CLEVELAND — Things you learn when you’re on the road, part 235: Brandon Ingram has an absolute bar about one of my favourite topics.
“I sleep,” Ingram told The Athletic just before his team’s shootaround but after his individual morning shooting session Thursday. “I don’t nap.”
“I sleep/I don’t nap.” Put it on a T-shirt. I’ll buy it.
Due to NBA players’ travel schedules, a midday snooze is more common than not. They produce a lot of adrenaline on game nights and often arrive in cities, home or away, early in the morning. Of course, they’re looking to squeeze in a few extra hours of shut-eye during the day. As someone who has both had trouble sleeping at various points in my life and also loves to have a nap, this is my small talk of choice with players.
Ingram is right to make the distinction. He’s getting heavy into REM sleep. His typical slumber between morning shootarounds and evening games is four hours, he said. Four hours! That’s more than half of what many adults get on their average nights. But basketball players, like everyone else, crave routines. With most of Ingram’s professional life on the new side right now, knowing what he can keep static is crucial.
After the Raptors’ impressive Scottie Barnes-led win in Cleveland on Thursday, Ingram has now played a dozen games with the Toronto Raptors (48 hours’ worth of game-day sleeps?), the team he was traded to in February but didn’t play for until this season because of an ankle injury. He remains unscathed, minus a $25,000 fine for a water bottle-related outburst, and that is the most important thing — by far.
But while the Raptors are 7-5, the starting group composed of highly paid players has been merely fine, if occasionally rickety. In 106 minutes, the Raptors’ starters are outscoring their opponents by just a bucket. The Raptors have been outscored by 17 points in 190 total minutes when their top four scorers, Barnes, Ingram, Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett, have shared the court. All of the Raptors’ best lineups include a strong helping of the bench. That isn’t bad, necessarily, but it is strange, especially for successful teams. Defence has been a much bigger issue than offence for the group, with Ingram taking a chunk of the responsibility.
“I think it’ll get better as I can pay more attention to detail and bring the intensity that Scottie (Barnes) does all the time and all the other guys do,” Ingram said. “I just have to come along on that side.”
“A lot of our team has been here for a whole year, and they understand the system,” Barrett added during a one-on-one conversation in Brooklyn earlier in the week. “When the bench guys come in, they’ve been here. They know what they’re doing. They know the system. … I don’t know how many games (Jakob Poeltl) has played. He didn’t really play in the preseason.”
The starters have now played eight games together — Poeltl missed four with a back injury — and things are gradually improving. To a man, the Raptors are waving off the early-season hiccups, given how early it is and Poeltl’s injury. That is a reasonable response.
There is also a case to be concerned, if you’re so disposed. Of the five starters, only Barnes is a top-notch defender at his position. Barrett and Ingram have faced major questions about their ability on that end on the wing, while Quickley is small enough to be picked on, despite generally strong awareness.
“We’ve had Jak in and out of the lineup,” Ingram said. “We’ve had to rely more on one-on-one defence and try to help each other as guards try to stay in front of the basketball.”
It might be that simple. If there is a quicker perimeter player on the floor, the Raptors don’t have an answer in the starting unit. Tyrese Maxey had his way against them last weekend in Philadelphia, while Donovan Mitchell threatened to do it on Thursday, drawing fouls on Barrett and then two reserves who replaced him, Gradey Dick and Ja’Kobe Walter, within 47 seconds in the first quarter.
That is part of the reason coach Darko Rajaković has taken to playing Jamal Shead next to Quickley lately — somebody with lateral quickness has to be out there. (As a bonus, Shead’s presence allows Quickley to get off the ball on offence and focus on scoring, part of the reason the starting guard has gotten going after a rough start to the season.)
Shead, one of the Raptors’ best reserves to start the year along with Sandro Mamukelashvili, will be a big part of the Raptors’ rotation. However, either Barrett or Quickley is likely going to have to take a big step defensively to allow Ingram to focus on his half-court scoring duties and Barnes to be a back-line disruptor. Realistically, while Ingram can be a defensive presence with his length, he has a big burden on the other end. Barrett, the Raptors’ comparatively low-maintenance scorer, might have to level up. Rajaković has made a point to emphasize the importance of that part of his game.
“He’s taking time to improve his defence, and the modern game demands that,” Rajaković said before this week’s win in Brooklyn.
The good news is that the offence has coalesced well enough, which is a surprise considering the lack of shooting on the floor. There was a worry that Ingram’s penchant for holding the ball would take the Raptors away from the read-and-react offence Rajaković has preached since he arrived in Toronto. You can see that from time to time, but the Raptors had still assisted on 65.7 percent of their baskets with Ingram on the floor coming into the game. The number is much higher with Ingram on the bench, but they are still above the league average with him playing. The Raptors can get stagnant when Ingram goes to work in the midrange, and they’ll have to improve their off-ball movement in those settings, not easy to do while trying to maximize spacing.
If you want to zero in on how Ingram is fitting in offensively, the Raptors have assisted on 51.6 percent of his baskets. Compare that to Barnes (64.2) and Barrett (68.2).
Then again, maybe fitting in is overrated. Ingram has given the Raptors a level of half-court shotmaking that they needed, regardless of the accompanying style points. (Besides, his midrange jumper is aesthetically pleasing, even if it’s a throwback.) Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson said pregame that an unpredictable offence is the toughest one to guard, and mixing in the traditional scoring-forward skills of Ingram with the constant motion of the others gives the Raptors some variance.
“I think I’ve done a good job of trying to get to my bread and butter, which is the midrange shot, getting to my spot, raising up on top of people,” Ingram said. “Coach Darko and my teammates have been doing a good job of getting me to that. And (I’ve been) shooting some catch-and-shoot 3s, dribble-up 3s. Unfortunately, they haven’t been going down the last couple games. … When I look at it with hindsight, it’s been a year since I’ve played (because of the injury). I’ve got to give myself some grace with how I try to play and attack the game.”
The mere threat of him getting a mismatch is opening things up for his teammates.
“The gravity of BI, half of our offence was trying to run through him,” Shead said after Thursday’s win. “And Cleveland was doing a good job of trying to take away BI. But, you know, he’s so unselfish. And he was telling everybody, like, ‘Hey, they’re coming and trying to do this to me. Look for Scottie on this. Look for this, this, this.’ Just everybody’s so unselfish.
“The reality of it is we haven’t really had a player like him with his play style in the past couple years,” Poeltl added after the Nets game. “(There are) a lot of new situations for us that everyone is trying to get used to. Considering where we are in the season … I think we’re doing a good job.”
With Poeltl looking healthier, the Raptors have started to use him more as a play-finisher instead of just a passing and handoff hub. Ingram is cautiously embracing the big man, too.
Nobody would confuse this for a perfect basketball fit. If the Raptors make the playoffs, it’s easy to imagine them deferring to Ingram in the half court, and the former All-Star trying to hit some tough shots over some elite defenders. You wonder if Barnes might have to take some daunting perimeter assignments on defence, taking him away from where he makes the greatest impact.
Those issues must be considered, and those are problems the Raptors would gladly accept after the previous two years. The starters seem to be coming together, baby step by baby step. So no, you shouldn’t sleep on the Raptors starters’ potential for growth. At most, try a catnap.