Gradey Dick had himself a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The 20-year-old put up a career-high 25 points on 9-for-16 shooting from the field and 4-for-9 shooting from three.
Dick stepped up in a big way with the Raptors down 5 rotation players. The sophomore continues to prove that he’s more than just a shooter.
He had excellent off ball movement and did a nice job putting the ball on the deck. On this play he comes off a Jakob Poeltl screen, dribbles inside the paint and gets a tough fadeaway shot to fall over 7’1″ Rudy Gobert for the bucket and the foul:
Gradey is hooping !! pic.twitter.com/gKf3Gxc8RJ
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) October 27, 2024
Dick was in the flow offensively all game. He also benefited from Scottie Barnes’ playmaking:
Scottie 🫱 Gradey
Gradey’s got a career-high 25 PTS ‼️ pic.twitter.com/X1tQtBfs6J
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) October 27, 2024
“Scottie brings a lot of attention when he drives the ball and that’s why it’s amazing playing with him, you know he opens up a lot of the gaps for me to be in for my shots and hopefully I get to him vice versa when I’m knocking some down,” Dick told reporters postgame.
Dick’s defense was much improved in this game as well. There was one sequence where he dove for a loose ball that Anthony Edwards was going after.
“I’m just being more aggressive, not letting the ball handler come to me and where I’m kind of on my heels different things like that you know me and Ivo [Simovic] like you said have been working on that before after practice and shootaround before this game of what we’re kind of seeing on this scouting report,” Dick said.
It’s game 3 of his second season in the league and Dick is already showing steady improvement, which is great for the rebuilding Raptors to see.
Raptors put up fight in loss to Timberwolves
The Raptors fell short to the Timberwolves 112-101 to go to 1-2 on the season.
Minnesota got off to a great start outscoring the Raptors 32-18. Toronto made things interesting late in the fourth quarter, but turnovers proved costly for them.
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