the wing in transition and finishes with a huge dunk, before running back on the other end and swiping a layup off the glass for a block. Big time run from a big time player. Raps up 8 heading into the second quarter.

The start of the 2nd quarter was more trouble for the Pacers. A lot of the actions that they wanted to target with Siakam were being pestered and shut down by some really impressive and really aggressive defense from Barnes. Barnes pressured the dribble, crept in the lane as a deterrent when he wasn’t the primary, and played pretty fantastic deny defense to make the Pacers move the offense elsewhere. The Raptors also got three triples combined from Jamal Shead & Davion Mitchell in this timeframe, which isn’t exactly something you can set your watch to – and that helped put the Raptors up by 20 points a little more than halfway through the second quarter, 50-30.

In what has been the case for quite a few games since Barnes’ return, he and Barrett were completely driving the Raptors process. The Pacers were playing a lot of drop defense — which we should know helps fuel Barnes’ play — and Barnes’ driving game came alive as he bludgeoned into the paint repeatedly. With Barrett? Well, he’s been one of the best pick n’ roll players in the NBA this season (91st percentile for all players who have used more than 10 poss) and the driving game is always present, but with Barnes’ return he’s been able to eat more often as a cutter and spot-up shooter. All in all, they scored nearly half of the Raptors 65 first half points (31) and took the Raptors into halftime with a 17-point lead.

After the break, the Raptors just kept hammering open the lead. We got Davion Mitchell driving closeouts and hitting contested floaters. We got a flurry of Barnes triples, and more of Barrett’s driving prowess. Everyone pitched in and the Raptors overwhelmed the Pacers completely. On the other end the Pacers tried a bit more initiation with Siakam, but it wasn’t very effective – the Raptors did a fantastic job of running the Pacers off the line while also presenting bodies in the lane to force misses. It’s not as if the Pacers are a bad halfcourt offense this year, they’re top-5 in the NBA, and the Raptors defense consistently blew up their actions. Mitchell & Barnes deserve credit in particular for their defense on Haliburton & Siakam.

Eventually though, the Raptors seemed to take on a bit of a “playing with their food” mindset and the Pacers hit an avalanche of threes coming back. The Raptors pretty quickly found themselves with a single digit lead at the close of the third quarter.

Luckily, they had Barnes to fall back on again and again. There were some truly, truly special drives to the bucket from Barnes to force the issue and deliver in the fourth quarter. The best one was probably with Siakam draped over him for a full 18 feet before double clutching and finishing over both his former teammate and the help defense. Strength. Big time strength. Still though, the Pacers had found their pace, and kept churning forward for bucket after bucket to whittle away at the lead. They also identified a decent ability to attack Poeltl on switches. 102-95, Raptors with 9 minutes to go.

Barrett checked in and the Raptors immediately ran gut Chicago to get him on a curved drive to the rim — for a bucket — and he followed up a Haliburton miss from downtown with an isolation on Obi Toppin that drew free throws. A nice little punch of offense immediately. Barnes was called for a double-dribble and checked out. The question on everyone’s mind: can the Raptors survive these minutes?

Turner hit a triple. Toppin got an and-one layup to go over Poeltl. All of the sudden the lead was 2. Mitchell responded by out-foxing the Pacers on a man advantage — baiting Mathurin out of the corner — and found Agbaji for a corner triple. Barnes checked in after a 2-minute reprieve, and with a 5-point Raptors lead. They survived it.

There was one play in the last 5 minutes where the Raptors ran Haliburton off the line, then Siakam off the line, then Mathurin off the line, and once the ball landed with Jarace Walker he beat Poeltl off the bounce and searched for a check down to Siakam in the dunker spot – only Barnes exploded into the passing lane to break up the pass. The Pacers beat the first line multiple times on that play, but recovered as a team over and over. Really impressive. They see-sawed their way back and forth with the Pacers, slowly creeping the lead back to 8 points as we approached the 3-minute mark of the fourth quarter. They did so as Barnes pushed his way to a new career-high: 35 points. Not to mention he tacked on 6 rebounds and 9 assists for good measure. Star stuff.

Not to be mistaken as an afterthought either, Barrett was worming and driving his way to a huge night as well as he finished with 29 points, 9 rebounds, and 5 assists – on only 16 shots, by the way.

The Raptors duo was huge, and steadied them every single time the team needed it. Sterling performance from the Raptors who are now 4-3 since Barnes’ return, and 6-4 at home.

Have a blessed day.

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