After a sluggish loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday, the Toronto Raptors will complete their three-game homestand Monday night against the Atlanta Hawks and high-scoring Trae Young.
Young scored 42 points in a 123-115 loss in Milwaukee against the Bucks on Saturday night and is averaging 31.5 points per game. He has scored at least 35 points in each of his past three games.
In losing, 112-90, to the 76ers, who were without Joel Embiid on Friday, the Raptors were done in by Tyrese Maxey’s career-best 44 points.
“We’ve got to do a better job collectively defensively,” said Pascal Siakam, who had 26 points and 10 rebounds for Toronto on Friday. “Because to me, the team that we are, someone can score two, somebody can score 100, but once we are connected together as a team and play together as a team, it shows. No matter who is scoring or who is not, we always look like a team and I think that we didn’t [Friday] because they just played so well.”
The Raptors defeated the 76ers on Wednesday in the opener of the homestand.
Toronto guard Fred VanVleet was 0-for-8 from three-point range Friday after going 77 straight games with at least one made three-pointer. He finished with one point on 0-for-11 shooting from the field and 1-for-3 from the free-throw line.
“I asked him several times in the game physically if he was all right,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “And he said that he was every time, but he certainly was out of sorts.”
“I think he’s got to continue to be aggressive for us,” Siakam said of VanVleet. “We’re not really worried about the shotmaking because he has done that at a high level and we know he can do that.”
VanVleet agreed he wasn’t himself on Friday.
“I didn’t have much pop, much energy,” VanVleet said. “I’ve had a few games like that. I usually throw a couple threes in there late and people forget about it. It didn’t go that way this time. ... I’ll bounce back.”