Raptors’ Darko Rajakovic says quiet part out loud about refs’ ‘interesting’ Brandon Ingram officiating appeared first on ClutchPoints. Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
On Monday evening, the Toronto Raptors fell behind 0-2 in their first round playoff series against the Cleveland Cavaliers with a largely uncompetitive 115-105 loss. This game marked a brutal performance for Brandon Ingram, who tallied just seven points on 3-15 shooting from the field against a solid Cavs defense.
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After the game, Raptors coach Darko Rajakovic, as he’s been known to do, put some of the blame on the officiating crew for Ingram’s tough performance.
“Their [the Cavs] whole team is very, very physical with Brandon [Ingram]. So for me it’s very interesting that he had zero free throws in this game… Seeing zero takes, zero makes, it’s interesting,” he said, per Omer Osman on X, formerly Twitter.
There were certainly a couple of plays throughout the evening that could have generated foul calls but instead resulted in a miss for Ingram, but for now, the Raptors have much bigger problems on their hands than the officials. The most notable issue is that Toronto cannot seem to get into the paint with any kind of consistency, routinley having to settle for contested jumpers on the perimeter, a receipe for disaster for a Raptors team that is not exactly filled with elite long-range snipers.
On the other end of the floor, the Raptors are predictably having a difficult time slowing down Donovan Mitchell, who has gone for 30+ points in each of the first two games of this series.
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In any case, the Raptors will look to take advantage of what should be an excellent home court environment in Toronto on Thursday evening for Game 3 as they hope to get back into the series. Tipoff for that contest is set for 8:00 pm ET.
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