They just sent a message to EVERYONE...

Sunday night in Minnesota, Scotty Barnes scored zero points on 12 shots. And for the past three days, that's all anyone's wanted to talk about. Tonight against the Orlando Magic, he took 17 shots and he made 11 of them, scoring 28 points and had the best plus minus in the building with a plus 30. So the Raptors came out and won this game 129 to 99. And not only did they beat a hobbled Magic team, because again, coming into this one, we said it in the preview, to win but more importantly they sent a message to everyone that's been talking everyone that's been yapping over the past few days that yes this team does need kawaii they're going to go on a deep playoff run and all these types of things but this squad this roster was constructed with the thought in mind kawaii is not going to play every single game and this team is able to get wins and get Substantial victories, like dominant performances, not just squeak it out against the Orlando Magic. This team is a legit top-tier team in the Eastern Conference, Kawhi or not, and it's not just Scottie. RJ Barrett in this game did something only two other Raptors have done since the 96-97 season, and Jamal Shedd. The Shedd heads are finally out rocking. It was a little bit concerning there with his jump shot to start off the season, but he finally got the rock to go down. Now it wasn't all perfect, as Jacoperto is concerning me more and more by the day, today only playing 10 minutes due to foul trouble. We'll get into all these different storylines, everything that's happening right now, but we have to start things off with Scottie Barnes. But here's what changed. On Sunday, 9 of his 12 shots came from 11 feet or further out. He never got to the line, not a single possession, and was just settling for a lot of these looks that You don't want to see a player that's elite around the basket just settling for it. But tonight, 10 of his 17 shots came within 10 feet of the basket. He made 9 of them. And he got to the free throw line 6 times and made all 6. And that's the whole thing. When Scottie Burns lives at the rim, he's a problem that nobody in the NBA really has an answer for. Because if you clog the paint, he can pass very well. He can finish over the top of folks. And when he settles for jumpers, you're just feeding into what the opposing defense wants. And he really took things to the next level in the third quarter, which has been an issue for the Toronto Raptors so far this season. Scottie went 7-for-7 from the field in the third at 16 points in 12 minutes. The entire Orlando Magic team scored 23 in that quarter, so Scottie was, you know, himself, you know, being competitive with that whole Magic roster. And obviously, it wasn't just the scoring in this game. He had three steals, three blocks, six rebounds, four assists. You know Scottie Barnes is going to be able to fill up the box score every single night. With the shooting with the added buckets, that's just elevated even more his impact on the game. Also, Scottie kind of made history in this one. He's one of four players since the 96-97 season to put up zero points on 10 or more shots and then score 25 or more in the very next game. I brought this up on Sunday. It's not really about having a bad game, having a zero piece, having the ugly ones, how you bounce back, how you're going to reestablish yourself in the next game. I know he got the Orlando Magic, who are a hurt and easier team. The Magic are still good when healthy. They have some good defenders, but the fact that he came in so locked in, ready to go, dominated this game out there in the third quarter to make sure the Raptors were able to get the win, that is telling in terms of his mentality, especially with Kawhi Leonard out. And for everyone that was saying after, you know, for the past three days since the Minnesota Timberwolves game, Scottie's not a number one option. He's not that dude. Ben, why did you call him a superstar after that Wizards game? Like, I get it. We've played three rough teams, one good team, and he was bad against the good team. There are some big tests coming, so we'll have the evaluation happening over the coming weeks. But nonetheless, Scottie Burns is proving. at night in night out especially you know when he gets the rock when he gets the opportunities he can be that number one option out there for a team we of course will need to see it against the elite teams the magic did not have palo bancaro on this one they did not have jalen suggs but the raptors were without kawaii as well they needed someone to step up you know they still had franz they had desmond bain they still had some of their players after the magic should not be this bad the way they've started off this season and the raptors Made sure they didn't let the Magic get some momentum because they were a team that had some momentum coming into this one with the New York Knicks win, but now that's all halted, and you play them again out there on Friday. But enough of Scottie Barnes. We know he's that dude, and I do want to touch on a guy that's been so consistent, that's been so important for this team over the past few years and never gets that respect, and that is R.J. Barrett. Tonight, he had 25 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, and 0 turnovers. That's 24 points in all four of the Toronto Raptors games so far this season. He put in 20, 23, 20, and now 25 in this one. So this dude, he almost played four games, only has two turnovers total. Good game, bad game for the Toronto Raptors. RJ Barrett just consistently is that guy that you can rely upon. And interestingly enough, he's done it for the past three seasons, opening up the first four games with 20 or more points in each. The only two other Raptors that have done it are Vince Carter and DeMar DeRozan. I know there was a lot of talk this summer about not giving RJ the extension. Our books are our stuff. You know, we don't have enough room. To make moves, to make stuff happen, but realistically, the conversation, if this continues, if RJ continues to be this level of player for the Toronto Raptors, it might not be, okay, do we give him the extension at a reasonable price, takes the home down discount or whatever, but it might be more and more dollars getting added to that bill in order to actually keep him. Let me know in the comments, would you want to extend RJ Barrett right now? The sentiment feels like it's changed over the course of the season, the ebbs and flows, I don't really understand why, because RJ has been doing this for the Toronto Raptors. There's narratives that get thrown out different ways. Oh, he's not that level of guy. There's other shooting guards that are better, better fit, better with this. You have this guy on your roster that consistently night in, night out, keeps you in games, keeps you afloat, playoffs, regular season, whatever it is, he always shows up. And he's bought into this team. He's a hometown hero. I just, I'm all in there on RJ Barrett. I'm not going to change my mind on it unless he starts playing horrible. But regardless, this will be another good test for RJ over the coming weeks. Without Kawhi Leonard, the Raptors play some more competitive competition. Will RJ maintain this level of play? Will he get his three-point shot, roll in a little bit more? This will be very, very telling in terms of maybe even his future with the Toronto Raptors. Now, one guy that did get his extension, honestly, I'm most excited to talk about out there in this postgame, is Jamal Shedd. Jamal Shedd scored 13 points in this one, went 4-7 from the field, went 4-4 from the free throw line, and had 7 assists in 23 minutes of action coming off the bench. In the first three games of the season, Jamal Shedd had 11 points total, and only made 3 of his 13 shots he's taken. I can feel it online, I can feel it in the stream messages, the comment section, and we will be back Friday for our stream, so don't worry about that, I wasn't home for this one, but we are back on Friday. Nonetheless, I can feel the sentiment starting to shift on Jamal Shedd. Everybody knows Jamal Shedd is an elite defender. Last season he drew 65 offensive fouls, now second in the entire NBA, as a defender, as a passer, as a bench leader, no one's really questioning that he is elite in those areas of the game. But the one that was getting concerning is how well he is at scoring the basketball. How reliable can we trust Jamal Shedd to put the ball in the hole if the defense is daring him to score? Because the crazy thing is, when Jamal Shedd, if he just polishes up that scoring game a little bit more, plays like he did tonight, more consistently throughout the season, the Toronto Raptors are going to win more games. Last season, when Shedd scored 10 or more in 16 games, Toronto went 10-6 in those performances. The Toronto Raptors will win a ton of games and that's the whole case, right? Jamal shed a defender that plays defense like that. A guy that play makes builds up his teammates at that level. If he can just reliably knock down a three when other teams go under screens, that's not just a starting caliber point guard. That is an absolute monster at that position in the NBA. But the reality is, right now, teams do dare him to shoot. Right last season, he made 36.7 of his shots, and they go under the screen and sag off of him. And the night he makes them pay, the whole defense, the whole team, really changes its rhythm and changes its flow. Like, I really want to harp on this, because I saw a narrative about Davion Mitchell putting up better stats, looking really good, and of course, we traded him away in order to open up minutes for Jamal Shedd. I made a little short about it. But if you just picture, Jamal Shett has a 12 point per game guard, right? Nothing crazy, nothing elite, nothing that feels too out of the realm of possibility. And a guy that still draws all those offensive fouls, a guy that still plays that level of defense and play makes for his team, that is a dude that deserves all of the minutes for the Toronto Raptors and a guy that is going to impact this team on winning. Like tonight, you watch him run the second unit, seven assists, two steals, and the Orlando Magic's guards It's been all night just chasing around, and he chased them around out there on the defensive end. As I mentioned, people were starting to question it, but Jamal Shedd, his extension's only paying him $8 million a year for the next three seasons. And nights like this are why that extension was given and why I am still very, very bullish on that contract for Shedd. Also, with the playmaking, he does need to keep the turnovers down. Had four turnovers in this one, but nonetheless, I was very impressed with Jamal Shedd. But you know, this game was... Very positive, a good bounce back victory for the Toronto Raptors, but there was one problem and the part nobody really wants to talk about, but I guess people love to hate on Yak and it's a sin, but Yakaperto played 10 minutes tonight, had two points, two rebounds and five fouls. And you can just see how quickly things went wrong for Yakaperto in this game. He missed both of his free throws on his first trip to the free throw line, then had a shooting foul at the nine minute In the first quarter, and then an offensive foul 17 seconds later. And this just isn't one bad night, right? Because I've been trying to support this guy. I know he's put a lot of effort in trying to get healthy, get back to his rhythm. And the sad thing is, is it looks like he's moving better heading into this season. But the reality is, he's had 15 fouls in 78 minutes so far this season. That's almost 7 fouls for every 36 minutes, right? Like, that's the average number of minutes a starter's going to play. And he's more than fouling out on every single night. Last season, he wasn't good on defense, but that number was about four and a half. And the tough thing is when he's out there, the Raptors just are not producing 11 points in four games, three or seven from the free throw line, three rebounds in the last two games. I'm reading these stats and it's just. It sucks, because I want to root for this guy really, really bad. Like, two years ago, the guy was a 15-10 basketball player, and last year was objectively a really, really down season for Big Yak. He still at least averaged 10 rebounds per 36 minutes. He still put up at least those numbers on the glass. But this year, it's down to 8, and those are those projected out numbers. And for a center whose whole job is to protect the paint and get rebounds, we're not asking him to shoot threes. We're not asking him to do basically anything else. He's a pretty good facilitator out there in the mid-post as well, but that's a number that has me stressed out. Now, to be fair, in this game, the Raptors were up plus 11 in the 10 minutes that Big Yak did play, but... I don't know, but guys like Colin Murray-Boyles and Trace Jackson-Davis look like more reliable. My heart rate isn't too high watching them out there on the court the same way it has been for Yaka Pirtle this season, with the exception of that Wizards game. I thought he did actually have a solid one in that performance. And to make matters worse, right, like Yaka Pirtle is making $19.5 million this year. We've talked about the cap. We've talked about the first apron. I feel like way too much, you know, but that's a harsh reality of this Raptors squad. Next year, that contract jumps from $19 million to $27.3 million. And meanwhile, you have Trace Jackson Davis, that's basically playing for free right now, who had 20 minutes of action, 11 rebounds, 3 blocks, 0 fouls, and... Looks really good. Like, I feel really comfortable with Trace Jackson Davis out there on the court, banning that center spot. So as the season goes along, Darko's going to have some big decisions regarding Jakob Pertl. I'm not saying to come out here and bench him and sit him on the bench, ruin his trade value, ruin everything, because when Jakob Pertl is right, he is a solid upper-tier defensive center in the league that can finish around the rim, can facilitate in the mid-post area, and you're paying him so much money. It... It'd be devastating for Bobby Webster to try to even get off of this guy if you end up benching him this early into the season. But with all of that said, There's no world. If Yak continues to perform at the level he's currently performing, you keep Trace Jackson Davis glued to the bench the way he has been so far this year. He needs to get real run, real rotation minutes, because you can't just have Calamari Bulls playing the center spot. You need another guy to eat up those center minutes and guard the bigs out there on the other team. On Sunday, following the Timberwolves game, I said there was five things that the Toronto Raptors really needed to fix. And in this game, there were a lot of positive steps in that First, the big one, Scottie Barnes attacking the basket. That was fixed out there tonight. Shooting outside, Walter and Quickly, 2 of 22 on Sunday, 8 of 20 tonight. Very good shape there for the Toronto Raptors. The glass, they lost it 49 to 34 on Sunday. They won it 45 to 34 tonight. Third quarter, they lost it 35 to 15 on Sunday, but tonight won it 34 to 23 thanks to a monstrous performance from Scottie Barnes. The only thing that really didn't happen was I wanted to see more of Alan Graves, right? 18 minutes tonight, two fewer than Sunday, but it's four out of five. Still, Alan Graves had some good performances. I just really like watching that guy play. And honestly, the defense did the rest. We know how important the defensive end is going to be for the Toronto Raptors this year. And in this one, they had 15 steals. Orlando turned the ball over 20 times. Franz Wagner by themself had seven and the Raptors ran 23 fast break points and the Orlando Magic only had 12. And we know they are most effective as well. But overall, very good start to the season for the Toronto Raptors, 3-1, and Kawhi didn't play in two of those games, and Orlando comes right back on Friday and plays a little in-season tournament action, and I'd imagine that's going to be a more competitive battle. So tonight, the game balls go into the guy who heard everything for the past three days and answered it all tonight against this Magic squad, but I want to pose a question to you guys for Friday. Who do you want to see get more minutes in that game? Type P if you want to see Yakupurtle try to break him out of this funk, or type T if you want to see more Trace Jackson Davis. Comment down below. If you missed it, I covered some of the latest trade rumors in this video here for the Toronto Raptors, so definitely check that out.