Quickley’s upcoming return should boost Raptors both offensively and defensively

Los Angeles — Immanuel Quickley has never been in a car accident, but he feels like he’s got the general sense. It’s not an experience he’s eager to repeat. 

That’s how the symptoms he suffered after he rolled off Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland’s back and slammed into the hardwood tailbone first were described to the Toronto Raptors guard: major collision, nothing broken, it just takes time.

“You get hit, and your body is just sore,” said Quickley, who had his season interrupted 14 minutes into the season opener at Scotiabank Arena back on Oct. 23rd. “And you just got to wait for it to heal.”

The wait may be over. Quickley has been through a couple of full practices now and is expected to be a game-time decision Saturday when the Raptors are hosted by the Los Angeles Clippers at the Intuit Dome on Saturday.  

Toronto, who are 2-7 on the season and winless on the road, could certainly use him as they hit the mid-point of their five-game road trip.

Being competitive hasn’t been a problem for the Raptors. They’ve won or tied 20 of the past 32 quarters since they were smashed from start to finish by the Cleveland Cavaliers on opening night. In the past two games, they’ve taken leads into the fourth quarter and come up empty.

On the season, the Raptors are 29th in net rating in the final 12 minutes of games. 

It’s not their defence that’s sinking them necessarily. The Raptors are a bad defensive team overall, sitting 29th in defensive rating for the season, but are actually a tiny bit better in the fourth quarter, where they are 27th in defensive rating.

It’s their offence cratering in key moments that probably hurts them most. The Raptors put up 113.3 points per 100 possessions overall — 13th in the NBA — but only 111.5/100 in the fourth, which is 21st. 

They’re close, so maybe the guy who has yet to play a fourth quarter this season can help the Raptors win one? 

Quickley is open to the concept.

“I think fourth quarter intensity is different, so just trying to calm guys down a little bit,” he said Friday. “I think also on defence, we foul a lot down the stretch, and it’s hard to score in the fourth quarter, ao when you put teams on the line there, it’s easy for them to score, and then they can set their defence. It’s just little things in the fourth quarter we’ve probably got to be better at.  Continue to talk to the guys and try to show them different ways and different things that I’ve seen throughout my five years.”

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He hasn’t shown it all that much with Toronto, but that’s mostly due to logistics. Quickley played just 38 games with the Raptors last season after he was acquired from the New York Knicks on Dec. 30th. 

The Raptors liked what they did see — he averaged 18.6 points and 6.8 assists, both of which would be career highs over a full season, and connected on 39.5 per cent of his three-point attempts — and signed him to a five-year contract extension worth $175 million. 

Hopes were high that Quickley would be well on his way to establishing himself as the Raptors’ long-term solution at point guard by now, but a sprained thumb cost him all but one game during pre-season, and his fall sidelined him for all but 14 minutes of the regular season. 

Getting up to full speed will take some time, but the Raptors are eager to get the process started. 

“He brings a lot to our team from shooting, from opening up the floor for other guys as well, spacing,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “He’s learning our system more and more, so he’s becoming more comfortable with cutting and just running our team well. Obviously, those [first] couple of games, he’ll need his reconditioning back. We’ll be intentional about his minutes on the court as well. So hopefully, 10 days from now, he’s really rocking and helping us big time.”

It’s down the stretch where the Raptors need help most. 

The Raptors foul too much (no one fouls more this season than Toronto, and down the stretch, it’s worse, as they foul opponents on 52.4 per cent of the shots they take) and don’t score enough to compensate for it, so things spiral.

“It comes with experience of the guys that we have on the court, said Rajakovic. “It’s a lot of learning. We were struggling opening up games in the first quarters. We addressed that … now we’re talking about fourth quarters. Hopefully, that’s going to be better … when you work with a young team, there are so many things. We’re really trying to be intentional to address one thing at a time so we’re not being overwhelming with our young guys and to allow them to grow from that. I thought that for three quarters of the [last game]  we did a really good job [but] it’s up to us to continue working.”

Having Quickley back should help. 

“He’s a dog, he’s a player that teams have to worry about,” said Raptors wing RJ Barrett, who came over with Quickley from the Knicks last season. “He’s our point guard. He’s the head of the snake. We’re definitely going to need him, his shooting, his shooting off pick and rolls, just the gravity that he has [to draw defenders] with his ability to shoot the ball off the bounce. Stuff like that is going to open the games up for us.”

Offensively, his contributions should be immediate, just with his presence. But Quickley is confident he can help defensively, too. 

“I think my IQ is probably my biggest strength,” he says. “ What you need in the fourth quarter, you need guys that know what they’re doing defensively, rotations, blitzes, double teams, all that type of stuff. 

And as for the chronic fouling? “Try not to touch them,” Quickley said. “Don’t foul them. You either foul somebody, or you don’t foul somebody. I mean, it’s not really technique, just don’t foul.”

Like everyone else, he’s been watching the Raptors and feels there’s more there, even as they try to work through a 2-7 start. He’s different in that he can do something about it, maybe as soon as Saturday against the Clippers. 

“I don’t think our record speaks to what we’re doing day to day,” said Quickley. “Sometimes that happens. Sometimes you work hard and you don’t get the results you want right away, which is why we play sports, because that’s kind of how life is. Sometimes, you work hard, you don’t get what you want. You got to keep working. And that’s just how it is sometimes. And eventually, the results come.”

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