Norman Powell has sucked big-time balls for most of the season up to this point. After being a valuable bench contributor in limited minutes for his first two seasons, the Raptors signed him to a fat 4-year, $42 million extension before this, his third season. And then his confidence turned into balls, his jumpshot turned into balls, and his status as “The backup DeRozan for when the real DeRozan has to come out of the game, except this fake DeRozan can actually shoot threes” was officially revoked. The Raptors have one of the best benches in the league (cue Raptors fans with their “Could the Raptors bench beat the Hawks in a seven-game series” lunacy) but Normal Powenn is not really part of it.
For some reason, Dwane Casey didn’t want to start Malcolm Miller anymore (understandably), so Powell got the start in this one, and for only the third or fourth time this season, he took full advantage of the minutes he was given, scoring 17 points and throwing down two powerful whamjams. Maybe this overwhelming amount of single-game success will be a boost to his confidence, or maybe he’ll come back next game and go 0-of-5 while contributing nothing on the court other than, you know, sucking a large amount of very hairy balls.