Nick Nurse on why the Raptors lost to the Pacers

Raptors coach Nick Nurse discusses why the Raptors struggled to contain the ball against the Pacers.

Video Transcript

- A little disjointed early with the new guys in new rules, but it took a little while to get any kind of smoothness to your game tonight, maybe?

NICK NURSE: Well, agree. Right? Didn't feel super organized at either end at the start, right, or for a while. I thought that we let a lot of chances go. I thought we had a lot of fast break opportunities we didn't score on in the first half.

Didn't shoot it nearly well enough with a bunch of wide open shots, you know, in the game, as well. And just couldn't quite get over the hump. Yeah.

- You knew their guards were really quick and were going to get by you and, I guess, Nembhard had really big night--

NICK NURSE: He did.

- --and McConnell did what he does, right?

NICK NURSE: Yeah. Those guys were-- those guys were trouble. I mean, Nembhard, obviously, at the start was big. You know, we looked like we were moving a full step slow there. He was getting past us and to the rim pretty easily to start the game. We didn't put up much resistance at all. Maybe the first nine to 12 possessions. I think at the first timeout they were shooting 75% from the field, so that was a tough start.

I thought we started doing some good things there in stretches late in the half-- the first half-- and a lot of the stretches in the second. And then they made a bunch of big 3's, I thought. I mean, we made them miss a bunch in a row there, but they hit three big 3's late in the game that just kept letting them inch away from us. And we had probably the same looks or better and just couldn't answer back with them.

- Do you like how Siakam shifted in the second half. Do you think he was more aggressive?

NICK NURSE: Well, he shifted towards the end of the first half, I thought, and, you know, played-- I mean, like, we're down a couple of guys and missing some scoring and things like that. And you need, you know, Fred, Pascal, OG-- our main guys-- to step up and play. And I didn't think Pascal was into the game early, but he certainly got going towards the end of the second half and certainly most of the second half. Yeah.

- Will hasn't really found his rhythm since coming here a few weeks ago. Is it just a matter of the shots not falling? Like, what do you need from him, especially down a few bodies here?

NICK NURSE: Yeah. I mean, listen, he's getting some good open looks. And just like anybody, he's got to knock some of those down. We're creating good offense for him and others, right? We had a bunch of wide open 3's tonight that I think he and other guys need to step up and make to really be contributors. I thought he was fairly solid and he plays the right way and all those kind of things. But yeah, he needs to get his legs under him here and make some of those.

- Malachi got that extended run in the second half. What did you like from what he was able to do on both ends of the floor?

NICK NURSE: Yeah. Well, he did a good job. You know, certainly checked in and made a couple 3's. And those were big because we weren't making very many. I mean, we shot 20% for the game, so those were certainly important for us. And he worked pretty hard. He did a good job of chasing McConnell around. And McConnell pretty much made every shot there for a while and then he started missing a few. So he played well.

- With guys like Nembhard, like, older college players, why do you think it is that they slip in the draft? And is it just people are always looking at the upside but a steady guy like that is really valuable?

NICK NURSE: Yeah. I mean, I think that exactly what you said. I think the youth really gets drafted a lot and the four-year guys seem to drop further. I mean, we got a four-year guy that didn't even get drafted, right? So I think that's pretty common.

- Thanks everybody.

- OK.

- Thanks, everybody. Yeah.