League-worst assist rate, starting lineup and Fred VanVleet’s knee – The Athletic

CHARLOTTE, NC — At least Nick Nurse got to check out the first potential disaster after the all-star break: Everyone who was supposed to show up for the first practice was there.

The Raptors, except for the excused Fred VanVleet and the four players assigned to Raptors 905, all met Wednesday at the Hornets’ Spectrum Center. The whole team is expected to go through practice on Thursday before starting the second half, which really is closer to the final third or quarter of the season, against the Hornets on Friday. The Raptors will play six games in the first eight days after the break, so these practices are going to have to do for a while.

The half-court attack is one of the obvious points of attention in the last 25 games. On reflection, however, Nurse doesn’t think much needs to change to prepare for the Play-In tournament or the playoffs.

“I was going to say we played a lot of playoff-type basketball,” Nurse said Wednesday night. “I think we are going out and keeping pretty strong. We plan quite deeply for the teams. I think our offense is playing our playoff pace. We don’t play very fast, and we’re pretty good at playing half-court basketball and getting the ball where it needs to go. I would say one of the things is that our assist rate is quite low, especially for us. But I’m not really worried about that, as long as there’s no downside once the playoffs start. This is the real key.