What is happening with Brandon Ingram’s playmaking?

From Samson’s piece:

“The Raptors did their homework. They were redirecting the Magic away from their pet actions. Rebuffing each attempt at piercing the lane. Intention, intelligence, intensity. Controllable things. Things they often control. It’s fuelled their run to a top 8 defense, despite many people observing that they probably don’t grade out that high in terms of defensive talent. If a guy loses the thread at the point of attack? A teammate will plug the hole. If the ball moves on after that? Another hole to plug. Stay connected. Work.

(At this point in the season the Raptors are 9th in how often they stunt on defense, 2nd in trap frequency, and 4th in loading up.)

So, the Raptors held well against the Magic early on. Despite helping the Magic offense a fair bit with some clunky turnovers, when the Raptors got to set their halfcourt defense? Sublime results. They do this as a vastly undersized defense, but a hyper mobile one. Led, largely by Scottie Barnes’ DPOY level performances.

The problem the Raptors had to solve on the other end was the Magic trying to do the same to them, but as a rather large team. About 16 minutes into the game, the Raptors and Wendell Carter Jr. had the same amount of made triples. Despite what I thought was one of the better halves of driving the basketball Brandon Ingram has had as a Raptor, the team struggled to navigate the paint as a whole in addition to a serious drought from downtown.”

From Zulfi’s piece:

“The Toronto Raptors have spent the better part of the last half-decade navigating an uncertain trajectory with little more than hope as their guiding principle.

And in each of those seasons, the slow march toward the NBA trade deadline — as perilous as it feels walking through the snow-buried streets of Toronto these days — has felt equally unpredictable.

In part because labelling the Raptors front office as strictly buyers or sellers has never fit the franchise’s modus operandi.

But now, for the first time in a long time, there’s some surety about who the Raptors are as that Feb. 5 date approaches. More than halfway through the season, they’ve won the tied-fifth most games in the NBA — with the tied-11th-best win percentage — and have boasted a mostly top-five defence along the way (currently eighth after getting romped by the New York Knicks).

They scrap, they claw, and usually find ways to win. An identity is being established in real-time. Again, far removed from recent iterations heading into the deadline.

The 2025-26 squad’s 29-20 record to this point outranks each of the last four seasons, the last three of which saw them bottom 10 in the league for wins and win percentage, while sitting outside the top 10 on both ends of the floor. Situated squarely in the midst of mediocrity.”