Nick Nurse gives update on Khem Birch, discusses lack of spark vs. Pistons
Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse spoke to the media after his team’s disappointing loss to the Detroit Pistons. He revealed that Khem Birch suffered a broken nose during the game, and also touched on the lack of spark the Raptors seemed to be playing with.
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Video Transcript
Hey, Nick. Obviously, it didn't look like there was a lot of spark or energy, pretty much all the way through the roster most of tonight. What do you attribute that to coming off what was a pretty good stretch of play?
NICK NURSE: Umm, I don't know, Doug. I think that I don't know. We just, again, get out on the road and need to respond to being ready at the start and needing some lifts when guys aren't ready off the bench. And we were just kind of searching for some answers most of the night and didn't seem to have any.
- Obviously, bench scoring has been a bit of an issue popping up every now and then. I think, tonight, Chris had 10 and then four from the rest of them combined. Is there anything that can be done to kind of juice that number up a little bit? I know Gary not being there impacts it, but what else can be done, do you think?
NICK NURSE: Well, I think, you know, I think there's some opportunities there, Doug. They're just going to have to-- you know, we go through that once in a while when there's opportunities and some pretty good looks for some of those guys. And we just got to hit some of them, you know. And if you have one of those nights where nobody hits any of those coming off the bench, then you're in for a tough, some tough stretches, which was the case tonight.
- Great, thanks Nick. Very appreciated as always, safe trip to Milwaukee.
NICK NURSE: Thank you.
- Thanks, Doug. Next, we'll go to Mike Ganter.
MIKE GANTER: Hey, Nick, just wanted to check in on Khem. Did you hear anything back?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, Khem broke his nose, and he's heading on his way to Toronto to get that taken care of.
MIKE GANTER: How impactful was that? I mean, we spoke, or you spoke, before the game about the impact he has on this team and just how he makes things easier for the offense to click over. Did it really show tonight, did you think?
NICK NURSE: Yeah, I mean, you know, you can't-- listen, he's one of our starters, and he plays 3 minutes, right? And we're already down another one. You know, it's going to have some impact, but it's next guy's got to come in, and step up, and play. And whoever those two or three guys that are filling in for there got to do it, and we've got to manage it the best we can. It probably took us out of some offensive sync and flow a little bit.
Obviously, we were really kind of stuck, movementwise, offensively. It probably could have help there. But just got to-- you know, it's part of the game, and we got to move on and respond to a little better than we did tonight.
MIKE GANTER: Appreciate it, thanks, Nick.
NICK NURSE: Yeah, thanks, Mike.
- Thanks, Mike. Next, we'll go to Aaron.
- Hey, Nick. First game back for Scotty, he hasn't shot the ball as well as he did earlier in the season. Is that just ups and downs of a rookie season, or are you seeing something that you maybe want to correct? Is there something concerning, or is it ups and downs?
NICK NURSE: Well, it's probably, again, it's he had such a great rhythm going into his COVID bout. And it's just probably working his way out of that. I think we've got one or two guys that are probably still doing that, talked about that with Gary, as well. You know, they were really rolling into that, and just, it'll take-- you know, Ute is another one. It's going to take, you know, a little bit of game feel and that that stuff for those guys to get their legs back under them and just the speed of the game and things like that.
