Watanabe: ‘A lot of tough nights’ ahead if Raps can’t find secondary buckets

Yuta Watanabe admits that he and other Raptors players must help the team get secondary scoring when opponents’ defences manage to neutralize Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam.

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Video Transcript

[AUDIO OUT]

YUTA WATANABE: --keep falling.

- Right now, they started really focusing on Fred, trying to take the ball into his hands, and made it difficult for him. Does everyone else to step up and start looking for opportunities to score?

YUTA WATANABE: Definitely. You know, they know that if they focus on Fred or Pascal, they have a lot of chance to win. So including myself, we have to step up and we have to help them. Because, I mean, if we keep playing like this, it's going to be a lot of tough nights. So we all got to step up more.

- What else is there?

- What are your conversations like with the coaching staff, just about your role this season? How have the conversations been going with the coaches?

YUTA WATANABE: Like, before the season, we talked about-- I keep doing like what I've been doing defensively, bringing energy, play defense very hard. And offensively, they want me to be more aggressive. I mean, we talked about that last year, too. But this year, they saw me get better offensively, over the last season, the Olympics, and preseason games. So they want me to be a little bit more aggressive and keep shooting shots, no matter what.

- OK, if nobody else has anything--

- We're going to do questions in Japanese now. If you can keep those to one question per outlet, please. Go ahead, Takeshi.

- [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

YUTA WATANABE: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

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YUTA WATANABE: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

- [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

- Go ahead, Yoko.

- [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

YUTA WATANABE: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

- [SPEAKING JAPANESE] Thank you.

- Thanks, Yoko. Go up ahead, Kiko.

- Thank you. [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

YUTA WATANABE: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

- [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

YUTA WATANABE: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

- [SPEAKING JAPANESE] Thank you very much.

- Thanks, Kiko. Go ahead, Nasuki.

- [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

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YUTA WATANABE: [SPEAKING JAPANESE]

- [SPEAKING JAPANESE] Thank you.

- Thanks very much, everybody. Thank you, Yuta.