Raptors a step slow in loss to New Orleans

Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse discusses why Toronto fell behind early and what he liked about the play off the bench. Follow Yahoo Sports Canada for all your Raptors coverage.

Video Transcript

- Hey, Nick, guess your offense got off slow, and then the defense never picked up, and nothing ever got going.

NICK NURSE: Well, we didn't start-- we started off slow on both sides, Doug. I probably-- the offense was probably actually better than the defense because they scored 11 straight to start the game without any stops. And we did generate some pretty good shots. We got to the rim a couple times and missed a couple layups and had a couple wide open, kick-out 3's that we missed at the start. And then we were into a really bad night pretty early there.

- You don't [INAUDIBLE] very much below average. You can't really sustain that kind of [INAUDIBLE].

NICK NURSE: Well, you know, we've been doing it with production from all those guys, right? And unless somebody else is going to have a really big one to kind of counter that, you're probably going to struggle. But we just-- listen, they were running faster than us. They were moving quicker. They were shot challenging better.

We were really stuck in slow motion a lot. We didn't do much very well. There's no sense in going through it all. But we just didn't have a great feel and zip energy-wise.

- You did have some unique groups out there, Khem Birch and Precious in the second quarter. What did you like of that lots of big guys out the gate?

NICK NURSE: Yeah, I mean, we were probably going to get to seeing some of that, Doug. It's tough to evaluate sitting there, watching that game. But I think, listen, I would say know Chris played with some great energy and played hard. He was in the positive plus-minus almost the whole game, which is-- [LAUGHS] it's hard to do in a 30-point game, playing half of it. He played half the game, and he somehow was-- he ended up minus 3 in there, but was like plus 5 most of the game.

I thought Thad looked OK, right? He looked like he's going to be able to help us out there. Liked just his movement with the ball and shot creation, pass creation, those kind of things. And I'll give Precious some credit. I thought he went in there, and his minutes have been a little spotty lately. And he went in there and played hard all the way through. So you want to look for some positives. There they are.

- Well, there's one more, 20 offensive rebounds, 24 second-chance points.

NICK NURSE: Both are positive.

- Yeah.

NICK NURSE: [LAUGHS]

- [INAUDIBLE]

Just the makeup of the roster. Is it the mentality [INAUDIBLE]?

NICK NURSE: It is. I think it's partially the makeup of the roster and what we're trying to do. But there wasn't anybody making any shots. We shot 30% tonight. So there was a lot of them to get. That's the other part of it for sure on a night like tonight.

But there were some moments where those guys-- they were fighting down there at least and trying to do what they could do.

- Pascal has to find that balance between his games like this [INAUDIBLE]. You look at the film. A 1-point loss is the same as a 30-point one. [INAUDIBLE].

NICK NURSE: Well, I think these-- you know, they're going to happen. You hope they don't happen very often, but they're going to happen three or four times a year where you just run into a buzz saw. And everything you're throwing up is going out, and everything they're throwing up is going in, and it just gets away from you.

And you never can-- we were trying everything, trying all of our things to try to change the rhythm of the game. And we just never really could.

- Go ahead, Phil.

- Thanks, JQ. We'll go to Eric.

- Hey, Nick, thanks for taking the time. I just wanted to follow up on Saturday. I think it was Saturday. You said he was a few different things, not just the groin were sort of bothering him a little bit. Was tonight anything-- we saw that he didn't come back with the knee? Was it--

NICK NURSE: Yeah, he told me at the half that he got knocked on the knee and to keep an eye-- he said he's going to go out there and try to get himself going and said, I'm just letting you know-- keep an eye on it or get ready, whatever.

And he did. Obviously, came out, hit a bunch of-- scored about our first 9 points of the half. So he toughed it out and went through it. But there was no sense in going any further with him after the third.

- All right, appreciate it. Have a good flight.

NICK NURSE: Thanks, Eric.

- I don't see any more hands for you, Coach. Thanks very much.

NICK NURSE: OK. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it.

- Oh, sorry. Sorry, Michael.

- My fault. My fault.

- He's back. Go ahead.

NICK NURSE: It would have been a record.

- [INAUDIBLE] for Mike.

- Michael.

- Oh my god, Nick, you're too kind. Thank you for this. I apologize, sir.

NICK NURSE: It's OK.

- It's all my end. It's on my switch. Just looking at New Orleans, they looked like a really big team, not necessarily compared to you guys. But just what was it like seeing, going against a team-- every time you were in the paint, they seemed to have hands and arms there and a lot of lengthy guys in the perimeter, and, of course, JV in the middle, but--

NICK NURSE: Yeah, well--

- Is that a factor?

NICK NURSE: Yeah, it's a good question, Michael. I think it's something we're going to have to evaluate just a little bit. When we do come up against a big-- really big, big like that, are we going to stay the way we are? Or are we going to try to match one of our centers with him a little bit more?

I think we have to evaluate that. Some games, we do well, and we front, and we scramble, and we trap, and we're really active. And we couldn't get any of that stuff done tonight. Just it was one of those games where we were in, and we couldn't get back out tonight, just again, with not enough energy and communication.

And sometimes we were out, and they'd drive it right down the middle, and we weren't in. So it was a bad combination there. Usually, we always talk about you got to be in and out. And we seemed to be in when we needed to be out and out and we needed to be in type of night.

- I know the feeling. Was their overall length a factor though? Because beyond their bigs, you have Ingram, Jones, Hayes. They just seem to keep coming, right? Sort of what you try to do to other teams.

NICK NURSE: Yeah, I think it was somewhat of a factor, Michael. But I would just say, they just guarded the ball pretty good tonight, right? We just didn't get many blow-by drives. They were getting their body into us on our first initial drives and pushing us out. It makes the help easier when you're getting pushed out to the help.

That's what it looked like to me. It was some size at the rim for sure. But we weren't really even getting that deep. We were encountering more of it up at the free throw line area, where it was pretty compacted up there, too, because we just weren't getting around them tonight off the bounce.

- Fair enough. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

NICK NURSE: OK, yup.

- Thanks, Nick.

NICK NURSE: Thanks, Michael.