Copyright clutchpoints
If there’s any game on the schedule where the Toronto Raptors could ill-afford to miss starting center Jakob Poeltl, it’s against the Houston Rockets — a team that makes life a living hell on the glass. They have Alperen Sengun, Steven Adams, Clint Capela, and even Amen Thompson to beat opposing teams into a pulp on the boards. That’s exactly what happened on Wednesday, as not even an incredible shooting night from beyond the arc could save the Raptors from a 139-121 loss to the Rockets. There is no other way to describe what happened to the Raptors on the boards other than “bludgeoned”. Houston hauled in 53 total rebounds, with 17 of those coming on the offensive end; on the other hand, Toronto just managed to snag 22 rebounds on the night as a team. That is a rebounding deficit that simply cannot be overcome even though the Raptors shot 21-40 from deep on the night. After the game, all Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic could do was admit that they were simply outmuscled on the boards even though the entire team was putting up as big of a fight as they could. “I thought our guys fought, they tried, they just manhandled us there. They just punked us on the glass,” Rajakovic said, per Michael Grange of Sportsnet. The Rockets took the Raptors to rebounding school and the weight room at the same time. Adams, in particular, was a nuisance. He hauled in 12 rebounds in 20 minutes off the bench, with eight of those rebounds coming on the offensive glass. This game was such a rude welcome to the NBA moment for rookie Collin Murray-Boyles, who started at center in place of the injured Poeltl. Murray-Boyles could only snag one board — a woeful number. Raptors frontcourt gets taken to the woodshed by the Rockets Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images Poeltl may not be the best center in the NBA, but he certainly gets the job done on the boards — hauling in nearly double-digit boards a night for his career. In his absence, the Raptors had to rely on a patchwork crew to handle the interior, and they were destroyed by the Rockets as a result. Scottie Barnes ended up leading the Raptors on the boards on the night, with five. That is such a miserable number against a Rockets team that’s designed to look grown men look like children. Their next game will be against the Cleveland Cavaliers, another team with a deep frontcourt led by Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen. Can they solve their rebounding problems by then?
