Hardwood Highlight of the Night: Clippers' collision gets Valanciunas easy bucket
The Toronto Raptors continued to roll without DeMar DeRozan on Saturday, winning for the 10th time in 14 games without him. This one was particularly impressive, with the Raptors rolling the Los Angeles Clippers 110-98 on the road to kick off a five-game West Coast trip.
As has been the case in DeRozan's absence, the Raptors relied on increased production from a number of players. Kyle Lowry continues to play like a down-ballot MVP candidate, Greivis Vasquez stepped up with Lou Williams having a tough three quarters and Jonas Valanciunas continued his interior domination.
Valanciunas had 22 points and 11 rebounds against one of the league's premier frontcourts, and he's now averaging 17 points and 8.4 rebounds on 54.5 percent shooting in his last five games. He's showing marginal signs of improvement week by week, which will be paramount for the Raptors if they want to remain at or near the top of the Eastern Conference.
Of course, sometimes it's not really about any tangible improvement for a player. Sometimes, defenses just fall asleep off some simple action, and a player is gifted the easiest two points of his career.
Such was the case in the second quarter on Saturday, when the Clippers took an afternoon nap to allow Valanciunas an easy layup. The play began with staggered screens freeing Williams to receive a pass from Lowry and get the defense moving.
From their, Valanciunas sets a high-elbow screen to allow Williams to come back toward the middle. Notice the strong side is almost entirely empty, and with Williams cutting toward the weak side, things are going to get crowded if he tries to drive.
Matt Barnes attempts to stay with Williams above the screen while Blake Griffin jumps out to seal Williams off. It looks as if Williams may be trapped by a double at first, but Barnes and Griffin collide. That opens up theoretical space for a Williams drive, but he's already picked up his dribble. Luckily, he has options in a wide-open Valanciunas (ready to poster J.J. Redick) or Lowry.
Williams opts to swing it to Lowry, who is open enough to shoot a three if he chooses, but instead sees a player too open for this play to be real. Barnes and Griffin both tried to stick with Williams after colliding, Chris Paul never fully fought his way through an earlier Patrick Patterson screen for Lowry, and DeAndre Jordan is stuck in no-man's land.
Lowry eschews an open three - a shot worth roughly 1.2 expected points - for an almost certain basket for his teammate. That's an unselfish play, and one the Clippers really didn't leave him much choice but to make.
Valanciunas was already hot, but easy buckets like this will make anyone look great. Gotta be good to be lucky, we suppose.
(Courtesy: Sportsnet)