NBA: Pöltl and the Raptors wrestle down brave Kings

The Toronto Raptors did their duty and beat the Sacramento Kings. Nevertheless, it was a tough piece of work, however, and it was only the bank that made things clear in the second half.

The Kings hit 68 percent of their throws in the first quarter and were still trailing by five points, because Toronto scuttled 60 percent and on top of that was hot from the outside. Especially the pick’ n’ roll defense on both sides was often weak. Many points were the result.

The second sets of the teams had already had much more problems to create an offense, also because there were some injuries to cope with. De’ Aaron Fox (Gesäß), Zach Randolph (Pause) and Serge Ibaka (Knie) were all absent. For example, Vince Carter was allowed to start again at his old place of work, the first for him this season.

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Nevertheless, after 24 minutes the kings led after a good (unusual) shooting of downtown (7/12 threesomes) with 63:61, the Halfcourt shot of George Hill was there the cherry on the cake. After the change, Toronto finally defended more respectably, which significantly limited the limited kings in the attack. However, the Canadians were no longer able to score reliably, and the level remained within reasonable bounds in the third quarter.

So it was once again the bank, namely Norman Powell (14 points, 5/5 FG), who breathed life into the Raptors game and ensured that Toronto was able to pull away a little. Jakob Pöltl also belonged to this formation. The Austrian was also responsible for the fact that Sacramento scored only 28 percent of the throws in this section. In total the Viennese got 9 points and 4 rebounds. The Kings didn’t recover from the Raptors Bank run and didn’t come within striking distance, even though Toronto had a hell of a hard time in the last ten minutes.

In addition to Powell, the complete Starting Five of the Raptors scored double-digit points. Jonas Valanciunas (13 points, 16 rebounds, 3 blocks) tilled under the baskets and gave his team numerous second chances. For Lowry (14 points, 7 assists) and DeRozan (21.6/17 FG), on the other hand, after a good start, only little came together. In Sacramento, Bogdan Bogdanovic (18) and George Hill (16) were the best players to have kept the game open, especially in the first half, with a number of heavy, drowned throws. Garrett Temple also contributed 18 points.