Scottie Barnes has been playing the best defense of his career.
The 23-year-old has helped the Toronto Raptors turn their season around as the team has won 5 games in a row and 7 of their last 8.
Barnes has shown countless times how gifted he is offensively, but it’s been his commitment to the defensive end over the Raptors’ latest stretch of games that has been very impressive.
So what’s changed?
Raptors’ 15-year veteran Garrett Temple talked about Barnes elevating his game, per TSN’s Josh Lewenberg:
“I think the biggest thing is his consistency in playing hard. I think that’s one thing I’ve seen level up. Just very consistent in playing hard on both sides of the ball, and obviously on the defensive side that’s going to show out. There’s not really a lot of people that do that, especially stars of teams.”
Barnes has been stuffing the stat sheet almost every game and his defense has directly impacted the Raptors. Toronto has an 89.8 defensive rating with Barnes on the court over their last 5 games and 106.1 with him off, per TSN’s Keerthika Uthayakumar.
It’s his skills on both sides of the ball that leads Temple to believe that Barnes has all of the tools to become a special player in the league, via Lewenberg:
“He has the physical tools and the IQ to be first team all-defence, that’s the kind of guy he is,” said Temple, who played with a 15-time all-league defender in Tim Duncan with the Spurs. “Honestly, maybe even Defensive Player of the Year. He has that ability… And again, if he can get his endurance, his conditioning to a point where he can play that way on defence and still be who he is on offence then that’s when you get into the realm of perennial all-star and all-NBA type guy.”
It’s not just Barnes though, the entire team has stepped it up on defense. The Raptors have the best defensive rating in the NBA over the last 8 games. They have a 103.0 defensive rating and a 7-1 record during that stretch. The Raptors have turned the corner in a big way.
Raptors linked to three-team trade
The Toronto Raptors are expected to be sellers between now and the Feb. 6 trade deadline and could play a pivotal role in a Jimmy Butler trade.
Matt Moore of The Action Network, outlined a potential three-team trade that could send Butler to the Golden State Warriors, Bruce Brown to the Miami Heat and Andrew Wiggins to the Raptors.
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