Welcome to "That One Play!" Throughout the 2022-23 NBA season, our TSN staff will break down certain possessions from certain games and peel back the curtains to reveal their bigger meaning.
Today, Raptors sophomore Scottie Barnes takes the spotlight.
Scottie Barnes had one of his best games of the season in Toronto's win over Portland on Sunday.
Not only did he finish second to Pascal Siakam in team-high honors for scoring with 22 points, but Barnes grabbed nine rebounds, dished out four assists, picked up three steals and blocked two shots. His performance helped the Raptors snap a three-game losing streak.
While Barnes stuffed the stat sheet against the Trail Blazers, there was one particular play of his that stood out.
You know what that means — to the film room!
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The play: Barnes knocks down a midrange jumper.
Breakdown: Fred VanVleet brings the ball up for the Raptors following a 3-pointer from Anfernee Simons.
On the floor with VanVleet are Gary Trent Jr., O.G. Anunoby, Pascal Siakam and Barnes. There appears to be some confusion about what the plan is because Barnes makes his way toward VanVleet but VanVleet tells him to go set a screen for Trent in the corner.
VanVleet doesn't look all that happy that he has to tell Barnes what to do.
After a small misunderstanding, Barnes sets a screen for Trent, who receives a pass from VanVleet. Barnes then sets another screen for Trent, this time for a pick-and-roll.
Trent doesn't have much room to work with because Simons goes over the screen and Jusuf Nurkic is in a deep drop. (More on that in a minute.) Not able to get a clean look, Trent gives the ball up to Barnes, who then dribbles toward VanVleet for a handoff.
Barnes doesn't actually hand the ball off to VanVleet, though. He keeps it for himself and dribbles into a jumper from the free-throw line.
Nurkic doesn't even bother to get a hand up and Barnes calmly makes him pay.
Why it matters: A couple of reasons. The first? That's a shot Barnes has struggled with this season.
Barnes was a surprisingly good midrange shooter last season given what his reputation was going into the draft. Not that he took a ton of them, but he made his middies at a 40.9 percent clip, which was around league average for his position. This season, he's down to 27.7 percent from midrange.
As you can see from his shot chart, it's been a struggle from pretty much everywhere:
The second? With how much he has struggled to score consistently outside of the paint, teams have been guarding Barnes more with their center lately and backing way off of him to muck up Toronto's spacing. Before Nurkic, Myles Turner and Brook Lopez gave him the Ben Simmons treatment of sagging off of him an aggressive amount and daring him to shoot. (Don't forget that was once the book on Siakam as well. He's turned out OK.)
Barnes has clearly been working through how to best punish teams for giving him as much space as they have, but he seems to be getting more comfortable with it, to the point where he now says he's liking it.
"If they're daring me to take shots, it's just still trying to get ball movement, find better floor spacing, try to move it side to side," Barnes said. "But still got to try to be able to take those aggressive looks and be able to go downhill, catch the defense off guard and things like that."
Knocking down jumpers isn't always going to be the answer — he drove at Lopez time and time again down the stretch of the Bucks game — but you can see the difference it makes when teams do have to respect him here:
That's almost exactly the same play as above, only this time Nurkic extends himself beyond the free throw line to meet Barnes after he had connected on three jumpers, and it's a blow-by for a layup.
Barnes still has a lot of developing to do, but watching him problem-solve in real time is part of the fun of watching a player as young and talented as he is put it all together.
