Nick Nurse offers updates on Anunoby, Achiuwa & Porter Jr.
Raptors coach Nick Nurse provides update on O.G. Anunoby, Precious Achiuwa, Otto Porter Jr. and more. Also, dives into the teams offensive schemes and how they can generate offence.
Video Transcript
NICK NURSE: Guys ready? Fire away. Josh, you're ready. You're right here.
- How's OG doing? Was he able to anticipate today?
NICK NURSE: He was not here today. He's getting evaluated. It looks like the same, what I said before. It's going to be probably a week before we're ready to give you another update, but nothing-- again, nothing majorly wrong there with the images and stuff, but probably need to let it settle here for a few days and then take another look in about seven days.
- Do you have any update on Otto or Precious?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, well, Precious actually was on the court today a little bit-- still not moving great, but he's out there doing a few things, as you guys can see, right? You can see he's out there, and you can tell he's still laboring a bit there with it, but it's good sign that it's healing well enough for him to be able to put weight on it and be out there and stuff like that-- still probably about the same as I said before. We're probably looking towards new year, maybe a bit sooner.
And Otto did go see the specialist. It looks like they've decided there's probably not an imminent surgery needed, so we're going to try to start ramping him up. But it looks like it's going to take almost a month before he can get to a point where he gets back on the court and then give it a shot. I think that's the update. Yep.
- Pretty good update.
- Sorry, when you say back on the court, that's-- so he can ramp up for on-court stuff? [INAUDIBLE] to play, you know what I mean?
NICK NURSE: That's a really good question. I think that means back to play--
- OK.
NICK NURSE: --I think. That's the way I interpret ramping up for a month.
- About a month away.
NICK NURSE: Yeah. Stay tuned. Stay tuned.
- I want to ask you about the pretty unusual home and road splits right now.
NICK NURSE: Uh-huh.
- Historically, you guys have been a pretty good road team.
NICK NURSE: Yeah.
- Can you put your finger on why that hasn't been the case so far this season?
NICK NURSE: I mean, listen, the easiest thing to look at is just looking at some of the stats. But from my standpoint, it's been not very good starts, some really, really gracious first quarters by us, where teams just score a ton. And it's been really strange, because usually we're coming off of a full game of 88 points, 92 points, 98-- a really stellar defensive effort, and then go down and give up 37 or 40 in the first quarter.
We're going to have to learn those lessons a little better to carry our defense at the start on the road a little bit more, I think. It's usually what it is. I mean, defense and rebounding should travel. Right? Should travel--
- [INAUDIBLE] qualities you've sort of come to expect from [INAUDIBLE]
NICK NURSE: Yep.
- We're not seeing necessarily a lot of that [INAUDIBLE]
NICK NURSE: Well, I would say that we've had an uneven and patchy lineup situation here for a long time. That doesn't help. I think the defense looks amazing at times, and then not so good at times-- little bit of inconsistency, little bit of maturity needed to get that a little bit more consistently. And just most recently, we've had a hard time scoring. We've had a hard time shot making and things like that.
So it's been a little bit of everything. I think, at times during the season, we-- we started out the season maybe top six in 3 point shooting, and then the last 10 or 14, I think we're well into number 30. Right? So that's it's been uneven. Well, what's the reason? I don't know. I mean, there's been a lot of reasons, probably most of it switching lineups.
I think a big shift happened when Pascal went out. That's the earmark of whatever happened. He was creating a lot of those open 3's for guys. Some guys have played through some injuries. They're out there not feeling their best, and they're playing through some stuff. And I just think we've not made them here in this stretch. Happens in sports, right? It's just a little slump. And I'm really confident that-- I mean, a bad weekend, but last Wednesday we put up 70 points in the first half, made them all. I mean, don't get too carried away here.
- Is there a way to generate offense with this roster without [INAUDIBLE]
NICK NURSE: Well--
- [INAUDIBLE]
NICK NURSE: Yeah, it's-- yeah, of course there is. Again, you would say would say, from coach speak, that your defense and rebounding need to travel, and you're not always going to make shots, and it's got to be able to carry you through some of the stuff. And it does. It does, but I think that-- and you guys are watching the game-- it gets a little bit-- and again, it isn't like we're dribbling in circles shooting turnaround 3's at the shot clock buzzer going out.
A lot of them are faced up, just what we're trying to get, ones that we're just having a tough time nailing right now. Yes, we need to continue to generate offense out of our defense. We need to continue do a better job of generating offense off the glass. It's part of what we started by design a couple of years ago. There's three components there-- the 3 point shooting, the defense creating offense, and the offensive rebounding.
We can't have all three of those go missing. If we can do two of the three, and I just didn't think we shot-- we didn't shot make or offensive rebound down in Orlando this week. The defense wasn't that bad. We tried really hard. We played really tough. We created a lot of turnovers. And probably two of the three didn't let us get over the hump.
- Nick, [INAUDIBLE]
--or is that more just a roster issue? Like, obviously, some guys are better than others.
NICK NURSE: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's certainly always some schemes and adjustments you can make, or personnel changes you can make to have a little bit better rim protection for sure.
- Coach, just going back to shooting real quick, you could see that earlier, Gary wasn't shooting the ball super well. Then he kind of got himself out of that.
NICK NURSE: Yeah.
- And now he's shooting it pretty well.
NICK NURSE: Uh-huh.
- [INAUDIBLE] But he did it through extra reps. Is it a matter of reps with this team to get out of the slump collectively now?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, I think that a lot of people, when they're players, when they're not, or when they're in maybe a little bit of a slump, will go rep it out. I think the reps build the confidence. It's a lot of it. There's shot selection. Is there anything in the mechanics? And then there's a lot of confidence that goes on too.
So my thing is, especially our guys who historically have made a lot, they got to keep taking them. They got to try to figure out-- even if there's something not perfect in there, but if they're kickout open shots, they got to step in there and believe they can find a way to get them in the basket.
- You guys were a game under 500 in late December of last year.
NICK NURSE: We were?
- Yeah.
NICK NURSE: Is it late December?
- [INAUDIBLE]
NICK NURSE: OK.
- Last year, it was the 29th.
NICK NURSE: OK. All right.
- How does this feel similar or different to where you are? And then the second half of last year, you guys were one of the better teams in the league. Does it feel similar or different?
NICK NURSE: Well, listen. I think that we've made some strides forward. When we're really playing well, I think we really look good, and at times a lot better than at times last year. I think that what last year did is we found a-- I don't know, turn of the new year, or whatever-- we found a consistent rhythm of what was happening. And we actually found that earlier this year.
We were starting to go like this and we were really starting to go, but now we got to-- that happened last year a little bit. This time we were-- I told you guys, oh, we're playing good basketball, and then we go through the COVID thing, so we kind of have to start all over again. So we've kind of gone through that again. So I've got a lot of confidence in these guys. It is a tough moment right here. I've got a lot of confidence in the staff, et cetera.
We got to get a little bit of our shooting back on the floor. We've lost a couple of good shooters that we're counting on, and we've got to step in and make the plays, man. And I think that'll boost the defense. That'll boost energy for rebounding. However, it's got to start the other way. It's got to start with defense and rebounding. No matter what's happening at the offensive end, we've got to give ourselves a chance, regardless of whether we're going to be making them or not.
- So how would you describe the level of concern right now?
NICK NURSE: Well, listen, we're working really hard to try to iron some things out. I think it's a level of consistent play that we need to-- because again, there's some really good basketball being played for long stretches of the game, and a lot of games against good-- against any team. I always say this to you guys. Doesn't matter. All these teams have really good players. They all have really good players, and they come to play against us.
So we've got to play. We got to be concerned with ourselves. We got to compete a little longer throughout the game, got to clean up some defensive scheme lapses. And we got to play a little bit better at the offensive end.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- I have a off-topic question, but--
NICK NURSE: That's good. That's good.
- Seems like Canadians are kind of having a moment.
NICK NURSE: Yeah.
- [INAUDIBLE]
NICK NURSE: Yeah.
- A lot of them having careers. What are you seeing from [INAUDIBLE]?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, I feel like that from you. I don't follow it that closely, but now you can't almost-- can't help it almost, right? Just laying around, you see [INAUDIBLE] scores 27 the other night. I think Jamal hit a game winner the other night, [INAUDIBLE] playing unbelievable level. Zach's team's number one in the country right now, led by him. And [INAUDIBLE] playing great. [INAUDIBLE] playing-- there's a lot of guys playing good. So it's cool. Good for them.
- How much do you think going through a summer where your mindset stays competitive, [INAUDIBLE] helps bleed into the season [INAUDIBLE] adjustment?
NICK NURSE: I don't know. I think that my own personal opinion on that is that's super-- it's super competitive. So I think any time you're getting reps of things you're working on in the summer, and all of a sudden you got to go play a really tough game and scouting report, and a training camp, and travel, and all those things that just make you more experienced, it helps you. I think it helps you. I really do.
I think that a lot of those guys have come to-- not just ours. I would say you can look at probably a lot of countries that do it, but we're looking at our country. They've come to our camp and made a step forward, and being ready at training camp, and done a good job.
- Have you ever been to Jakarta?
NICK NURSE: I have not.
- Well, that's exciting for you.
NICK NURSE: It is. It is.
- Was it number one on your list--
NICK NURSE: It's going to be very exciting.
- --of the three?
NICK NURSE: It was a three-way tie for-- it was a three-way tie, so I'm really happy. Yeah.
- [INAUDIBLE]
NICK NURSE: Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be great.
- Any update on
NICK NURSE: Yeah. Sorry. I didn't [INAUDIBLE] full practice today. Should be ready to go, unless they check him and-- he looked good today.
- Questionable plus--
NICK NURSE: Yep, questionable plus-- we good?
- Aren't we all?
- [INAUDIBLE]
NICK NURSE: Thanks, everybody.
