After a comfortable 122-104 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday, the Raptors should feel very happy at the way their two stars, Kyle Lowry and Kawhi Leonard, seem to already be working well together.
Of course, after only one game and a few practices together, it's not perfect. Lowry, after DeMar DeRozan was suddenly traded away, is probably harbouring some sort of resentment towards the Raptors front office and even head coach, Nick Nurse, to some degree, and although he
obviously can't blame Kawhi for what happened to DeMar this summer, probably is a little bit tentative about playing with him.
Despite that, I saw no communication errors of note, and the two had several nice plays together, despite only playing in the first half.
As far as other takeaways from the game, there was, as expected, a big takeover from the Raptors' bench unit in the second half, with new addition Greg Monroe looking really good, (8 points and 5 rebounds in 12 minutes) and several of last year's Bench Mob members picking up where they left off, particularly: Pascal Siakam, (6 points, 13 boards in 21 minutes) Fred VanVleet, (11 points, 3 assists in 17 minutes) and reigning NBA G-League MVP, Lorenzo Brown (10 points in 15 minutes).
All this was without second-year starter, OG Anunoby, who missed the game after the recent passing of his father.