Nick Nurse on how much Raptors have changed since opening night

Nick Nurse spoke to reporters after the Raptors clinched a playoff spot with their win over the Hawks on Tuesday. Nurse addressed the growth of Pascal Siakam’s game, how much better the team is now than it was on opening night, and if securing a postseason berth changes the mindset over the final few games of the season.

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- --ever seen him walk off the court. I think it was seven minutes to go in the third quarter. Was that just the officiating, or was that [INAUDIBLE]?

NICK NURSE: No. No, I don't think it was officiating. I just think he was not-- again, like, it's-- how do you look at this? I mean, he's not 100% out there, and he's lacing them up and giving everything he's got, right? And he just doesn't feel great, and just at that time just decided we'd do it a different way, which was sit the last half of the third. And then he would try to will it through the fourth as well.

So I give him a lot of credit, man. He's, obviously, banged up. And he used a lot of energy in that Miami game as well, I think. So he was moving good, and he used a lot of juice in that game. So going to have to definitely get him off his feet here for a couple days.

- With Pascal sort of taking care of the offense, you got--

NICK NURSE: He was great.

- --[INAUDIBLE] in the restricted zone.

NICK NURSE: Yeah, he was great, Doug. And I think the biggest thing was, as you guys have seen, probably his go-to move over the years is to get his body on you and spin off you. And he wasn't really using it. He was staying faced up as long as he could. And I think that just gives him great vision on what's in front of him or what's coming at him and feel.

So I just-- I like that growth, and I like the confidence. And it took us long enough to do a couple things there late to get him a little more space. We just had to move the pieces a little differently. And I think we got great shots there down the stretch for the last four or five minutes. We just didn't make any till the last two.

- How much better is this team than the one that took the court-- think it was against Washington the first game of the season?

NICK NURSE: [LAUGHS] That was a really bad game. That team wasn't quite ready for the season opener. Sorry. Obviously, I didn't think where you were going with that. You nailed me with a-- man, I remember sitting here that night, saying we just didn't handle the moment and all that stuff. And we played pretty good and looked pretty interesting in the preseason and all that stuff, right?

But, obviously, they've grown a lot. And I've said this before, where they've grown, and tonight was a really good example. The first 25 games of the year, we could not execute switching our defensive schemes. We just couldn't do it. Every time we switched to zone, it's wide open. Every time we switched to blitzing, we weren't making the rotations. Every time we were trying to do whatever we were trying to do, we just weren't doing it at all, which was concerning.

But now-- and, again, like tonight, we flipped out of man. We flipped to a bunch of different screen and roll coverage. We flip to the box and one. And so they've grown so much in that area, which, for us, I think, with the length and speed and stuff that we have, we can execute those things-- different things, then we have a chance to guard a little bit.

- Nick, going back to--

NICK NURSE: That's a hard team to guard, by the way, tonight. There's a lot of offense out there, man. A really hard team to guard. I thought we hung in there pretty good. It wasn't perfect, but, man, we did a lot of really good things defensively.

- Nick, going back to Pascal, to not only make the moves that he made offensively, but defensively, contesting at the rim, racing out to the perimeter, to have the energy to close the game like that, what's it say?

NICK NURSE: Yeah, he did a good job defensively tonight, really good. We had a good-- coaching staff had a good kind of individual film session with him about his coverages tonight and what he was going to need to be doing. And he took it all on board. And then he went out there and executed it. So that's awesome that he can do all that scoring, all that rebounding, and all that defending.

- Does clinching the spot change the approach for the final three games?

NICK NURSE: Well, I don't think it changes our mindset that we're going to compete to win. I will have to probably evaluate that a little bit about who's playing and minutes and all those kind of things just to see where we're at tomorrow health-wise and all that stuff. But probably be a little bit of-- I would imagine there's-- got a back-to-back in there. That's always a tough one to do. But won't change our approach as far as going out there, competing to win, no, and preparing and all that stuff.

- Going to go online, Coach, from Oren. Go ahead, Oren.

- Hey, Nick. Congrats on the win. I know Doug asked you about what you're kind of proud of this season. But more specifically, during this stretch run these past few weeks, where every game has gotten increasingly more meaningful, what do you make about the way these guys have handled that? And considering it's such a young team, what do you make of that?

NICK NURSE: Well, I would say this. I agree with you. I mean, it's the stretch run. They were meaningful. We played a lot of teams around us, all the things that made them more meaningful. But we never discussed it one time about them being more meaningful. And our guys never said anything either.

We just, again, really tried to prepare like normal, focus like normal, worry about our team more than who we were playing or whatever, and go out there and try to put on a performance that we played hard enough to deserve to win. And that's all we did, and I give our guys credit for not really maybe noticing or caring about that or making that a big deal. They just went out and played the games as they came.

- I mean, that shows a certain level of maturity. Obviously, the playoffs are a different beast. But do you think that bodes well for the playoffs, just treating every game the same?

NICK NURSE: Yeah, I mean, listen. I think that one thing you can say about the playoffs is all of that-- the wins count a lot, right? The decision of the game counts a lot either way. And the scrutiny goes through the roof.

In a playoff game, it's like, when you lose one, here comes a sweep. It's just not the case. It goes up and down so much, depending on-- and being able to handle when you lose, get a little more determined, and when you win, still make adjustments and get determined again, being able to handle that is good.

They've done a good job. They're not a very emotional team. They don't get way up or way down, which is good. I think it shows a lot for our leadership of some of our guys that have been around here a little bit.

- Thanks very much, Nick.

NICK NURSE: OK.