Toronto Raptors Cruise Past Brooklyn Nets, Win 116-104

The Toronto Raptors (20-8) cruised to a 116-104 victory over the Brooklyn Nets (7-20) on Tuesday night, and even mixed and matched some of their lineups in the process.

VS.

	1	2	3	4	T
Raptors	29	35	27	25	116
Nets	23	23	26	32	104

Thoughts and Observations

The Toronto Raptors showed their maturity as a team on Tuesday night. We all expected them to cruise past the awful Brooklyn Nets, but I don’t think we expected to see the Raptors experiment as much as they did. The wire-to-wire win was just another step in Toronto’s maturation process and another great indicator of just how solid this roster is.

Speaking of the experiments, how much fun was it to see combinations like

Norman Powell

and

Terrence Ross

, or

Lucas Nogueira

and

Jonas Valanciunas

? I doubt we’ll regularly see these combinations, but it was fun to watch and adds more options to Dwane Casey’s arsenal.

More from Tip of the Tower

No surprise, but Powell shined in extended minutes against the Nets, finishing with 21 points, three rebounds, one assist and five steals in 27 minutes of action.

Anthony Bennett is still a massive project, but it was nice to see him log 21 minutes of burn. Unfortunately, many of his defensive deficiencies still exist and his offensive game isn’t much better.

In the final minutes of the game the Raptors faithful serenaded the Air Canada Centre with “We want Bruno!” chants, which Casey eventually gave into. I think it’s fair to say that Bruno is slowly becoming a human victory cigar for the Raptors. He’s not quite at the Darko Milicic level of “human victory cigar” yet, but he’s close.

The Raptors made history as well. #Celebrate

RBX (Raptors Bandwagon Exchange)

Buy: With the Raptors set to begin their west coast road trip, buy stock in Bebe. We’ve seen Casey turn to Bebe instead of JV down the stretch this season, and with teams like Utah, Portland, Golden State and Phoenix on the horizon, I think we’ll continue to see that trend.
Sell: I’m sure you could guess where this is going… sell your stock in JV. Unless the Raptors are able to control the pace of play, the upcoming matchups aren’t great for him. I hope I’m wrong on this because it would be great for both JV and the Raptors if he played a major role during this road trip, but we’re yet to see him establish a consistent role against quality opponents this season.

Three Stars of the Night

Norman Powell: he was aggressive throughout the game and tied a career-high with five steals.
Kyle Lowry: It wasn’t a strenous night for Lowry, but he still finished with a game-high 23 points and was efficient shooting ball, finishing 8-of-12 from the field and 3-of-5 from deep.
DeMarre Carroll: “Senior Swag Daddy” came close to scoring a point per minute, scoring 17 points in 22 minutes.

Statline of the Night

Without “Raptor Killer” Brook Lopez in the lineup, the Raptors dominated around the bucket, scoring 60 points in the paint, while holding the Nets to 44 points.

What’s Next

The Raptors will embark on their west coast road trip over the holidays and head to Salt Lake City to take on the Utah Jazz (18-11). The Jazz are a much improved team this year and will be a good test for the Raptors. One caveat, however, is that Utah will be playing their third game in four nights when they host Toronto. Hopefully the Raptors can take advantage of an early Christmas gift from the NBA schedule makers.

Next: Why the Raptors Need to Start Patterson

What did you think of the Toronto Raptors 116-104 victory over the Brooklyn Nets? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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