Raptors’ Immanuel Quickley gives fans a glimpse of his best self in win over Magic

ORLANDO – When was it going to come?

Ever since Immanuel Quickley joined the Toronto Raptors midway through last season and was then anointed the team’s franchise point guard with a five-year, $175-million contract, moments when he looked like he was ready to take the job and run with it have been few and far between.

He hasn’t been bad and there have some good moments, but he’s rarely been great.

There have been a lot of circumstances working against it, in fairness. Shortly after he arrived in Toronto last December, the team took a hard right turn at ‘rebuild’ and the emphasis has been on developing for the future rather than winning now. The Raptors have played a lot of young lineups and a lot of different lineups, which is never ideal, as Toronto’s injury-riddled 2-19 finish to last season would indicate.

This season has been marked by one setback after another for the fifth-year guard. He had a sprained thumb that cost him most of training camp, a nasty fall in the Raptors’ season opener that kept him out of the lineup for eight games and then tore a ligament in his elbow in his second game back from that injury and was sidelined for 23 more games. He played six games after that and then was out another eight games with a groin strain.

Coming into Sunday night’s game against the Orlando Magic – a 104-102 Toronto win that improved the Raptors’ record to 19-42  — Quickley had played 12 of the team’s previous 13 games, his longest stretch of good health this season.

And the results?

They’ve been … fine: Quickley has averaged 16.3 points, four rebounds and 5.3 assists on 45.7-per-cent shooting and 40 per cent from three since starting to play more regularly.  Perfectly above average, but hardly the kind of production that would be a boldfaced and underlined argument for why giving Quickley $175 million was going to generate a positive return.

One person who has remained sure of himself is Quickley. The 25-year-old puts as much time into crafting his mental approach as he does into crafting his game. His skills and his attitude are intertwined, from his point of view. Even if it’s been a season that – from the outside at least – has had more cause for frustration that celebration, Quickley hasn’t looked at it that way.

And so even though he unleashed his full arsenal of skills in a spectacular five-minute barrage bridging the third and fourth quarters that seemed to blow the game open before the Magic whiplashed it back into a nail-biter, Quickley didn’t accept the premise that his surge was a proof of concept, a building block or a confidence builder.

To him, it happened because the prerequisite belief was in place and remained constant, independent of ‘downs’ due to injury or poor play, or ‘ups’ due to a stretch of hot shooting.

After a post-game weightlifting session and as his teammates were heading to enjoy the night before a scheduled day off in sunny Orlando, Quickley took a few minutes while icing his knees to explain himself.

“It’s not really about feeling (good), it’s more about mindset, just having the same mindset all the time,” he said. “Feelings come and go throughout the game, honestly, but having the same mindset to just be aggressive every time I’m on the floor, that stays. I try to have that mindset (because) how things are going is not up to you. Sometimes you make shots, sometimes you miss shots, but the mentality is always the same for me, whether I’m making or missing shots.”

But surely scoring 17 of his Raptors-game-high 24 points in a five-minute stretch where every choice he made – pulling up for three, punching the paint and scoring or driving and finding a cutting Jonathan Mogbo, or stringing out a double-team and rifling a pass to Kakob Poeltl for lay-up and a foul – was perfect, that has to build confidence, right?

“I disagree. Confidence is also a choice, a decision,” Quickley said. “Mindset is choice, confidence is choice. I try not to think like that. That’s how I used to think early in my career. And I’ve kind found out elite players don’t think like that. They don’t think that good plays give them confidence, or bad plays don’t give them confidence. Confidence is a choice. You choose confidence.”

It’s how you manage a season filled with more games out with injury than games played or bounce back from fouling Chicago Bulls guard Coby White on a three-pointer with the Raptors leading by four with four seconds to play – a brain cramp that effectively cost Toronto a win on Friday night.

But if there ever happens to be a moment when Quickley does happen to doubt himself, he could do worse than rewatch his second half from Sunday. There was a lot be proud of.

There have signs of progress from Quickley – some nice shooting nights, a little more offensive pop, a little more apparent comfort in his role as a point guard on a team where a lot of offence runs through a point forward, Scottie Barnes, and has a centre who often serves as an offensive hub in Poeltl.

But Sunday night might have been the first time in this weird, disjointed season that Quickley looked the part of what the Raptors hope he can turn out to be: an elite NBA point guard.

“I think with every game, with every minute he plays, he’s getting more confidence, more conditioning, more rhythm,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “He missed a lot of time, and it’s hard for a player to find that rhythm in the middle of the season. (But) that stretch in the third (and fourth) quarter, he was our engine. He was getting us organized, he was touching the paint, he was scoring. He did a lot for us there and he was really efficient, everything came on the move, everything came with a minimum number of dribbles and when he plays that way, efficiently, it’s good for the whole team.”

The final bucket of his spurt put the Raptors up by 18 with 9:26 to play and when he subbed out early in the fourth quarter, it looked like he might be done for the night. The Raptors were leading by 17 with 4:31 to play, but then things unravelled to the point where Orlando had an excellent chance to tie the game and force overtime. Toronto turned it over twice after leading by four with 25 seconds left, but Magic forward Franz Wagner missed a good look at a lay-up just before the horn that he missed under pressure from Barnes.

But what was more significant – after all, wins and losses aren’t exactly how the Raptors are defining themselves these days as the draft lottery beckons – is that Quickley took charge and delivered against one of the NBA’s better and more physical defences. The game was a throwback, with the two teams combining for just 43 three-point attempts but 72 free throws, with most of those fouls hard-earned.

Quickley wasn’t fazed by the grindy, playoff-like pace, he seemed to thrive on it. He’ll get to back up his performance when the Raptors play Orlando again here on Tuesday.

“I knew they’re a really physical team, and I’m sure the second game that we play them on Tuesday is gonna be the more physical,” said Quickley, with the locker-room empty, save for a few stragglers. “So it’s just really understanding, falling back on your training, what you’ve done to get here, and just staying aggressive.

“Honestly, mindset is pretty much what separates the average from the good players, the good players from the great players,” he said. “ (and) I’m just trying to stay on that elite level of thinking throughout the game.”

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