The Raptors are dominating with TEAM basketball

From Samson’s Jakob Poeltl piece:

“Poeltl does hamper the Raptors spacing in some ways, but he elevates it in others. He might even elevate it in more important ways than he hampers it. His screening prowess is obviously very important. He opens up gobs of space for the guards on the roster. He came into tonight’s game leading the NBA in screen assists per game (4.9). The underrated part of his game, I think, is that he is the high point in the soft underbelly of defenses. A big, wide catch radius. A soft touch to make that area dangerous. The Raptors don’t have many players who can deliver layups to their teammates in the halfcourt, but they have a lot of players who benefit from a roaming, competent big man in Poeltl.

You don’t even have to break the free throw line as a driver — sometimes not even the 3-point line — before delivering Poeltl the ball middle, and watching him finesse his way to a bucket. Much is made of Brandon Ingram’s heroic mid-range scoring, and that certainly comes at a higher volume, but Poeltl’s navigation of the middle of the floor is a significantly underrated aspect of his game, too. It’s something the Raptors have been leaning on a lot during this big winning stretch. He’s averaging 14.5 ppg and doing it on 79% shooting. The Raptors have been slumping from downtown these last handful of games, and Poeltl’s hyper-efficiency keeps the chains moving.

Poeltl’s 10 points early in the win against the 76ers — he was the first Raptor to hit double-digits — were a great reminder that he’s at his best as a finisher. He’s always been passable as an, erm, passer, but even when he was passing a lot in past seasons, his turnovers climbed about as fast as the assists did. He’s perfectly fine helping to facilitate offense, but he’s at his best finishing it. The Raptors, who added more on-ball creators this year, have been slowly learning to lean on Poeltl more often as a middle of the floor release valve when teams send help. It’s not the big, dramatic rotations that open up huge threes or layups, but the small overcorrections in the middle that Poeltl is punishing.

At halftime, on TSN’s halftime show, Sam Mitchell said he thought Jakob Poeltl was a top-5 center in the NBA. I don’t agree! However, I’m glad the conversation has really swung on him.”

Enjoy the episode.