Trent Jr. stays hot, extends 30-point streak in win over Miami

TORONTO – Gary Trent Jr. is feeling himself, and who could blame him? It’s been that kind of week for the red-hot Raptors’ guard.
 
With one of the league’s premier perimeter defenders, P.J. Tucker, draped all over him, Trent went to work. His team had trailed by as many as 15 points in Tuesday’s game against Miami, but here they were making a strong second-half push and, once again, the 23-year-old’s fingerprints were all over it.
 
Tucker’s hand was in his face as he drilled his fifth three-pointer of the night midway through the fourth quarter, giving Toronto a 95-93 lead. On the very next possession, Trent isolated on Tucker at the top of the arc, drove into him, stepped back and knocked down his sixth three. So, when he put the ball on the floor the next trip down and got Bam Adebayo – another great defender – on the switch, you can understand why the Heat centre closed out hard. But he closed out a little too hard.
 
As Trent stepped to the line, where he would complete a personal 8-0 run, a Scotiabank Arena crowd that included a couple hundred fans scattered throughout the 100 level, Drake, and his father and former Raptor Gary Trent Sr. chanted his name.
 
After dropping another 33 points and etching his name in the franchise’s record book, Trent met with the media. Twenty-four hours earlier, he conducted his post-game press conference in Atlanta wearing sunglasses. On Monday, he showed up carrying a bright red $800 Prada basketball accessory.
 
“He’s a rock star, man,” Fred VanVleet said following the Raptors’ 110-106 comeback win over the Heat. “He’s a rock star in every sense of the word.”
 
“He’s in an incredible zone. He’s not in the flow. He is the flow. He is his own flow.”
 
Trent has now scored 30 or more points in five consecutive games, matching the longest streak in team history, previously set by DeMar DeRozan in 2016. He’s in elite company. Over that stretch, he’s shot 31-for-60 from long range, with at least five threes in each contest. In league history, only three players have had longer streaks of 30-plus points and five-plus steals: James Harden, Damian Lillard and Steph Curry.
 
“Every time he starts iso’ing, you’re expecting him to walk away with a bucket these days, no matter what he has to do,” said head coach Nick Nurse. “He’s just full of confidence and he’s obviously really hard to guard right now, he’s creating his own space and getting clearance to get those shots up, and he’s feeling it.”
 
A couple weeks ago, Nurse recalled a conversation that he had with Trent in Las Vegas over the summer.
 
Trent, who was acquired from Portland at last season’s trade deadline, had just signed a three-year $54 million contract to remain with Toronto and was working out in preparation of his fourth NBA campaign. Nurse had a vision of what it could look like.
 
Up until that point, Trent profiled as a high-volume scorer, the type of player that generally comes off the bench and can quickly shoot you in or out of a game, depending on the night. Still just 22 at the time – he turned 23 last month – the feisty guard had plenty of untapped potential as an active perimeter defender; it’s one of the reasons why the Raptors traded the popular Norman Powell for him. Nurse hoped they could help bring it out.
 
“We didn’t really know [what to expect],” Nurse said. “We knew we had a guy that could come in and score. We got him the ball and ran a bunch of stuff for him [late last season]. He had a couple of big games. He could score.”
 
But the Raptors needed him to do more. They knew he could do more. So Nurse asked him to split his focus and commit to becoming a two-way player.
 
“He kind of said, ‘you [want me] to do all that and [still] score, as well?” Nurse recalled. “I said, ‘yeah, we want you to play that hard [defensively] and still score.’ He said, ‘that’s a lot of work, man.’ I said, ‘yeah it is, man.’”
 
The version of Trent that Nurse had in his mind looked a lot like the one we’ve seen recently, but even in the head coach’s most optimistic estimations, he didn’t anticipate such a quick or successful transformation.
 
Trent is playing the best basketball of his young career. He’s doing it consistently, night in and night out, and he’s doing it on both ends of the floor.
 
“Well, I think that was probably the hope, that was the vision, [but] not sure I envisioned [this],” said Nurse, after Trent connected on nine of his 15 three-point attempts and dropped 31 points in Toronto’s 106-100 road win over the Hawks on Monday.
 
“It all comes from his competitive nature. He's feisty and fighting out there and knocking the ball away and just competing. And that was probably what he needed to throw it up a gear. He certainly competes at the offensive end. He's got the ball in his hands. He's searching hard and using a lot of energy, and we just needed him to do it at both ends. And like we always say, if you play with great energy at one end, it usually translates to the other, and for him it has.”
 
As great as he’s been offensively, his inspired defence is what’s keeping him on the floor long enough to put up those big numbers. Coming out of camp, the plan was to bring Trent off the bench, at least to start the campaign. His role as a reserve was short-lived, though. After backing up Goran Dragic in the season opener, Trent replaced him as the starter in Boston a couple nights later, and he has started in every game that he’s played since.
 
That initial lineup change wasn’t made for offensive purposes. Trent shot just 2-for-9 in the opening-night loss to Washington, but Nurse was impressed with his effort and energy on defence. While his shooting has gone through peaks and valleys this season – he shot 38 per cent from the field and 32 per cent from three-point range over a seven-game stretch between mid-December and early-January – his commitment to defence hasn’t wavered. He’s ranked inside the top-five in both deflections and steals per game all year.
 
“He started this whole year off with defence and now you’re seeing what he really is, which is a gunner,” VanVleet joked.
 
His hard work on the defensive end has earned him the benefit of the doubt from Nurse and coaches. Trent has become a master of hitting tough, off-balance jumpers. Shot attempts that might be a bench-able offence for other players are actually good looks for him because he works on them and has proven he can knock them down. Still, his shot selection can occasionally leave something to be desired.
 
However, Nurse is less likely to take a player out of the game for pulling the trigger on a quick or ill-advised jumper when he knows that player is bringing it on the defensive end. In that respect, Trent has the ultimate green light. Not that the former second-round pick ever lacked for confidence, but it’s at an all-time high now.
 
“It’s just the opportunity to shoot and score, unlimited shots, kind of let me go out there and play,” Trent said. “I think the last time I did this professionally would probably be my stint in the G League when I averaged 33 [points] for about eight or nine games. I was sent down there with the Portland Trail Blazers and was told to go down and play and you don’t have to worry about anything. That’s kind of what I’m doing now. You don’t have to worry about anything. I don’t have to look over my shoulder anymore. If I miss a shot or kick it off my leg, my coaching staff believes in me. They’re allowing me to play and allowing me to roll with the punches.”
 
“I don’t think it’s that hard to understand how Gary plays, he makes tough shots,” said Pascal Siakam. “The shots that he’s taking are super tough, but that’s water for him. It’s butter. He makes those. He’s playing extremely well and he definitely provides us with a lot of offence. You can get him open, but most of the time he can get it himself.”
 
It may have taken his recent absence to fully appreciate his value. Toronto went 2-4 in the six games Trent missed with an ankle injury last month, averaging 97.8 points and shooting 31 per cent from three. Meanwhile, the Raptors have won 10 of the last 12 games that he’s played, averaging 115.7 points on 39 per cent shooting from distance over those contests.
 
More and more, Trent is establishing himself as an invaluable, and maybe even irreplaceable, part of this team and its future. Earlier this season, there was a sense that Trent could become expendable at the trade deadline, if an opportunity to fortify the franchise’s core presented itself. But at an age that lines up with the club’s development window and a skill set that’s badly needed on this roster, he’s looking like a foundational piece, along with Siakam, VanVleet, Barnes and OG Anunoby. And with next Thursday’s deadline approaching, the belief is that the Raptors are far more likely to add to that group than they are to break it up.
 
“I think we’re just seeing who he really is this year,” VanVleet said of Trent. “I think last year he came and treated it as a rental with a little bit of uncertainty in terms of his free agency status and contract status, so he was a little more closed off and things like that. This year we’re getting more of his personality, he’s talking more, he’s stepping up as a leader, he’s bringing that competitiveness on both ends of the floor, he’s making shots, he’s communicating, and he’s opening up a lot which is good to see. When you’re playing well obviously it’s a lot of fun and it’s just fun to watch him grow.”