Gary Trent Jr. Beginning to Earn His Stripes in Raptors Loss

Gary Trent Jr. is beginning to earn his Toronto Raptors stripes.

It takes a little while for newcomers to get accustomed to everything the Raptors like to do at both ends of the court. When Raptors coach Nick Nurse was asked about Trent Jr. and Rodney Hood adjusting to the team’s systems he said the two were beginning to get a hang of things. They still had work to go, but there was certainly progress.

Well, on Wednesday night it certainly looked like Trent Jr. has figured it out. These days, that’s all you can hope for as the Raptors dropped another game, this time to the rebuilding Oklahoma City Thunder 113-103.

Trent started the first half hot, nailing his shots one after another as Toronto’s offence kept the ball moving until it found his hands. Even when things slowed for the Raptors, he was the lone bright spot in another dark night.

Late in the third quarter, Nurse felt so comfortable with him that Toronto drew up an out-of-timeout play for Trent to come off an above-the-break off-ball screen from Chris Boucher and drive to the rim. It didn’t work as planned, but he earned his stripes a few seconds later when he sneakily picking off an inbound pass with 4.8 on the clock and then turning around and firing a corner 3-pointer to give the Raptors a two-point lead heading into the fourth.

“Just having the will to win, doing anything I can to put my team in a position to put us in a winning [spot], and I just made a winning play,” Trent said.

Any time you can pair pesky defence with some offensive firepower, you’re earning brownie points in Nurse’s book.

“There was some of that good defensive activity, our own style that we like to play a lot there and that was just a good read,” Nurse said of Trent’s steal. “Earlier in the game Maledon had gotten one at the end of the quarter and raced it up 100 miles an hour so we asked him to just try to keep it out of his hands at the end of the quarter and he did and got the steal and made a bucket.”

Trent finished the game with a 12-for-23 with a career-high 31 points.

The problem for Toronto on Wednesday was, of course, rebounding. Even against the Thunder — a team borderline tanking this season and without Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort — the Raptors couldn’t finish defensive possessions. Aron Baynes snagged all of two rebounds in over 20 minutes played.

“It was disheartening a little bit, because we were playing some fairly good defence for lots of, I mean really good defence for lots of stretches of that game and they were walking away with two points on a put back or even three sometimes,” Nurse said. “So it was getting our spirit a little bit the rebounding and certainly the factor of the game.”

After the game, the always articulate Fred VanVleet was almost lost for words. He had basically done it all for Toronto on both ends of the court, scoring 18 points to go with seven assists, five steals, four blocks — most of which should have been steals — and four rebounds.

“It’s tough,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know, does anybody really care? Like does it matter? I mean, I gotta show up tomorrow and get ready for a game on Friday so I mean I can tell you how I feel but I don’t really think it matters that much right now we got to look forward and try to keep getting better.”

Rodney Hood Injury Update

Rodney Hood was forced to exit the game in the second quarter with a right hip injury. He immediately received X-rays that were negative, but he will undergo further testing including an MRI.

“It looks fairly serious,” Nurse said. “They said it was not very good. Not like a little hit and you’ll be okay tomorrow, it was one that’s going to require an MRI, and… we’ll find out. Don’t want to speculate but they said it didn’t look too good.”

Up Next: Golden State Warriors

The Raptors will have the day off to return home before the Golden State Warriors head East to Tampa for a Friday night tilt.