Toronto Raptors Coach Lauds Houston Rockets With a Surprising Comment After Scrimmage

Toronto Raptors began their season restart with a win. This scrimmage win against Houston Rockets won’t add to their point tally, but it will surely boost their confidence ahead of their bid to become the champions. Coach Nick Nurse seemed positive about their play in the post-match conference. 

It was a 94-83 win that threw all the limelight over Serge Ibaka, who posted 18 points. Terence Davis contributed another crucial 15. It was a 360-degree team performance where we saw a buzzer-beating triple from Kyle Lowry, and decent performances coming from both Pascal Siakam and Norm Powell. But something noteworthy happened during the press conference.

Toronto Raptors’ head coach Nick Nurse had some takeaways from the practice

The Houston Rockets unit is not known for having an excellent defense mechanism. James Harden led from the front and put on the show that was expected of him. He scored 24 points and got some help from Danuel House Jr. and Russell Westbrook. Although they tasted defeat, the following comment from Nick would make them feel better.

He began by praising his side, continuing, “…and then offensively, probably noticed I didn’t run much, didn’t call many plays, didn’t do much. Houston kind of allows you to play, you know, a whole game against, uh, you know constant switching and it’s not that easy to play offense against because their premise is, you know they’re gonna do whatever they can to keep two in front of the ball, to keep it out of the paint so you work pretty hard to conjure up some offense at times and it’s good practice to kind of make the guys work their way through that.”

This is one very rare praise for the defense area of the Rockets.

The Houston Rockets lost, but still won something

The Raptors were trailing until the beginning of quarter 4. Although Rockets could not capitalize on that advantage, allowing Norman Powell to snatch the game away, they still have a reason to smile. Russell Westbrook is coming after testing positive for COVID and made his presence felt in the Orlando Bubble. He could play just 15 minutes, but even then, he scored 10 points. He also got the team nine rebounds and one assist.

Let us see how this scrimmage sets a platform for these teams to work on their weaknesses and build on their strengths.

Sources- Jump View, Mo Dakhil – Twitter