VanVleet finding his game as Raptors show signs of life vs. Blazers

By CityNews Staff

It’s been a long-and-winding season for Fred VanVleet – and by extension the Toronto Raptors — and there’s still plenty of basketball to play. 

Doesn’t mean it will be easy though. 

“I get to go from Steph to Dame,” he said the other day as the Raptors were in the midst of navigating a back-to-back against Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors on Friday, and Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday night — a hall-of-fame point guard gauntlet. “Welcome to my life in the NBA. I got my work cut out for me.” 

Give the Raptors – and VanVleet credit: they’re putting in the work. 

It was their effort more than anything that allowed them to pull out a gritty 123-105 win on the road in Portland in front of a crowd – it should be noted – that was sprinkled liberally with Canadian contest, as Canada’s west coast Raptors fan base made the drive south in numbers. 

The win improved the Raptors' record to 2-1 on their seven-game road trip and improved Toronto’s record to 23-28 while the Blazers fell to 23-26. 

Toronto was led by Precious Achiuwa who had a season-high 27 points and 13 rebounds starting in place of O.G. Anunoby (wrist). Next was Pascal Siakam with 24 points while Scottie Barnes had 18 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. Gary Trent Jr. added 19 points as all five Raptors starters hit double figures. 

The Trail Blazers were led by Damian Lillard who had 30 points. 

VanVleet arrived in Portland after a 29-point and 11-assist effort against the Warriors Friday and averaging 28.3 points and 7.2 assists over his previous six games while shooting 44.7 per cent from three and 48.7 per cent overall. It’s the peak of a longer trend where VanVleet has been averaging 21.7 points and 6.4 assists on shooting splits more consistent with his career averages than his poor shooting splits (36 per cent from the floor and 32.6 per cent from three) over the first two months of the season. 

It was those struggles – on top of a poor finish to last year, his first as an all-star – that has made VanVleet the centre of the conversations around the Raptors that are negative for almost for the first time in his career. 

He seems to be bouncing back though. He didn’t have an explosive game offensively against Portland – his final line of  11 points on 4-of-13 shooting would attest to that. But VanVleet found a way to affect winning. He led Toronto with nine assists and has four steals and six rebounds – three of them on the offensive end. He competed and delivered some smart plays at crucial moments. He helped hold Lillard mostly in check, 30 points being the Portland star’s season average. 

Early in the fourth quarter with the Blazers surging, VanVleet put together this sequence: an assist to Chris Boucher on an alley-oop; a jumper to answer a deep Lillard three; an assist to Pascal Siakam on a lay-up and a drive to the rim where VanVleet – the smallest player on the floor – grabbed his own offensive rebound to score and push the lead to 10 after the Blazers had pulled within four. The Blazers were so mad that head coach Chauncy Billups got T’d up and VanVleet made that shot too. He later found Siakam for a three and the Raptors' lead was back to 18 thanks to 14-0 run that VanVleet had his fingerprints all over. 

“Obviously leading up, the first half of last season up until this point, that was his [best basketball], for sure,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse about his point guard. “These last group of games he’s been as good as that, for sure. He’s getting to the rim. He’s shooting the ball. He’s making some open ones. He’s creating some threes. He’s hitting some step backs. He’s got a little bit of mid-range going. Looks athletically really good out there, moving side to side and guarding people. He’s playing really well right now.”

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