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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO – On paper, the Raptors are a confusing bunch.

They entered Thursday night’s contest having dropped three straight games, a losing skid that came on the heels of a five-game winning streak.

They lead the NBA in offensive rebounding, even though they don’t employ a single player over the listed height of 6-foot-9. They rank second in transition defence, which is uncommonly high for a club that crashes the offensive glass at such a prolific rate. Their offence is hovering around league average, despite sitting at the bottom in assist percentage, pace and half-court scoring.

They don’t always make sense, but on most nights they pass the eye test. They’ve looked good, at times they’ve looked really good, and Nick Nurse credits that to an attribute that isn’t easily quantified. They play extremely hard.

“We’ve got some metrics that we try to hold [our players] accountable on, but I think mostly the biggest metric is your heart and your toughness and your desire to want to do it,” Nurse said ahead of his team’s 115-109 bounce-back win over Philadelphia. “And fortunately our guys most nights will do that at some point. [They] don’t have it every night in a long season, but I think at some point in most games you’re going to get a pretty good effort out of our crew.”

It’s not a bad reputation to have, but as they’re learning, it’s one they’ve got to live up to every night in order to win games. The word is out.

“They’re not the biggest team but they make up for it with shift, help and team defence, and they’re one of the best at it,” Celtics head coach Ime Udoka said prior to Wednesday’s game in Boston. “That’s what they’re all about – effort, energy and randomness.”

They’ve exceeded external expectations early in the season, but while their 7-6 start may be a surprise to some people, opposing teams know these Raptors are going to make them work for everything.

They’re not catching anybody off guard, and with their youth and inexperience they’re probably not going to win many games solely off of talent. So, when they came out flat in the second half against Brooklyn on Sunday, or in their disappointing 104-88 loss to Boston, the results were predictable. To outplay teams they need to outwork them, a blueprint they followed in their impressive win over the pesky, albeit depleted, 76ers.

Appropriately, Fred VanVleet set the tone early. The point guard channelled his predecessor, Kyle Lowry, and willed his team on the second night of a back-to-back, keeping them in the game throughout a sloppy first half in which nobody else could hit a shot. VanVleet had 17 points on 5-of-10 shooting, while his teammates went 12-for-33. More important, though, he was laying it all out there, hoping others would follow his lead, and eventually they did.

Rookie Scottie Barnes was brilliant in the third quarter, scoring eight of his 13 points as Toronto outscored Philadelphia 29-21, erasing a 10-point deficit and taking a three-point lead into the fourth. Gary Trent Jr. (20 points) stepped up to open the final frame, buying VanVleet and Barnes some much-needed rest. Chris Boucher had his best game of the young season, scoring 17 off the bench – more than he’s totalled in his last five contests.

Svi Mykhailiuk made some crucial hustle plays down the stretch. OG Anunoby hit big shots and showed off his continued evolution as a passer. Then, VanVleet sealed the victory with a corner three that bounced around the inside of the rim before going down – a shot he celebrated with the infamous Sam Cassell “big balls” dance… in front of Sam Cassell, who’s an assistant coach with the Sixers. He finished with a team-high 32 points to go along with six rebounds and seven assists.

But it was all made possible by the effort and energy they’ve become known for, that they’re trying to hang they’re hat on. The fourth quarter began with Trent – the NBA leader in deflections – knocking the ball away from Shake Milton and initiating a fast break, which Boucher capped off with a dunk. Mykhailiuk wrestled an offensive rebound away from three Sixers players. VanVleet – second in the league in deflections – stripped the ball from Furkan Korkmaz, leading to another Boucher bucket in transition.

The Sixers pulled within one point when Nurse subbed Mykhailiuk in for Boucher to go small and match-up with Philly. Mykhailiuk immediately drilled a three, courtesy of a cross-court pass from VanVleet. A few possessions later, he poked a defensive rebound away, secured an offensive board off a VanVleet miss, and kicked the ball out leading to an Anunoby corner three. Then, with Georges Niang driving into the lane, Mykhailiuk tore the ball away, led the break, and found Anunoby under the rim for the slam.

The Sixers would take a two-point lead inside the final two minutes before Anunoby set up Trent for the go-ahead three from the corner, and then found VanVleet for the clincher. Even with Philly missing its best player, Joel Embiid – who is in the league’s health and safety protocols – as well as a host of others, it was a quality win, and one that showed how tough this Raptors team can be when they’re dialled in.

“We played really hard,” Nurse said. “We were flying around and when we grab that energy and sustain it for a while then we’re going to be in the game and we’re going to have a chance.”

The Raptors were looking more like themselves after a pair of uncharacteristic losses. They came into the weekend ranked first in offensive rebounding, third in second-chance points, third in opponents’ turnovers and seventh in points off turnovers. However, in the losses to Brooklyn and Boston, they were out-rebounded 92-76, including 24-14 on the offensive glass, and outscored 35-17 in second-chance points.

Very broadly, the Raptors have been winning games because, on most nights, they’re playing harder than the competition. More specifically, they’re winning games because that hard play is giving them an edge on the boards and in the turnover battle, generating extra possessions and making up for a highly suspect half-court offence.

It was a formula that worked again on Thursday. The Raptors grabbed 16 offensive rebounds, leading to 32 second-chance points. They scored 18 points off Philly’s 12 turnovers, including nine points off four fourth-quarter turnovers. As Nurse and his team got creative with the coverages in the second half – using zones and their full-court press – and turned up the heat defensively, the momentum shifted.

This team is still a work in progress, especially on the offensive end. They just added Pascal Siakam, who was held out in the second night of the back-to-back after making his return over the weekend. They hope to have Khem Birch back when they host Detroit on Saturday, and Yuta Watanabe isn’t far behind; he could make his season debut on the West Coast road trip next week. Naturally, it’ll take some time to get everybody up to speed and to figure out rotations, fit and timing.

However, if the Raptors can stay true to their identity as one of the NBA’s hardest working teams, they’ll find a way to be competitive more often than not.

“It’s effort,” Nurse said earlier this week. “They play really hard, man. It takes a lot of effort to get on the glass, and then if you’re getting on the glass to still get back [in transition], it’s effort. Some of the stats are showing you the effort, and it’s as simple as that. So we need to play hard. We need to play harder more consistently and we’ll be in good shape.”