Analysis | Nick Nurse sends a message about the Raptors’ loss to the Celtics as the struggles continue on the home court

Two turnovers in the first 96 seconds sent the prized rookie Scottie Barnes to the bench and Chris Boucher watched minutes later as his typical inning time came and went with Isaac Bonga receiving the call.

Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam returned to the game for possession with 8.8 seconds remaining in the first quarter after a foul because scoring was going to be a bonus and the Raptors needed to give themselves every opportunity to score points whenever they could. .

Justin Champagnie got a couple of minutes in the second half that might otherwise have been for Dalano Banton because Champagnie is a shooter and a rebounder and the Raptors needed both.

Coach Nick Nurse sent messages across the Scotiabank Arena on Sunday because the time has come for the Raptors to ask more of their key players rather than letting anyone skate under the guise of player development and what the future will look like.

But despite those different moves and a relatively solid performance from most of the sold-out list, the Raptors dropped a 109-97 decision to the Boston Celtics to open a seven-game one-season home run.

It wasn’t that the Raptors were eliminated from the gym or never in the game. They had their runs and made a few shots and stayed close, but they just didn’t have the manpower to steal a win.

“I thought the guys played really hard,” coach Nick Nurse said. “Some of the guys that we haven’t seen much of – Yuta (Watanabe), Isaac, obviously Justin, I thought they went in there and did a good job.

“They put in a lot of effort, there are just a couple of things you can’t get over there. I thought it was a good effort, but it didn’t bounce our way. “

The Raptors were operating in what has become their usual manpower disadvantage.

Gary Trent Jr. was left out with a deep calf bruise after being kicked in Friday’s loss at Indiana, Khem Birch missed another game with knee swelling and OG Anunoby came out again with a hip pointer. The nurse said, “I don’t really have a timeline, but it seems like it’s a problem.”

And that will be a bigger problem for the Raptors, who are now 9-12 on the season and a miserable 2-7 at home.

Those home losses are most disconcerting. Even a sold-out squad should get a little boost from the home crowd, that little bit of extra juice that can sometimes make the difference in a win or loss.

That hasn’t happened at all for the Raptors, who have historically been one of the best home teams in the league.

“Learning how to protect your home court is something that feels so normal and natural until it stops,” Fred VanVleet said Saturday. “There are a lot of guys who don’t really understand what that means, they have to learn the dynamics in the crowd and understand that this has been one of the best advantages of the home court in the last few years, five years, for sure. maybe more than that, and we have to go back to that and we have to start building that again.

“I’m not saying we should be undefeated or anything like that, but (now 2-7) it’s unacceptable and we have to change that.”

Whenever the Raptors had a chance to get back into Sunday’s game, when they normally might have gotten a boost from the crowd to make a run, they couldn’t.

They came to a 73-73 draw with about three minutes left in the third quarter, but gave up six points in a row to lose all momentum.

They got close to one with about nine minutes left in the game before Boston made a 14-2 run in about three minutes to end the game.

A bunch of unfamiliar playgroups probably didn’t help, but that’s what the Raptors have to deal with and there are no excuses.

“It probably felt like it looked at times, but I thought for the most part the guys played tough,” said VanVleet, who led Toronto with 27 points. “The consistency was there, for the most part, but not enough to get the win.”