Nick Nurse says G-League reps helped Flynn and Banton find their groove

"I thought the trip to Mississauga helped them both... they were both really good," Nurse said after Toronto's win over the Hornets on Tuesday. Banton and Flynn each dropped double-digit points off the bench. Follow our Raptors coverage all season long on Yahoo Sports Canada.

Video Transcript

NICK NURSE: Smith in here?

- He's not

NICK NURSE: Hey, Eric. You out there anywhere? Shout out, 25-year anniversary of covering the Raps I think yesterday, wasn't it? Today? Congratulations, Eric, I didn't know you were that old. And here's to the next 25 years for you. I know you got that many in you. All right, questions. Go ahead, Doug.

- Nick, Fred and Scottie were holding your offense back a little bit?

NICK NURSE: Ball was really flying and moving out there. No, I'm just-- [LAUGHS] Good start, Doug. Really, I think you could see right away that a lot of guys got-- Just completely different than the other night, right? Seemed like every time we were going to shoot the other night it wasn't going to go in, and everybody that stepped into one tonight you thought they were going to make them. And I don't know how many different guys made them, but it sure seemed like a lot. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 different guys made 3's and they just looked like they were going to make them tonight, which was good.

- I know you really don't know what you're going to get out of kids like Dalano and Malachi after not playing very much for a very long time. What did you think about their composure in the few minutes [? they got in? ?]

NICK NURSE: No, I thought they were great. I thought they both looked like the trip to Mississauga helped them both just from a confidence standpoint. And they really looked like they had been playing normally in the rotation. I thought they both fought hard, handled the ball well, made plays, made shots to spark us too. So they were both really good. It was good to see all those guys. I mean, even Yuta didn't score a bunch, didn't get a lot of chances, but he played really solidly out there. He played hard defense and-- Good job. So a lot of help off the bench tonight, it was great.

- Pascal's ability to find shooters off of his spin move in the paint has gotten so much better this year. Is that just growing into the player? What is that about?

NICK NURSE: I think, Doug, he really seems to have a good tempo to where he's going. He's composed, he's really composed. I think the spin moves, et cetera are very under control. There was a couple of close ones tonight where they were coming like crazy and he snuck them out to Gary or whoever was out there. But no, he's doing a good job of-- What I like is the composure, because I think he's taking it deep to spots when he's got a size advantage. And if he's getting a shot off it's usually a pretty good shot. I think he made a couple really tough ones tonight.

But he's been getting to spots where he's getting clearance and you're expecting most of those to go in. And it's good because, like I always say, if you can score one-on-one and do it over and over again, then they're going to have to send help and you've done your job by getting two defenders on you and you've just got to find the open man.

- You guys have been using him as a primary creator for a while now. He was in that role even more today without Fred. How comfortable is he looking in that role?

NICK NURSE: Looks pretty good to me, Josh. I think, again, really steady and unselfish on top of it. It's a lot of attempts, him having the ball there and not necessarily shot attempts but chances. He's got the ball with a chance to do something with it. And again, I think he's creating some pretty good offense for us.

- No thinking about leaving him in there to get that triple-double that they took away from him?

NICK NURSE: Not really. But I know right when we decided to sub somebody said, "He needs one more" and then they threw it in the backcourt. I was hoping they'd get a shot up and get a shot at it but they had a backcourt violation.

- How important is it to have Gary back to doing this? Being he's had [INAUDIBLE]

NICK NURSE: Super important. I think it really gives us a lift, right? I think it gives us such a confident lift all over the place when he can go down there and generate that kind of offense so confidently and so repetitively like that. I think it gives us a lift at both ends.

- Do you know what happened with Scottie?

NICK NURSE: Yeah, he hurt his wrist.

- Was it in a game or was it [INAUDIBLE]

NICK NURSE: The report I got was he was sore this morning. He didn't do his post-walkthrough shooting. And then when they got here tonight they decided it was not good enough to go.

- [INAUDIBLE] to travel up there?

NICK NURSE: Yes.

- How about Khem?

NICK NURSE: Khem's a little ways away, although making some good progress. He's been around and on the floor a little bit, but I think he's a ways away from being able to be cleared to go at it.

- You did go rather quickly to Dalano in that first quarter, was it you're getting beat on dribble penetration a lot, was it to get a quicker defender on the ball, or was it just the tempo of the game?

NICK NURSE: Yeah, I just think that it was probably the plan going in tonight that he was going to come off early. We debated starting him as well. Again, I think when we're fine with Pascal handling and OG handling a bit but it's better when Scottie's out there. We're down two ball handlers tonight so we debated starting Dalano, but we just did the next best thing, which was bring him early and it was good. It got Chris back on the bench to come off the bench again.

And I think we did that in both halves and he really impacted, I thought, the second half off the bench even though he started. So again, I think that served a dual purpose there, Doug.

- Coach, I just want to ask about your defense. We've talked a lot about your offense, but Charlotte, one of the top-scoring teams in the league, really struggled through those first three quarters. What did you think?

NICK NURSE: Well, they didn't shoot the ball very well, which was the one thing. I think they really shoot it from 3 really well, one of the top-- I don't know where they rank, but it's top three I think if I'm not mistaken.

- Poor shooting night? Or--

NICK NURSE: Well, we had some stretches of porous defense, I thought, where they were getting through us but then we started really getting our hands on some-- We started keeping them in front, and knocking some things away, and tipping some late passes away. I don't know how many turnovers they had but it felt like a good stretch there in the second half. Only 12, but it seemed like we were getting our hands on a lot of balls and making it tougher for them.

- [INAUDIBLE] is going to have to update his [INAUDIBLE] for you on Freddy, but does it feel like you almost have another coach on the bench?

NICK NURSE: Yeah, he's pretty fun to have over there, that's for sure. He's totally engaged. And he's much more fun to have on the court than he is on the bench, but he's still pretty fun on the bench too.

- What do you see him adjusting [INAUDIBLE]

NICK NURSE: I didn't see much of it. Again, I only see it through my glasses and I thought he was getting the worst of it down there. I didn't see him do anything so he must have got in there first. I didn't watch the replay yet, Doug, but I saw a pretty good shove or push or something at the end of it.

- Now we're going to go to a couple of questions online for you, Nick. And I understand Malachi's supposed to be ready, so go ahead, [? Keshi. ?]

- Hello, Coach. Congratulations on a great win. And I would like to ask you about the Yuta Watanabe game. And so I saw he has made the first 3-pointer in this game but may have missed a couple of free throws. And he actually had some foul troubles in the first half. So I guess maybe some eagerness in his mind is doing something bad maybe. So what is your perspective on this?

NICK NURSE: Yeah. First of all, it was great to see him come in there and hit his first attempt from 3. I think, first and foremost, at the offensive end he's still going to have to be a spacer for us in our lineups that he plays with. So that was good to see. I thought he played really hard on defense because-- Yeah, I know he got a few fouls in that, but it's OK, that's just coming through hard play. They were really putting their head down and driving the ball hard.

But I thought he did an admirable job for most of the night defensively and felt pretty good with him out there tonight, which is good. And hopefully everybody in Japan is OK this morning over there. A little better. Well, that was a Raptors game tonight, just to make sure. Yeah.

- OK, thank you so much.

NICK NURSE: Thank you. Yep.

- Go ahead, Oren.

- Hey, Nick. Congrat you on the win. I wanted to go back to Pascal Siakam because you mentioned how he's become a player who can punish one-on-one matchups over and over. I'm wondering, he's someone who's run a lot of isolation over the past few years. And I'm wondering if that's part of a long play for him to develop into the player he has. Because you let your players have a lot of freedom, is he an example of someone who has slowly but surely gotten his isolation scoring to where it is now?

NICK NURSE: Yeah, I think so. I think that he certainly gets a high volume of chances. I think that that's pretty much been the case, that we were going to try to build him into that type of player after we had a couple of departures in the roster. He was the next logical choice there to do it. And like everybody said in here tonight, I think his control of it, his rhythm, and his tempo, and his composure with it right now is pretty good.

We saw something a little different tonight, they started double-teaming him from out on top and for the most part, we made the right reads. We didn't make some great catches at the end of some of that stuff that probably would have been a few more dunks or layups or things like that. But that'll help everybody, I think, if we continue to see all these different coverages and we simply say, get off the ball. When they put two on you, get off it. And we got to get everybody organized behind it. But I think he's realizing when he's getting doubled, which is the main thing, getting rid of it safely.

- That's enough, I appreciate it.

NICK NURSE: OK, everybody. See you. Yep. Yep.