Nurse on Raptors’ ‘funky energy’ vs. Portland: ‘We can’t cry about it’

Nick Nurse admits the Raptors didn’t have much of a foundation — and at times “weren’t thinking” in their loss against the Trail Blazers. But the Toronto coach praised his players for staying in it and playing hard until the end.

Follow our Raptors coverage all season long on Yahoo Sports Canada.

Video Transcript

- [INAUDIBLE] team played as well as it did in the second half before, but maybe not as poorly as it did in the first half. What do you-- is there anything to attribute that to, or just one of those games?

NICK NURSE: Well, I mean, I think it's-- I don't know. It's too bad that we had one of those games, Doug, to be honest. Because again, I think we've played really hard and tough, and really focused, and all that stuff. And just, I mean, it was just tough to do everything tonight. We weren't moving, we weren't thinking very well early. And you know, the only thing I can say, give them a hell of a lot of credit for not quitting. You know, they kept fighting.

And you know, we didn't really have much of a foundation to play from tonight, which means we had to, if we were going to try to get back into it, we were going to have to make it a little funky out there, which we did, and we did a pretty good job at that and fought hard. So you know, could have easily been a 30 point-- it doesn't really matter, and it wasn't 30, but it does say that got we've some guys that'll keep fighting and playing.

- [INAUDIBLE] he play, like maybe eight minutes stretches where they're not very good, but they get out of it.

NICK NURSE: Yep.

- Right in the first half, it was like 18 minutes.

NICK NURSE: Yep.

- Was anything different out there, or--

NICK NURSE: No, again, I just think it was just a really-- we had really super low energy, you know? And usually we'll try everybody and anybody, and keep moving guys around, and try to find a unit that works, and we couldn't really get that done either. Usually we can get off to a 16 to 4 bad start, but usually you end up getting to the half, and you're saying, OK, it's only 9, or 11, or something.

And you're like, we're actually a lot better off than we probably should be, or whatever. But tonight, it was a lot worse than it probably should have been, to be honest. So, yeah, just, you know, just a whole, kind of collectively, not ready to go, starters off the bench, anybody tonight.

- Did you like anything you saw from any of those guys as you tried coming off the bench?

NICK NURSE: Well, I think a couple of those guys did a good job. I think Chris was fairly impactful, Justin, obviously, checked in and hit a couple shots. I thought Dalano did a-- did a good job of just, you know, his stretch. He probably had a pretty good plus. He have 14. His stretch was-- was really good. Just again, with some pace and shot creation for some people. Yeah, a couple of them.

- I know it's not an excuse he'll want to lean on, but only because he mentioned energy, five road games but you're back here, how much--

NICK NURSE: It sucks.

- --feel that?

NICK NURSE: It sucks. It does, it sucks.

- Is there an adjustment required for your guys?

NICK NURSE: Nope. I mean, we talk about it. We say, hey, we know-- we know-- we know what the deal is going to be. There's going to be-- we're going to have to try to create this ourselves, and just couldn't do it tonight. But you're right, that is not the issue.

But it isn't-- I mean, you guys have said this before, it's really disappointing, right? Right, wrong, or indifferent, whatever your thoughts are, it's just hard. But we've been through a lot of hard stuff, so we can't cry about it, we've got to go play, and we've got to play better than we did tonight.

- Does the success of the funkiness, to use your word, at the end of the game, full court press and whatever, does that give you anything that you can use in non-funky times?

NICK NURSE: Yeah. I mean, yeah, no, I think so. I think, you know, we've toyed around with some of that stuff before, Aaron. I think that it's a possible change of rhythm, it's a second unit thing, maybe, it's a start to quarter thing you could do, you know, I think, in the course of the game. I mean, usually, you know, teams will attack, and go down, and beat a lot of that stuff.

But you know, they were trying to protect the big lead, and playing pretty tentatively against it, and all those things. You know, those shots are tough when you're way up, and you're pressing getting pressed, and all of a sudden, you find yourself alone in the corner, you're wondering, should I shoot this or shouldn't I? And if you do that, you miss a lot of those. I thought the only time they missed tonight was when we left them completely wide open.

[LAUGHTER]

- Did you go to Dalano because they were pressing pretty much full court on Pascal and--

NICK NURSE: Yep.

- --Scottie wanted that ball [INAUDIBLE] there.

NICK NURSE: Yep.

- Are you surprised that more teams haven't?

NICK NURSE: I don't know-- I don't know if I'm surprised, Doug. I'm just, like, I don't think any of the other nights, we just-- we've just been alternating, right? Between Scottie and Pascal. And again-- and neither one of them have had much problem with pressure either. But again, I just think it was a funky energy night, that we just, again, weren't quite moving as confidently or as quickly as we needed to or would have liked to, or normally do.

- Did Gary [INAUDIBLE] OK? He was [INAUDIBLE].

NICK NURSE: I don't know. I'll check. You know, I'll check. It was good to see him get back in there, make a couple, because he was having a tough night along with a lot of them there for a while, but he kind of almost got us right back in there with a couple.

- Last call. OK, thank you very much.

NICK NURSE: OK, thanks [INAUDIBLE].