Takeaways: Barnes shines in Raptors’ pre-season loss to Knicks

The NBA pre-season doesn’t mean much, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean anything.

The New York Knicks, fresh off their first championship in 53 years, aren’t sweating October basketball.

But for the Toronto Raptors , it’s a little bit different. They are a group still trying to pressure-test their strengths and weaknesses, especially with Kawhi Leonard in the lineup.

They haven’t had many chances yet. Leonard missed the Raptors' first two pre-season games as he worked his way into game shape after a long summer lay-off, and even though he and the Raptors looked brilliant against the Knicks in Toronto on Tuesday, the Knicks didn’t travel any of their starters from the championship team.

The only real conclusion that can be drawn from that 50-point blowout win was that a Leonard-led Raptors lineup would absolutely own the G-League, which is where most of the Knicks on the floor Tuesday will likely end up playing this season.

Thursday night was a different matter. Josh Hart was the only Knicks starter from their championship roster who wasn’t on the floor to face the Raptors' preferred starting five of Leonard, Scottie Barnes, Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett and Jakob Poeltl.

At the very least, it meant that the Raptors and head coach Darko Rajakovic would get some meaningful video to look at featuring their best players against a reasonable facsimile of a quality NBA team.

But given the way the Raptors were man-handled by the Knicks last season – being blown out in five losses – showing that they were better prepared even at this stage of the new season can’t hurt.

“I would say after every game, we’re trying to focus on us; that’s the primary part,” said Barnes the other day. “Just keep focussing on our running habit, the ball movement, spacing … there’s a lot of figuring out and trying to focus on our principles every single game.”

There were plenty of positives from what ended up a 122-120 Knicks win, perhaps the most significant being that midway through the third quarter, when the starters for each team started to filter out of the game, their night’s work done, the Raptors were leading by three, and four of their top six rotation players finished the game having owned their minutes.

For his part, Leonard was much less energetic playing for the second time in three games. He did put in 22 minutes, building on the 16 he played on Tuesday. He finished with six points and two steals on 2-of-5 shooting but was still +8 in his minutes.

With that, here are the takeaways from another loss to the Knicks, albeit one that showed some encouraging signs.

By the narrowest definition, Barnes doesn’t profile as a prototypical No.1 offensive option. He’s not a great perimeter shooter – at least from the three-point line. He’s not particularly adept at breaking his defender down off the dribble, although he’s a handful if he’s in motion and gets half a stride on you. But perhaps most significantly, he’s not a player who is constantly hunting his own shot.

He can definitely score and is legitimately dangerous from 18 feet and in, but he’s more than willing to create opportunities for others and seemingly prefers it.