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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO – Malachi Flynn found out he was getting an unexpected spot start in Brooklyn shortly before the rest of us did.
 
He had an inkling that his number might be called earlier on Monday when Fred VanVleet wasn’t in uniform for morning shoot around, but he didn’t know for sure until he showed up to Barclays Center a couple hours before tip off and saw his name on the whiteboard in the visiting locker room.
 
It was only the second start of the season for the Raptors’ sparingly used sophomore point guard, who went nearly two full weeks without playing in a single NBA game earlier this month.  
 
“It feels good for sure,” Flynn said after logging 34 minutes and scoring 18 points, both season highs, in Toronto’s impressive bounce-back 133-97 win over the Nets. “But the thing about this league is you’ve gotta do it again.”
 
Even with the home team missing its three-best players, it was hard to feel great about the Raptors’ chances coming in. The knee issue that VanVleet’s been dealing with since before the all-star break was finally too much for him to play through. OG Anunoby spent the day in Los Angeles waiting to see a specialist for his fractured finger.
 
Meanwhile, the team was fresh off two of its worst losses of the campaign, back-to-back blowout defeats in Charlotte and Atlanta, leading to what Nurse called a longer than normal post-game meeting with his players on Saturday. Their lead on eighth-place Brooklyn for the top seed in the East’s very tight play-in race was down to one game.
 
“We’ve got to hone in, get off vacation, get focused and play,” Nurse said before the game.
 
With two of his veteran starters sidelined and the third, Pascal Siakam, under the weather, Nurse turned to the kids. In a game the Raptors felt like they had to win to get back on track and keep pace in the standings, it was 20-year-old rookie Scottie Barnes, 22-year-old sophomore Precious Achiuwa, and the most unlikely of heroes, the 23-year-old Flynn that led the way.
 
Barnes added another masterpiece to his growing portfolio. He scored 24 of his career-high tying 28 points during a brilliant first half in which he shot a perfect 10-for-10 from the field, becoming the first rookie to do that since Derrick Rose in 2009. He didn’t miss his first shot until midway through the third quarter, after hitting his first 11, and he finished the game 12-for-14 with 16 rebounds, four assists and five steals.
 
Remarkably, he did most of his damage through pure force and will. All but three of his buckets came at the rim and seven of them came off his nine offensive boards. He was relentless from the jump until his 34th minute.
 
“I don’t think we ran any [plays] for him tonight,” Nurse said afterwards.
 
“He’s gonna get it no matter what,” Flynn said of Barnes. “You don’t have to give him the ball. He’s gonna go find a way to get it, and those are the best players to play with.”
 
Achiuwa, who was the lone bright spot in the loss to Atlanta over the weekend, picked up right where he left off. The emerging big man followed up a season-high 21-point performance with 20 points, eight rebounds and four assists in 24 minutes off the bench.
 
After a rocky start to his first season with the Raptors, Achiuwa is looking more comfortable and confident in his role. He’s been shooting well from the corners – he tied his career-high with three triples on Monday and has hit five of his last eight three-point attempts. He’s been making better and quicker reads with the ball in his hands and is showing improved footwork and touch around the rim, where he often seemed out of control earlier in the year.
 
“He’s making really, really great aggressive and composed moves,” Nurse said. “I think that you can kind of tell where it’s going right now, and before maybe you couldn’t tell what was gonna happen at the end of those things. But he’s getting to some really good spots and he’s doing it with some force and athleticism and strength.”
 
Early in the second quarter, Achiuwa put the ball on the floor, drove past Bruce Brown and stopped on a dime to avoid the charge before gently laying a floater up over former Raptor James Johnson. Late in the third, Achiuwa took an outlet pass from Barnes and dribbled coast-to-coast for the layup. A few minutes later, Barnes found him again, this time he took on two Nets defenders at the rim and used his strength to finish through contact.
 
Coming over from Miami in the Kyle Lowry sign and trade over the summer, Achiuwa has only reached the 20-point plateau three times in his young career; two of them have come over the last couple games. Nurse credited his recent play to the experience he got at all-star weekend in Cleveland, where he and Barnes participated in the Rising Stars Game.
 
“He seemed to really be invigorated by that,” said Nurse, who was in Cleveland to watch VanVleet in the All-Star Game, as well as support Barnes and Achiuwa. “He played with a lot of energy and, I think, was excited that he got selected. “He’s come back with that same level of energy and excitement.”
 
“I can see how it really translated to him having that confidence boost,” said Barnes.
 
Just having some time off seems to have helped the Raptors’ two young big men, who are playing with fresh legs since the break. Barnes has already logged more than three times as many minutes as he did during his entire freshman season at Florida State last year, and Achiuwa past his minutes total from his rookie campaign with Miami back in mid-January.
 
Meanwhile, outside of a few trips to the G League, Flynn has barely played at all. After a strong push towards the end of last season – he won Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month honours in April – he had the inside track on the backup point guard gig behind VanVleet when Lowry left over the summer. However, rookie second-rounder Dalano Banton passed him on the depth chart in training camp and he hasn’t been able to crack Nurse’s rotation since.
 
He’s continued to put in the work, though. He’s paid close attention to the vets around him, including VanVleet and, earlier in the season, Goran Dragic, who he faced off against in Brooklyn. He’s stayed ready, and on Monday, he seized his opportunity.
 
“He’s really had an uptick in his confidence and in his play here lately,” Nurse said.
 
If there’s a silver lining from the team’s embarrassing losses over the weekend, maybe it’s that. Flynn played 12 minutes in Charlotte and then 19 in Atlanta the following night, most of them coming with the game out of reach in the fourth quarter, what some might call garbage time. But for Flynn, like the rest of the guys at the back of the bench, those are important minutes to find your rhythm and earn a bigger role.
 
It seemed to translate on Monday. Flynn did a good job running the offence, while pushing the pace, making good reads with the ball, attacking off the dribble and getting his shot off with confidence.
 
But is it sustainable? The Raptors got a season-high 67 points from their bench against the Nets, nearly three times their league-worst average on the campaign, and that’s not even including Flynn’s 18. Continuing to get that level of production, or anything close to it, would be a huge boon for a team that’s lacked depth all season, especially if VanVleet’s nagging knee injury is more serious than he’s letting on, or if Anunoby doesn’t get the news he’s hoping for at his follow-up appointment and has to miss extended time.
 
The Nets are hoping to get Kevin Durant back from his MCL injury later this week, but he won’t be ready to go when these two teams face off again on Tuesday, this time in Toronto. Brooklyn will also be without Kyrie Irving, who is ineligible to cross the border into Canada due to his vaccination status, and the recently acquired Ben Simmons, who is still working his way into game shape.
 
For at least one night, the Raptors appeared to be back on track, but as Flynn and the team’s other young players have learned, they’ve got to keep it going for it to matter.