Jakob Poeltl felt good after his first game, the Raptors' preseason opener: "I was pretty happy with like where I was at, like just body-wise, conditioning-wise." Still adjusting to Scottie Barnes' passes: "sometimes they come fast, they come when you don't expect them."
Scottie Barnes bumped his knee and the Raptors kept him out for the entire second half. "We were cautious how much we're gonna play him," Darko Rajakovic said. Missing a couple of injured players, he also limited minutes for others in their first game back from a long break.
"I'm almost like overconfident of a person," RJ Barrett said on Oct. 3, adding the Raptors' system "fits my game very well." He owned "some stupid shots in the 2nd half" but said the game beat practice: no "annoying, pesky, pesky teammates" trying to steal the ball.
Collin Murray-Boyles is getting minutes at both power forward and centre for the Toronto Raptors, and Darko Rajakovic wants him to be more forceful on offense. "That's going to be definitely a work in progress," Rajakovic said of the dual role.
"You guys got a green light to shoot the 3-ball." Darko Rajakovic told Tyreke Key and the rest of the Toronto Raptors that after Key twice drove instead of shooting. Toronto got the extra threes it wanted but hit 29%. "We just got to make more shots," Rajakovic said.