When the Toronto Raptors was without their franchise player Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby took advantage of his opportunity and filled the void with a career-high 20.1 points and 5.4 rebounds per game to begin the season. However, he injured himself in a workout before the team’s six-game road trip and will be on the shelf.
After Anunoby missed Thursday’s game against the Utah Jazz with a hip pointer, the Toronto Star’s Doug Smith reported that “According to (vice president of player health and performance) Alex McKechnie, it’ll be a while.”
This loss will place more responsibility on the remaining frontcourt players Siakam, Khem Birch, and Chris Boucher, who are healthy` on the roster. Raptors’ head coach Nick Nurse talked about it this week via The Star.
“Pascal’s got to kind of fill in there for OG, a little bit more like he’s probably used to,” Nurse said. “And Khem and Chris gotta bring it, they’re going to have to bring a good 25 minutes each, 30 maybe, somewhere between 25 and 30 for those guys. And other guys got to bring it, too.”
The Raptors have now lost five of their last six games for fall to a 7-9 record going into the road trip. They fell to the Jazz (10-5),119-103, but had a chance to redeem themselves against Sacramento (6-9), Golden State (13-2), Memphis (8-7), and Indiana (6-10).
