The Toronto Raptors were embarrassed by the San Antonio Spurs on their home floor and lost the game by 23 points.
If that wasn’t bad enough, they had their All-Star Scottie Barnes leave the bench early.
There was a few seconds left in the Raptors 112-199 loss and Barnes decided to head down the tunnel to the locker room before the final buzzer sounded:
Scottie Barnes to the locker room before the buzzer sounds pic.twitter.com/hSZk3lA750
— Oh no he didn’t (@ohnohedidnt24) February 13, 2024
Barnes was clearly frustrated after a poor performance. Barnes, who recorded his third triple-double of the season on Feb. 10 in a home loss to Cleveland, had just 7 points on 3 of 15 shooting against the Spurs. He also turned the ball over 5 times.
Barnes did have 9 assists and 9 rebounds but his body language was poor the entire night.
After the game, Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic was asked about Barnes’ decision to leave the bench early via Sportsnet:
“It is definitely a learning opportunity for all the players on the team. From the young guys to older vets, this is not the performance we want to have. This is not the competitive spirit we want to have. We need to look in the mirror and figure out what we need to do.”
It will be interesting to see if the Raptors punish Barnes for his actions.
Former Raptor Pascal Siakam did something similar in the 2019-20 season. He fouled out and then decided to head to the locker room with 26 seconds left in the game. The Raptors benched Siakam for 1 game following the incident.
Barnes needs to be better
Barnes is young and still has a lot of maturing to do, but he can’t let his emotions get the best of him.
He is the face of the Raptors franchise so he needs to set a good example for the rest of the team.
Barnes leaving the bench early during a blowout loss is definitely not a good look and hopefully the third year player can learn from this.
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