Quickley, Dick, Barnes stellar as balanced Raptors notch impressive ...

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Published Feb 23, 2024  •  Last updated 1 hour ago  •  3 minute read

Toronto Raptors forward Scottie Barnes (4) drives the lane while being guarded by Atlanta Hawks forward Jalen Johnson Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, in Atlanta. Photo by Jason Allen /AP Photo

The Atlanta Hawks didn’t intend to offer the Raptors some Southern hospitality, but the defensively challenged home side did just that on Friday night.

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Toronto’s offence looked tremendous — even without scoring leader RJ Barrett — with the ball moving around beautifully against a Hawks team that came in tied for last overall in defensive efficiency.

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Even so, these Hawks can light it up and hung around right until the final seconds before a big turnover allowed the Raptors to come away with a 123-121 victory. The margin actually should have been a bit more, but Hawks all-star Trae Young hit a heave from three-point range just before the buzzer.

Immanuel Quickley starred for the second night in a row as the Raptors completed a strong back-to-back with another victory. Quickley had 24, Scottie Barnes 20, while Gradey Dick dropped 18 off the bench in one of his best performances of his rookie season.

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Dejuante Murray led the Hawks with 24, but stepped out of bounds as the Raptors defence smothered him with only seconds remaining and his team down by three points.

Toronto beat Brooklyn on Thursday to snap a three-game losing streak.

Barrett missed the second half of the back-to-back with the team exercising caution since he has some knee soreness. Jordan Nwora started in Barrett’s place.

Nwora’s Raptors scoring high of 24 points had come in a Jan. 28 meeting with the Hawks and he dropped 33 on them last March when he played for Milwaukee, one off his career high, but he was the only Raptor who couldn’t get his offence going on this night, going scoreless in 14 minutes. That hardly mattered, with the other seven Raptors who played each hitting double figures.

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Ochai Agbaji, who arrived with Kelly Olynyk in a deal with Utah, had easily his best game as a Raptor, scoring 14 points off the bench. Agbaji nailed all four of his three-point attempts from the corners. Olynyk was good, too, making some tough shots down the stretch and Bruce Brown was steady.

Darko Rajakovic appears to have found something with the four-some, including Dick, who is starting to take off. Rajakovic combines all four or three of them with either Barnes or Quickley and good things seem to be happening.

Toronto handed out 37 assists, the sixth-most by the team this season, and held Young to 4-for-13 shooting.

The Raptors moved within 3.5 games of Atlanta for the final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference. Rajakovic said after practice earlier this week that the team is still aiming to get in, despite its record.

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Quickley started hot, dropping 13 points in the first quarter.

It was Toronto’s 14th different starting lineup under Rajakovic, but snapped a run of six straight with the same starting group, the second-longest run of the season by the Raptors (only Barnes and Jakob Poeltl remain from the team’s most commonly used starting group this season).

Atlanta can get hot in a hurry and shook off a 1-for-9 start from three-point range by hitting 6-of-7 to come all the way back to take a brief lead in the second quarter.

Atlanta head coach Quin Snyder got ejected after racing out onto the court when the referees missed a moving screen by Poeltl that took out Young low.

The Raptors finish this short trip with another reunion with Pascal Siakam, this time in Indianapolis, on Monday.

@WolstatSun

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