Toronto Raptors ROY candidate Barnes ready for first-ever NBA playoff series
Scottie Barnes has constructed a repute on and off the court docket for being energetic in his rookie season with the Toronto Raptors.
Beloved by his teammates for his selfless play and optimistic perspective — usually emphasised with a hug — Barnes will make his NBA post-season debut on Saturday when the Raptors go to the Philadelphia 76ers in Recreation 1 of their first-round sequence. However is Barnes, solely 74 video games into his NBA profession, prepared for the grind of the playoffs?
“I received a giant hug from him this morning, if that is any indication,” stated Toronto head coach Nick Nurse with amusing. “Yep, he is good to enter Recreation 1.”
Barnes is, predictably, excited to be within the post-season. The 20-year-old stated he and his Raptors teammates have been working all season to get so far.
“I am completely satisfied for my first playoffs with individuals I like to be round,” he stated at OVO Centre, Toronto’s follow facility, on Friday. “I am simply excited. It has been season.
“We labored exhausting, we ready all through the season, to get to the place we’re at. You’ve got simply received to maintain going.”
Barnes is a front-runner for the NBA rookie of the 12 months award after averaging 15.3 factors, 7.5 rebounds, and three.5 assists this season. His sturdy play has impressed the Sixers, with head coach Doc Rivers telling reporters on Thursday that Barnes is “wonderful.”
“He was good on movie, however he is approach higher in particular person,” stated Rivers in Philadelphia. “In case you noticed Scottie Barnes and did not know he was a rookie, you’d swear he is been within the league for 10 years.”
Raptors ahead OG Anunoby stated that it isn’t the standard of Barnes’s play that has impressed him, however how far the rookie has are available in only one season.
“He is gotten higher because the 12 months’s gone on. He is desperate to study. He isn’t afraid,” stated Anunoby.
Nurse agreed with Anunoby’s evaluation of Barnes, including that he expects the younger Toronto ahead will proceed to develop within the playoffs.
“We simply noticed him getting stronger, extra bodily, extra energetic, extra hugs,” stated Nurse. “(He) simply saved getting stronger as we went right here, and that’s motivation, that is success.
“Its success, resulting in extra motivation, all these sorts of issues I feel that he embodies.”
Based on Barnes, enjoying has been his greatest schooling this season.
“I am getting higher each single day, engaged on my reads, discovering the X-outs (defensive rotation), doing various things like that,” stated Barnes. “Studying extra defensive schemes from completely different groups.
“This helps you be ready as a result of a whole lot of groups run the identical stuff, however they’ve completely different stuff that goes with it, however many of the stuff is similar. So I simply acknowledge it after which study from that.”
Recreation 1 ideas off at 6 p.m. ET on Saturday and Recreation 2 can also be in Philadelphia on Monday evening.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed April 15, 2022.
