Jonas Valanciunas’ minutes per game have gone down ever since his second year in the league. That’s the bad news. The good news is, his points per game have stayed about the same. Obviously, that means he’s getting better at scoring as he adds more years to his resume. And he’s being rewarded for his improvement with fewer minutes.
I know I’ve mentioned this probably 100 times over the years, but I simply don’t understand what the Raptors are doing with him. I guess it’s working, because they’re ECF contenders now and have been for a while, but wouldn’t they be Finals contenders too if they just let Valanciunas beast out for five or ten more minutes per game?
Unusually for him nowadays, he scored fewer points than he had minutes played tonight, 24 versus 26. Things get a little tougher when you only have Jarrett Allen to abuse instead of JoHoldThisEl Embad. He still made a huge impact, but sat on the bench for way too long before being fruitlessly inserted in the overtime period. He was sitting for the last 15 minutes of the contest, and then you hope that he can re-find his mojo? How about not letting him lose his mojo in the first place?